Moonlite Inn Bar-B Q, Owensboro, KY

Moonlite Inn Bar-B Q

Owensboro, Kentucky

June 11, 2005 

Owensboro bills itself as the “Barbeque Capital of the World”.  Its most famous and most popular barbeque restaurant is Moonlite Inn Bar-B-Q.  Moonlite serves over 17,000 customers per week.  In the lobby, framed news stories, including on of a visit to Moonlite by President Clinton, hang on the walls.

In Owensboro, barbeque means mutton.  In addition to chopped and pulled mutton, another regional specialty is burgoo, a savory mutton and vegetable stew.

Moonlite Inn Bar-B-Q is in a large building with ample parking.  We arrived at 1:00 p.m. Saturday afternoon and the place was still very crowded, but we had no wait before our hostess seated us.  One of the big attractions of the Moonlite Inn is that they have a buffet.  You can also order off the menu.  The ambience was that of most large buffet restaurant, in other words, none.

The buffet has a wide variety of meats, salads, vegetables and other sides, soups and stews, and desserts.  The price for the buffet was right at $8.49, as long as its before 2:00 p.m.  Our waitress was friendly and helpful.  When I tried to order barbequed mutton and a cup of burgoo from the menu, she informed me that both were on the buffet and that it would be cheaper to order that way.  Dawn wanted the buffet, but was disappointed that barbequed chicken wasn’t on the buffet, so the waitress brought her out a chicken breast at no additional cost.  She also permitted Noah, who would only eat French fries, to get ice cream from the dessert buffet, again at no additional cost.  We tipped her well.

Barbequed mutton has a distinctive taste that I’m not sure how to describe.  The best words I could come up with are “pungent” and “musty”.  I found it ok, not bad but not great.  Dawn about gagged on it.  The texture of mutton is similar to pork, but is somewhat oily.  The buffet had both chopped and pulled mutton.

Chopped and pulled pork were also on the buffet.  There were both undistinguished.  While Moonlite Inn Bar-B-Q uses hickory smoke, there was very little smoky flavor to their meat.

I thought the burgoo was pretty good.  The mutton flavor was there, but was muted.  At first, I thought the stew was fairly mild tasting, but the taste became more intense the longer I ate.  Again, Dawn hated the mutton taste.

Dawn’s chicken was fine.  It was perfectly cooked, tender and moist, but had no smoky flavor.

Moonlite’s barbeque sauce was pretty much like everything else – okay, but undistinguished.  It was red and medium in viscosity.  It was slightly tangy and sweet, but overall mild tasting.  It combined well with the stronger taste of the mutton, but didn’t add much to the already mild pork.  If the pork had more of a smoky taste, the mild sauce would have been fine.

On the buffet, there was a wide variety of side dishes.  The best that I had was the navy beans and ham.  The baked beans, green beans, dressing and turkey, chicken livers and gizzards were all fine.   They also had macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, and candied carrots, which I did not try.  I also didn’t try any of the salads, but Dawn liked a tomato and onion salad.  I didn’t even look at the dessert buffet, though I did have a taste of Dawn’s apple crisp which, we both agreed, was possibly the best apple crisp either of us had ever tasted.

Overall, I was disappointed in Moonlite Inn Bar-B-Q.  Our friend, Doug Gregory thinks Moonlite is the best restaurant on earth.  I guess it is all a matter of taste.

Pros:  Quick friendly service; all-you-can-eat buffet; good price (at least before 2:00 pm); the place to go to try mutton and burgoo; great apple cobbler

Cons:  Mutton flavor may be too strong for some; food generally undistinguished; sauce is a little mild; no real ambience.

BBQ:  «« ½                         Service:  ««««

Sauce:  «« ½                       Sides:  «« ½

Ambience:  ««                     Overall:  «« 1/2