Restaurant Review by Pamela Holz, Tree of Life Center Creative Director and Host of the “Cooking for Life” Show”
“You haven’t eaten barbeque if you haven’t eaten at Excell Bar-B-Q.” Several friends, born and raised here in Clarksville, had been getting after me for not yet checking out their favorite place to go for pork barbeque. I protested that I had been there… once… to pick up pork barbeque for a funeral meal. It was an old little gas station that sold candy bars, cigarettes… and barbeque? It seemed imperative that I get the true Excell Bar-B- Q experience, so one of my native Clarksvillian friends and I headed out for lunch.
My friend confidently led the way into the gas station, with me following to the counter, and then to the left, and then… into the seating area. “I had no idea this was here!” We took the table under the deer head and next to the floor fan. The lunch rush had come and gone, and there was just one other patron seated next to us. Waiting patiently to be noticed, we took in the surroundings. There is nothing fancy about this restaurant.
If a person is looking for cloth napkins, silverware and glasses, they need not stop here. But if the goal is some pretty fine barbeque, well, it appears this is the spot to be.
The menu indicated that the day’s selection was pretty picked over, but that barbeque was still available. We each ordered the meat and two. Within moments our plates arrived, packed full of food. I had wondered about the meat and two versus the more common meat and three, but as the divided plates had just three compartments, it now made sense. The barbeque took up half of the plate, and the potato salad and coleslaw fit nicely into the other two spots. The amount of meat on the plate was impressive, so I dug right in. I ate and ate and ate… and there was still meat on my plate. There were two sauces offered on the table, and my friend vigorously shook the one, to get all the heat up off the bottom of the bottle. I tried both, and decided that the barbeque was great all on its own.
The waitress mentioned that there was fresh pie, baked on site, so we ordered a piece of chess pie. My Southern friend told this Northern girl that it was “jes’ pie”—that‘s how it got its name. I am not certain if that is true or myth, but it was a sweet piece of pie. A discussion ensued as to whether the freshly baked pie crust was homemade or frozen. Our waitress said they used to make them in house, but that they simply could not keep up with the demand (over 30 pies a day), so they now use frozen pie crusts.
I love how sometimes the best food can come from the most surprising locations. Excell Bar-B-Q is one of those places… a little out of the way, a little beat up, and a whole lot of unexpected, but wow, that is some good pork barbeque.
Excell Market and Bar-B-Q
3102 Ashland City Rd
Clarksville, TN 37043
(931) 358-3638