HOT REVIEWS:
"I am an actor and have made movies all over this great land. I've eaten BBQ from Kansas to Missouri to the Carolinas to Alabama and McClard's is the best, no doubt about it. I've eaten there many times and everything they make is so good, I just don't understand why there isn't a McClard's everywhere I go."
F. Murray Abraham
Academy Award Winner, Amadeus
As seen on the Food Network's "The Best Of"!
Voted one of Travelocity's
"Local Secrets, Big Finds"!
Voted one of The Travel Channel's
"Top Ten Barbeque Restaurants"!
Listed in Southern Living Magazine's
"40 Things Every Southerner Ought To Do"!
Featured in Patricia Schultz's
"1,000 Places To See Before You Die"!!
Featured in Ian Jackman's
"EAT THIS: 1,001 Things To Eat Before You Diet"!
www.Delish.com... Made in the U.S.A.:
Food Gifts from the 50 States
In The News...
McClard's Bar-B-Q Restaurant
McClard's Bar-B-Q Restaurant has been written about in several magazines, books, tv shows and newspapers. Here is a sampling of what others have said about this Hot Springs, Arkansas tradition...
The Arkansas Times recognized McClard's Bar-B-Q as 2008's Best Bar-B-Q Restaurant in the State!
McClard's Bar-B-Q was voted as 2008's Best Bar-B-Q Restaurant in Hot Springs by the Sentinel-Record.
McClard's Bar-B-Q is featured in 1,000 Places To See Before You Die by Patricia Schultz.
McClard's Bar-B-Q is featured in Ian Jackman's book, EAT THIS: 1,001 Things to Eat Before You Diet.
McClard's was recently voted one of Travelocity's Local Secrets, Big Finds!
McClard's was featured on the Food Network's "The Best Of" Television Show!
McClard's was voted one of The Travel Channel's "Top 10 Barbeque Restaurants"!
In March 2004, members of the band, Aerosmith, stopped in to eat at McClard's. Joe Perry even gave us a hand in the kitchen! Tony B. wrote in the "News from the Road" Report, "I should mention on our way to Little Rock we stopped at McClard's BBQ and had maybe the best ribs and brisket I've ever had. Joe took a tour of the place and even threw a few logs in their smoker."
In the March 2002 Southern Living Travel Weekend: Head on Over to Hot Springs, Arkansas, the McClard's tamale spread was described as "Possibly even more heart-stopping (not literally) than the track (Oaklawn Jockey Club racetrack) is McClard's hot tamale spread.
'I was trying to kill a dishwasher that came in a little under the weather one time,' jokes owner Joe McClard. He came into the restaurant not feeling good so I threw a bunch of stuff on a plate hoping he'd feel better. Well, he liked it, and the dish became a mainstay."
The dish includes Fritos, hot tamales, beans, chopped beef with barbecue sauce, chopped onions, all covered with shredded cheese. Mouthwatering!
The Southern Living feature noted: "You don't have to go to Memphis for good barbecue; McClard's restaurant serves it up bountifully."
McClard's was featured in the March 1998 Gourmet "Two for the Road: Blue Plate Highways" by Jane and Michael Stern. "The best place to appreciate the style of the local pitmasters is McClard's Bar-B-Q ...McClard's has become Arkansas's premier house of barbecue."
While Runner's World is not exactly the place where you would expect to find an endorsement of McClard's Bar-B-Q, the October 1999 edition featured McClard's as a favorite for getting fed after the Mountain Valley Spa 10-K. "A slab of ribs the size of a football is the house specialty, along with the Whole Spread Tamale Plate."
McClard's fries have been named in a book, "The French Fry Companion," written by David Graulich. McClard's fries were named one of the 15 "local legends" included in the book.
In the July 1999 Sky Magazine of Delta Airlines, "Spudhounds" included French fries from McClard's ...."Generations of Arkansans have waited in line for a table at McClard's of Hot Springs, where they order some of the best barbecued ribs in the state, usually as part of the rib-and-fry plate, on which the rack of meaty, sauce-crusted bones is completely eclipsed by a piled-high web of gorgeous thin-cut fries..."
Willard Scott, weatherman for NBC's Today show, stated in his All American Cookbook, "McClard's of Hot Springs, Arkansas, is the Best Barbecue in America."
A Little Rock newspaperman once wrote in the Arkansas Gazette that "McClard's Bar-B-Q in Hot Springs was the best restaurant, bar none, in Arkansas."
McClard's Bar-B-Q Sauce is a favorite of many, including President Bill Clinton. 4 generations of McClards gathered to chat with President Clinton during his visit.
Greg Johnson and Vince Stanton, authors of Real BBQ, published by Harper & Row, logged almost 40,000 miles and visited more than 700 barbecue restaurants in search of the ultimate barbecue. They stated in Southern Magazine, "We found 24 of these in America, 19 of which were in the South."
An excerpt from their books states, "McClard's, the top barbecue restaurant in Arkansas, boasts a sauce hot enough to make your lips feel like Mick Jagger's. It's a masterfully balanced amalgam of flavor and fire!"
Johnson and Stanton further exclaimed, "McClard's motto 'Best in the state since '28' aims a little low - McClard's is one of the best in the nation."