By the time you get to Almost Famous BBQ, you're about out of Conway and well on your way to the edges of Vilonia. The scent of hickory and cherry smoke lures drivers into the parking lot along the south side of US Highway 64, smoke often tinged with a little Cajun spice.
It's not the first place that comes to mind when you mention the words "Conway" and "barbecue" in the same query. Alan “Al” Meyer understands that better than anyone. “You have to know where you’re going,” he says, explaining that Almost Famous has never relied on traffic or convenience. It has relied on people making the decision to come. More than 16 years in, they still do.
Al has spent more than four decades in the restaurant business, though he's tried to escape the lifestyle more than once. “You get out of it,” he says, “and you get sucked back in.” Food has a way of doing that, especially when it becomes part of who you are.
Barbecue entered his life more than thirty years ago through competition cooking and catering. Before that, he worked across the industry, from seafood to Cajun kitchens, learning how flavor, timing, and volume intersect. Barbecue pulled those lessons together. It required patience, repetition, and a willingness to fail before getting it right.
Almost Famous BBQ began small. When Al first opened the doors, it was primarily a to go operation focused on catering. He cooked for oil and gas fields, feeding crews who needed substantial meals and needed them consistently. Those years shaped the way he still thinks about barbecue today. "It should be portable. It should feed a lot of people. It should be something you can count on," he shares.
Sandwiches came first, then Al added a few tables. Over time, the dining room grew. What started as a smoke shop slowly became a gathering place. Today there are more than twenty tables, a steady flow of regulars, and a rhythm that feels settled without ever becoming stale.
The pits are the backbone of Almost Famous. Pork butts smoke for about sixteen hours, started early one morning and ready the next. Brisket, notoriously unforgiving, gets equal attention. “You can really screw that up,” Al says, laughing, before adding, “Trust me, I’ve screwed it up every way you can.” Experience, he believes, comes from those mistakes.
Wood matters here. Almost Famous burns hickory and cherry, using a combination of traditional stick burners and a commercial smoker that still relies on wood for flavor. There are no shortcuts. Pork is pulled by hand every day. Brisket is sliced instead of chopped, trimmed lean before it ever hits the pit. The goal is consistency, not spectacle.
Pork is the biggest seller, but brisket runs a close second, especially among customers who understand how hard it is to do well. Ribs follow a Memphis leaning approach, seasoned with a dry rub and cooked until they hold together with just enough resistance. “I like a little tug,” Al says. He is not interested in ribs that collapse under their own weight.
Sausage reflects his Cajun roots. It is lightly spiced, without the heavy fennel notes found in andouille, and shows up on plates and sandwiches alike. Catfish, another staple, rounds out a menu that reflects both Arkansas tradition and Al’s long path through the food world.
Slaw is not an afterthought here. Almost Famous offers both a mayonnaise based slaw and a vinegar slaw they call simmer slaw. Al’s personal favorite is even simpler. Plain shredded cabbage. “That little bit of crunch, that bite,” he says, explaining that he prefers it straight on the sandwich. It is a quiet nod to older Arkansas barbecue traditions, when cabbage showed up long before arguments over sauce took hold.
One of the unexpected standouts on the menu is the brisket burger. Instead of smoking a whole brisket and grinding it later, the meat is cubed raw, ground in house, mixed with cheese and seasonings, then partially smoked before finishing on the flat top. The result is a burger that stays juicy and does not shrink much. It has become one of the restaurant’s top sellers.
Al still experiments, often coming in on days the restaurant is closed. “How can we make this better,” he asks himself, testing new ideas. Customers become willing guinea pigs, and they are honest. “It’s not about what I like,” he says. “It’s about what they like.”
That relationship with the community runs deep. During the pandemic, Almost Famous survived not because it was large, but because it was flexible. Family packs, bulk meat, and steady support from churches and regular customers kept the doors open. “If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t be here,” Al says.
He talks about watching children grow up in the dining room, about customers becoming friends and friends becoming family. Time passes differently in places like this. You realize it when the kids who once needed booster seats are suddenly ordering for themselves.
And then there is the blue crawfish.
Inside Almost Famous is a tank that stops people in their tracks. A brilliant blue crawfish lives there, electric in color and impossible to ignore. “One in a million,” Al says. He had received an order of crawfish and noticed the blue crustacean wiggling amongst all the red ones in the batch, plucked it out, and dropped it into an aquarium. That crawfish, rather than becoming dinner, became a mascot.
The name Almost Famous reflects Al’s sense of humor and his perspective on success. “Most famous people are either dead or in prison,” he says. “So we’re good with number two.”
Al keeps doing what he has done for decades, feeding people food that matters in a restaurant that's more living room than showcase. It's worth a drive.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Be kind.