Restaurant Rewind: How Billy’s Bar-B-Q changed dining in Lexington
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Billy’s introduced Western Kentucky pit barbecue to Lexington.
- Owners expanded to Chevy Chase, won awards and made mutton a local staple.
- Rising local competition and market saturation led owners to close in 2015.
Your reservation is confirmed for Lexington Restaurant Rewind, an occasional Kentucky.com / Herald-Leader feature. Using our archives, we’re taking diners back in time to revisit long-gone, popular local restaurants.
On the menu today is Billy’s Bar-B-Q, which introduced Lexington to a style barbecue it had not yet seen.
When Billy’s Bar-B-Q opened its first location Northside on New Circle Road, it had two problems.
The owners built their own barbecue pit out of concrete-block, and local officials, new to this form of cooking, weren’t sure how to inspect it.
“The health department thought we were going to poison half of Lexington,” co-owner Billy Parham said to reporter Don Edwards in a Sept. 1978 Lexington Leader article.
“And the fire department thought we were going to burn the other half down.” co-owner Bob Stubblefield followed.
Obviously neither happened and luckily for Lexington diners, the barbecue restaurant quickly thrived, eventually expanding to Chevy Chase where it would become one of the city’s legendary dining spots before closing Sunday, Nov. 29, 2015.
It was the Chevy Chase location where many in Lexington were introduced to Billy’s Western Kentucky-style barbecue. Known for pit-cooked meats over hickory coals, featuring a Worcestershire-heavy sauce called a dip that’s far different from the syrupy sweet, ketchup-y sauces, the new-to-Lexington barbecue created legions of fans for 37 years.
Stubblefield said increased local competition from the many new barbecue joints played a role in his decision to close the popular restaurant on the corner of Tates Creek and Cochran.
Four months before closing, Stubblefield told Herald-Leader reporter Janet Patton he worried that Lexington’s restaurant scene was becoming overbuilt.
“We went very quickly from about five barbecue joints to 12 to 13,” he said. “Lots of folks out there competing, and in the restaurant scene in general. We are all competing for the same dining dollar.”
How Billy’s Bar-B-Q started
It wasn’t like that when Stubblefield and his then-partner Parham decided to open a barbecue restaurant in Lexington.
Both Western Kentucky natives, they couldn’t find their style of pit barbecue in town so they decided to open their own place in Aug. 1978.
The original location was at 481 New Circle Road, near the intersection of Russell Cave Road. Today it’s a Family Dollar store across the street from a Walmart Supercenter.
It was a small place, most of its business was carryout. A small pork sandwich cost $1.09, it was $2.59 for a rib dinner and a whole smoked chicken was $3.39.
Stubblefield told reporter Don Edwards they opened the restaurant to prove that “a quarter of a million people can support one pit-barbecue place.”
Less than a year later, they opened the Chevy Chase location in what used to be a three-bay Sunoco gas station.
A June 15, 1979, review in the Lexington Herald referred to Billy’s as a fast-food restaurant because you ordered at a counter, and because of its plastic interior, which was decorated with artwork of “fanciful representations of pigs.”
But the review praised the ribs, BBQ beef, chicken and pork sandwiches and homemade chili. The review didn’t mention mutton, which is a staple of Western Kentucky-style barbecue. Mutton, a mature sheep that is known for its richer, more “gamey” flavor compared to lamb, wasn’t added to Billy’s menu until 1993.
What was good on Billy’s Bar-B-Q menu?
For years, Billy’s was THE barbecue place in Lexington with its menu of mutton and other meats. It won numerous local best barbecue restaurant awards and recognition outside of town, including the New York Times.
Diners enjoyed rich and smoky meats that you could get wet or dry. Three sauces — mild, hot and mustard — were on every table, including those big wooden booths. The dinner platters were garnished with pickles and red onion slices to pair with your choice of meat (pulled and chopped pork, beef, mutton, chicken, pork spare ribs).
A standout of the sandwiches was the Billy’s Blitz, a large barbecue sandwich topped with slaw, cheese, onion and tomato.
In 1987, Billy’s expanded its menu which included its popular light cornbread. The recipe, a cross between cake and moist corn bread, came from Stubblefield’s mother. Popular menu staples also came from family and friends, like “Dill”ckles (deep-fried pickle chips) and Mexican cornbread.
Homemade Kentucky burgoo, banana pepper and onion rings were also popular menu items with diners, who frequently mention Billy’s as a place readers want to come back.
