----RRO friend Steve Crawford, who claims to have had classes with me in college [I don’t remember it – JD’s fault – Daniels, not McKay], sent in a review of his visit to JR’s BBQ. I also want to put over the fact that he recently published a book titled Shake Some Action: The 318 Greatest Songs of All Time. It is a fun book for anyone that loves music. The note about the author in the book reads, “Steve Crawford grew up in Rector, Arkansas, where he ate too much pizza, drank too much Mountain Dew, watched too much wrestling, and listened to too much rock ‘n’ roll. He has no regrets.” He also even has a reference to RRO columnist “Downtown” Bruno Lauer in the book. Book is only $11.99 over at www.amazon.com – just type “Steve Crawford” in the search.
As your Mid-South wrestling correspondent (insert smiley face here), I thought you'd be interested in my visit to J.R.'s Bar-B-Q restaurant yesterday in Norman, Oklahoma.
From the outside, the restaurant looks like it's been converted from some other fast food place. It looked somewhat small from the outside, but it's a decent size place. We were there at about 3:00 and it wasn't very busy. Tons of memorabilia on the walls - lots of pictures of J.R. with various wrestlers and one with Mohammed Ali (almost all the pics with wrestlers are with WWE stars excepting some older pics with "Dr. Death" Steve Williams). There were several displays of individual wrestlers - Ric Flair, Triple H, Steve Austin, Bret Hart, Kane with personalized autographs, wrestling boots, etc. The restaurant also has displays featuring John Wayne and Mickey Mantle. There are several televisions in the restaurant, giving it a sports bar kind of feel.
I was worried that the food may not have been good, since business wasn't exactly picking up when we were there. I had the small plate of ribs and they were very good (not as good as the Whole Hog Cage in North Little Rock; when I ate there recently, I almost decided to move my family back to Little Rock on the spot). The "original" bar-b-q sauce is sweet, almost too sweet. The "hot" sauce was very good. The ribs were tender and tasty and the side items were good. The service was quick and it was reasonably priced as well. I'd certainly go back again.
So, there you have it. J.R.'s bar-b-q is a real katie bar the door slobberknocker of a good time!