Helen’s Bar B Q

Just tasted this while watching a doc on the owner at the Oxford Film Festival. She is awesome in the doc and the food is sinfully good.

Best BBQ anywhere! Love Helen’s! Give her a try. You won’t be disappointed. Great sides, too, and she does it all. A great attraction for Brownsville.

Just left Helens! She fixed us up with a sampler of everything on the menu! Fall off the bone ribs, moist tender pulled pork!, hot links, bologna, slaw! It was great. We’ll worth the stop.

Anyone that rates Helen’s less than 5 stars has no taste buds. I am, of course, basing that statement on the PERFECT BBQ sandwich. There are things about the establishment that aren’t 5-​star like the need for a place to dine in because of the smoky atmosphere. But that is cancelled out by the taste of their pork cuisine.

When on a road trip, I dream of finding that out of the way place with awesome food. This is a gamble of a dream of course because you have to leave the interstate and trust other Unilocal reviewers. Helen’s is a dingy, run down building but it had great reviews so I put aside my trepidations. The inside looks like abandoned thrift store chairs and everything is dark and gloomy. The people though… the owners are rays of sunshine. The lady made me a pulled pork plate. Some of the best BBQ meat I have ever had. The sides were not impressive, just average. The meat though… ohhh that meat is the type of thing BBQ meat dreams are made of. If you’re craving BBQ, it is worth going out of your way to Helen’s. Take cash. Eat outside at a picnic table.

Helen’s Bar B Q is a place were you would expect great food at a reasonable price. The chopped pork is a good. The ribs are over priced $ 14 for a rib plate consisting of three rib bones and two fatty gristle. The meat on two of the bones was very tender. The sides were non-​dis script potato salad lacked flavor the slaw was very bitter no flavor. The BBQ beans were good but heavy in pepper. their regular sauce although very thin but good the hot BBQ sauce taste like black pepper taking away from the meat. The best part of the visit to Helens was the staff very pleasant and personable. I would not recommend nor return.
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If you’re missing GOOD barbeque, get here as fast as you can. This is the genuine article, served up with no frills, but with huge taste and personality.
The barbeque plate comes with excellent potato salad, very good vinegar based slaw, a Colonial brand bun, and beans. MmmmMmmmMmmm. I ate it all up with no regrets. We got barbeque bologna sandwiches to go– I hope we make it home with them!
Other items are on the menu, but I don’t know if I’ll change up my order next time. Dance with the one that brung you– and that’s the bbq.
Look sharp or you’ll miss it– the sign is faded. Get a Dr. Pepper to drink and prepare to join the clean plate club!

Excellent! Pork sandwich and ribs were the best. We tried the chicken, BBQ plate, sandwich, and ribs. Helen is a delight to visit with.

To read the full guide visit me at
. I’m a competition bbq judge and I’ve been to over 200 bbq joints! Thanks for checking me out!
The search for real-​pit barbecue has led an ever-​increasing number of enthusiasts to travel, write, and produce vlogs (video blogs) on the subject, all in an effort to attain some perfect formula. In search of that bbq gold, Helen’s Bar-​B-​Q should not be overlooked. Helen is a barbecue artisan. She’s been honing her fiery craft for many years. In fact, I dare say that this lady’s smokin’ many of the «big league» bbq restaurants in the Memphis tri-​state area when it comes to smoked meats. At Helen’s Bar-​B-​Q in Brownsville, TN, you won’t find smokers that look like refrigerators, or pits that plug into the wall. There are no temperature gauges, probes or electrical wires-​just a really old school, dry-​stacked cinderblock pit covered with a simple steel lid. This is the heart and soul of authentic southern barbecue, and true be told, many of the «big leaguers» could learn a thing or two from Helen. There, I said it. Now here’s how her setup works. In her pit-​house out back, she burns whole logs down to coals in one pit (essentially a fireplace), then shovels those coals into the other pit, where she smokes the meat. Simple, but this bbq treasure chest transforms a tough piece of meat into smoky, tender, barbecue bounty. Helen has yet another pit in the kitchen, where she keeps said bbq treasure warm for service. The smoky aroma of meat dripping over wood coals was alluring and before I knew it, I asked her if I could move into her pit-​house. «I’ll just place a cot right by the pit, if that’s OK.» My request earned a smile. «Move right on in!» she chuckled.
Helen was kind enough to give me a sample of her pork shoulder, which was juicy, tender and perfectly smoky. As delectable as it was, I was in the mood for ribs, so I opted for the rib sandwich. It had all the same elements of bbq perfection that I experienced in her smoked pork shoulder, plus a beautiful crusty bark. Here’s how I enjoy a bbq rib sandwich-​eat two bones, then pull the meat from the other two bones and enjoy a bbq rib sandwich with the rib meat, sauce and slaw.
Only about 45 minutes outside of Memphis city limits on the way to Nashville, Helen’s Bar-​B-​Q treasure is worth a leisurely early afternoon drive.
Here are a few notes about the ‘que:
To read the full guide visit me at
. I’m a competition bbq judge and I’ve been to over 200 bbq joints! Thanks for checking me out!

Great down home simple good bbq.
Had the pulled pork, baloney sandwich and beef, Mmmm Mmmm Good.
Helen was cooking and made me feel special.
Small place, two tables inside, one outside but good for a sit down, a quick bite or take out.
Reasonable and good. Being from NY this is heaven.

If you’re ever anywhere near Brownsville, and you love bbq, stop here. Real deal.
Pit in the back and owner, Helen, does it all from scratch. We had Pork sandwiches with mild sauce and slaw. And a bologna sandwich.
Potato salad best ever. Beats grandma’s.
Three sandwiches and salad less than $ 15.
Picnic tables out front.

This is the REAL thing, hand-​made BBQ from scratch sauce, slaw, just terrific. Worth the drive!
Miss Helen smokes her own meats in her back-​porch hand-​built smoker using seasoned oak and some hickory from the smell.
The bologna is «melt-​in-​your-​mouth» fabulous (and I generally do NOT like bologna). Her pork is her strength and worthy of any at Memphis-​in-​May.
Her «joint» has two tables and a TON of character. My suit did have to be dry-​cleaned as the smoke is pervasive if you dine-​in. WELL WORTH IT!

How could you not want to go to visit Helen?
She’s a nice woman, and she makes some damn good sandwiches.
This place is an old-​time BBQ joint. It ain’t fancy, but it’s so damn authentic.
Helen’s is the kind of place that you can only find outside the city. She cooks her Pork on wood coals. That’s an arduous process. To accomplish this, she has a fire going burning down hardwood into coals and embers. She scoops these coals across the back room into her cooker. I’d imagine she uses hickory and oak, but I didn’t ask Helen that question. It doesn’t really matter… her pork sandwiches are very good, with just a hint of smoke.
I ordered a Jumbo Bologna and a Jumbo Pork sandwich along with a can of Coke. It was a lot of food for 8 dollars. Helen’s has two sauces… Hot and Mild. I tried both, and they’re both very good. The tomato based sauces have more vinegar than most in West Tennessee, and it makes them a tangy delight. The Hot is not that hot, so don’t be afraid to try it.
I’ll post some photos of the food and of the place. It’s a wonderful detour if you’re coming through the area between Jackson and Memphis.
The service is good, and Helen is a nice lady. She’s executing BBQ in fine fashion as well.

After sampling 5 BBQ sandwiches at 4 joints (!!) between Madison and Haywood Co’s today, it’s clear I underrated Helen’s. The flavors here are so intense compared with the others I had. The complexity of the hot BBQ sauce combined with the slaw is something to behold. Get it!
Don’t go in wearing clothes that need to be dry cleaned. You can see the smoke haze in the air of the dining room.

Pulled pork sandwich was delicious. Slow smoked over hickory & oak, so it’s smokey, juicy, not too fatty, very flavorful. Mild sauce = good. Hot sauce = very good. Housemade slaw was good enough. Mustard potato salad is fluffy, not chunky or soupy. I liked it.
This is not a dine-​in type restaurant, unless you happen to get one of the 2 tables. It is the kind of place you grab lunch on-​the-​go, or pick up a family sized order. There are plenty of potato chips, snack cakes and sodas to add to your order at the window.
I usually have a pretty small appetite, so I try to make my meals count. I actually thought about ordering a second sandwich at Helen’s.
After only waiting about 5 mins inside for lunch, the sweet/​smokey smell was infused into my hair, much to my husband’s delight.
Take cash. Plan to picnic.

Great authentic BBQ! The meat was tender and lean. Loved the beans as well. The atmosphere was very casual but the food spoke for itself. The owner was very friendly and welcoming. I would definitely make it a point to visit again when passing through the area.