< Back to Oral History project: Mississippi BBQ
ORAL HISTORY
Rodney Beasley
A native of Flint, Michigan, Rodney Beasley always had a passion for cooking. At sixteen, he started teaching himself how to barbecue in the backyard of his parent’s house. Eventually, he built his own smokers and perfected a fruit-infused sauce recipe that he uses to this day.
After working for General Motors for twenty years, Beasley left Michigan and came to the South in hopes of pursuing his dream of owning his own barbecue restaurant, despite taunts from his peers that the regional differences in taste and technique would pose a challenge.
Opening Beasley’s Best Bar-B-Q in downtown Meridian in December of 2009, Beasley has proved the naysayers wrong. While his restaurant is new to the Meridian area, Beasley’s Best has already established a loyal fan base, ranging from mothers who buy his barbecue in bulk to feed their families to nurses who stop by on their lunch break from nearby Riley Hospital. Beasley hopes to share his unique style of barbecue not only with the people of Mississippi, but with the rest of the Southeast, as well.