CLARENCE – Be open when you journey. You never know what is "Off the Beaten Path."
Take Grayson's BBQ, in tiny Clarence, 13 miles east of Natchitoches, famous for its hams.
They sell 3,000 every holiday season – four hundred are shipped via UPS around the country and the rest are picked up at the restaurant.
But you don't have to wait for the holidays.
Stop by here six days a week for a bite to eat – barbecue ham, pork, beef, ribs, chips, all the sides and cookies.
Everything is cooked on site, including the saucer-size buns.
This place has worked since the late retired Merchant Marine Ollie Grayson founded Grayson's in another location in 1959 and ran it until son George took it over in 1966. Today, the third generation, Gregory and Bryan, are in charge.
Why, Southern Living magazine has included the small town restaurant in its "50 Pit Stops for the Best Southern Barbeque."
Everything is prepared right here, early in the morning.
Lucille Pattain stirs up the potato salad in a larger-than-punch-bowl-size pan – three to six batches from 40-pound bags of potatoes, depending on the day.
Whoever is in at the time gathers around a vintage table to cut and roll the the scratch buns into baseball orbs. Put into pans, they have four rises before the smell of fresh bread from pouffy buns permeates the eatery around 10 a.m.
Around a bend, Eva Bradley prepares the cole slaw. "It is the best cole slaw. Taste it and you are hooked," said Lucille Pattain, who has worked here almost 52 years and was recently named a Louisiana Restaurant Legend by the Louisiana Restaurant Association.
The slaw's secret is good dressing," added Pattain.
"Love. A whole lot of love," answered Bradley
And, the desserts – iced gingerbread or chocolate cookies – eaten on site or sold in zip locks at the counter. And pecan pies. "We make 600 of our pecan pies for the Colfax Pecan Festival," said Greg.
Believe me, you'd never know to turn off Highway 71 before you leave town and pop into flat-roofed, unpretentious Grayson's. Even the outdoor sign is weathered and needs to be propped up. (There are such places, of course, in nooks and crannies all across America.)
But, you know, in the country, the gritty parking lots usually tell the story. Like most such stops, around 11 a.m., the 18-wheelers and log trucks, sheriff and Louisiana state troopers insignia vehicles start pulling up in the dirt lot. Occasionally, even a state trooper helicopter swoops in to land in the generously-sized grassy area.
Diners eat at the same tables, sit on the same stools where customers dined when Ollie ran it. Three large counters used for storage or display were picked up at an old store in nearby Campti.
Although the Graysons own and run it, the staff is a large part of the operation and everyone, even the customers and delivery men, seem like their family.
Food prep/server Pattain has been making potato salad, chopping meat the way customers want it – thin, thick – and helping with bread preparation for all the years she's been here. Clarence resident Wayne Campbell has chopped wood for the barbecue pits about 20 years. "I cut kindling and bigger pieces and that is all there is to it." Mercedes Mitchell who retired three years ago, stops by and automatically lends a hand at the counter as things get busy.
Dale Matthews, of Atlanta, Texas, was making a pilgrimage to Grayson's. "I was here years and years ago. I am on a road trip with a friend, but I remember this place," said Matthews, who selected a chipped beef sandwich.
"I've been a regular since I was knee high to a grasshopper," said Jeremy Wilson, who drives a log truck out of Atlanta, La. He ordered to go chipped beef with potato salad, beans and a R.C. Cola.
"The sheriff of Winn Parish comes in all the time. We get a lot of ball teams in the fall," said Greg. Baseball player Lee Smith stops by and so does "Steel Magnolia" author Bob Harling and his father.
The one sheet menu tells you in concise terms what is available: Sandwiches, pounds, plates, side orders. The meats are: beef, ham, pork or ribs and chip. And, there are the sides and sauce upon request.
Desserts: Half dozen chocolate or gingerbread cookies, whole pecan pie, slice pecan pie. For a sliced beef, ham or pork sandwich: $4.70, if on a regular bun or $4.80, home-made bun, worth every penny of the extra dolalr. Pounds: from $3.50 for a single rib to $23 for a "quart chip."
To drink? "Can drink. Pint milk. Bottled water." (Yep, that's it.)
Before you eat, pull plastic flatware out of a container and in place of napkins, unroll a couple of paper towels.
Natchitoches mover/shaker and long time Grayson's customer Tommy Whitehead usually orders a sandwich, chipped beef on homemade bun.
"Rare to find a homemade bun anywhere and the cooking and sauce on the ham make the perfect combo. No one else has it," said Whitehead, e-mailing from the Seychelles Island, a stop on his whirlwind around the world.
"We have a big Sunday crowd," said Greg.
"We fill up both dining rooms at noon. They all get out at the same time and they all come at the same time," he added.
For what it serves, you will not get a more satisfying entree or friendlier staff at a five-star restaurant anywhere in the world – maybe truffle fancier, but no better.
A testimony to that are the cards tucked into plastic sleeves plastering the walls like art.
There is one from the well known William Morris Agency, Beverly Hills, to the Hayes Machines, Marshall, Texas, Auto Glass Center, Shreveport and Jax Quail Eggs, Boyce.
"There are some countries, I can't even pronounce," said Greg.
And, there are quirky things about Grayson's.
Take the logo T-shirts which sell for $20 bucks. "Every order we pick a different color," said Greg, fingering a stack of the 2015 neon greens.
Although the store's source of home-made mayhaw jelly disappeared, they do carry Norris cane syrup from Monroe. "We sell a lot of it. They don't deliver, so we go pick it up ourselves. Twice a year, we buy a pallet," said Greg.
Grayson's. It may be off-the-beaten-path, but customers make their way here to order, to eat on site, to grab and go.
Or, simply to order a ham.
From tiny Clarence, Grayson's BBQ sells 3,000 hams around the country and at home during holiday season
Natchitoches resident Tommy Whitehead orders two hams from Grayson's BBQ during the holiday season.
One goes to Boston and the other to a college friend. He also buys one each for Christmas and Easter for his own kitchen.
The four are among 3,000 regular whole bone-in barbecued hams smoked at Grayson's – 24 hours a day, seven days a week during the holidays.
Four hundred are shipped around the country for Thanksgiving and Christmas and the rest picked up at the restaurant. They also sell them at Easter. They are labeled and packed at Grayson's and go out on UPS truckes twice in December.
Price: $92, plus shipping.
"We don't advertise the hams, but we sell out the maximum we do now," said Bryan Grayson. "We can only smoke so many on our pits."
"A bunch of companies buy them for their employes," said Greg Grayson.
And although the phones are already ringing, the Graysons absolutely do not take orders until September. If you don't make the deadline which is two weeks before Christmas, you can take a chance Christmas Eve, hoping to purchase a ham someone else forgot to pick up.
The secret to the hams' success? "They are not dry cured. They are water cured when we get them. They are moist," explained Greg Grayson.
Lots of hams going out of Grayson's in tiny Clarence, population 577.
Can we just say Grayson's hams it up!
Very well.
If you go
What: Grayson's BBQ, Clarence.
Address: 5849 Highway 71, Clarence, 13 miles, east of Natchitoches.
Hours: 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday, and 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., Sunday. Call first, for they close during the holidays and July 4 holidays.
Info: (318) 357-0166
318.459.9312
Service Areas
