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12white sauce unique to North Alabama.
(“One of my customers said, ‘It’s so
good you could soak cardboard in it
and eat it,’ ” she says.) And word got
around about her pork sandwiches,
ribs, and banana pudding. A little over
a year after they opened, a glowing
article in The Birmingham News
put them on the map, and they were
suddenly in the barbecue business.
Thirty-some years later, Miss
Myra’s is still going strong, with a
loyal following and a flood of new
fans thanks to a star turn on Andrew
Zimmern’s Bizarre Foods America.
Harper, who gave the business to her
daughter and son-in-law, has taken it
all in stride. She just works holidays
now, greeting customers with her
bright blue eyes and big smile. What’s
her secret? “Consistency,” she says.
“People move away and then come
back five years later, and they say, ‘It
tastes just like I remember.’ There aren’t
many places where if you leave and
come back it tastes just the same.”
As for my lunch with Clyde, it
must have worked, because I took
the job at Southern Living and moved
to Birmingham that summer. Now
I live about a mile from Miss Myra’s,
almost close enough to smell her
barbecue. Maybe that’s what inspired
our story “Women on Fire” (page 70),
about nine entrepreneurs who are
reshaping the South’s favorite cuisine.
If you don’t think our barbecue can get
any better, you need to pay them a visit.WHEN I WAS considering a move to
Birmingham back in 2011, a local guy
named Clyde took me to Miss Myra’s
Pit Bar-B-Q to get a real taste of the
city. He could have taken me to fancier
places, but he thought Miss Myra’s was
the kind of spot that made Birmingham
special. Housed in a redbrick building
that used to be a convenience store,
it looks like a lot of barbecue joints,
with woodsmoke billowing from a tall
chimney and a vintage tin sign out front.
Inside, the restaurant is a kind of shrine
to Alabama football (especially the BearBryant era) and has shelves upon
shelves of kitschy decorative pigs that
welcome you as you walk through the
door. Clyde thought it would be a good
spot to talk about big decisions, and if
quality barbecue were to factor into my
choice, Miss Myra’s might tip the scales.
The place gets its name from Myra
Grissom Harper, a former hairstylist
who opened it with her late husband,
Clark, in 1984. It was originally a con-
venience store with a deli counter, but
her barbecue soon had a reputation.
She served the chicken with a tangy@sidmemphis
[email protected]SID EVANS
EDITOR IN CHIEFThe Women of
Barbecue
Pitmasters and entrepreneurs who are redefining our favorite foodFrom top left: Amy Mills, Danielle
Bennett, Deborah and Mary Jones,
Helen Turner, Laura Loomis, Megan
Day, Melissa Cookston, Tootsie
Tomanetz, and Myra Grissom Harper