Moonlite BBQ Inn – Owensboro, KY

Restaurant Name: Moonlite Bar-B-Q Inn, Inc.
Address: 2840 West Parish Avenue, Owensboro, KY 42301
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Our first stop for dinner for the 2019 Bang Bang BBQ Tour took us to a restaurant that I saw in an episode of BBQ Pitmasters called Moonlite Bar-B-Q Inn. 

Moonlite is located on the west side of Owensboro, KY in beautiful rustic red brick building. The restaurant is a majority of the building but there is also a general store type of place on the side that sells sauces, rubs, shirts, and a few other southern themed trinkets. The restaurant side has a “fancy” restaurant in the wild outdoors woods type of theme with some nice dim lights, a wood burning fireplace (thankfully not on because it’s summer time), and an atmosphere that is true southern hospitality.

The most unique thing about Moonlite is that it has a true legit all you can eat BBQ buffet!?!?!?!?!?! That’s right…a buffet…of BBQ smoked meats! The BBQ smoked meats on the buffet featured the staples: chicken, pork, brisket, and spare ribs. The buffet also featured a Kentucky BBQ staple: mutton! If you don’t know what mutton is look it up. It’s very unique and quite tasty too.

This plate is a bit messy but it is a plate of literally every smoked meat on the buffet. There’s a chicken leg on the top, a spare rib right next to it, some pork chunks between the rib & the chicken leg and the fried cornbread muffin, beef brisket slices on the lower left and the chopped mutton on the right. This plate was awesome. I can’t quite tell if I was still giddy from the fact that I could go back and get more of this food or from the sheer size of this meat plate.

Some quick thoughts on this plate: The mutton was delicious! It was interestingly enough more “beefy” in flavor than I expected but it was good to not have a gamey flavored lamb meat. The chicken leg was sweet & tender. The pork chunks with sauce were moist & delicious, but if it didn’t have sauce it was a little dry. The spare rib was fall apart so overdone but the sauce saved it and I’m pretty sure I was still giddy at the fact that I was eating at a BBQ buffet. The brisket was ON POINT! The slices were perfect tenderness. A good pull test qualifier each time with a visible smoke ring showed that it was truly cooked low and slow.

My second plate at the BBQ buffet did feature some sides. I went back for more BBQ pork chunks and chicken as they were tasty, but added a side of baked beans and mac and cheese. The beans were average…they had a little bit of smoke flavor but nothing really took it over the top for me. The mac and cheese had a really nice burnt crust on it and it was super creamy! 

My third plate at the buffet (who’s counting?!?!?!) I only got more brisket but tried sides of green beans, ham & beans, and the creamed corn. Of these side dishes the creamed corn stood out the most as it was creamy but it was also using like baby kernels of corn which added a little twist to the texture of each bite. I do want to note that the cornbread muffins were LEGIT! I couldn’t get this confirmed but I’m almost 100% certain they bake them to about 90% doneness and then drop them into the deep fryer until done as the outer crust was CRUNCHY! 

After three plates of smoked meats, sides, and cornbread muffins…I found room for dessert! I didn’t finish them though even though there were really tasty. The picture above features a peanut butter pie in the middle, chocolate covered pecan pie on the right, and a blackberry cobbler with ice cream on the left. All three were good caps to a delicious meal. My favorite was the peanut butter pie. It was light, creamy, and peanut buttery delicious and a great call on the Oreo crust! The cobbler and the chocolate covered pecan pie were also good, but I just couldn’t stuff it all in so had to tap out.

The service at Moonlite BBQ is great! I don’t think my sweet tea ever got less than 1/3 of my glass. Our server Bryan was on his game this evening. He had a very delicate balance of present but not like breathing down our necks. He was always offering to get us more of this or can I get this out of the way so kudos to the staff on training your employees to take care of their tables!

SUMMARY

Buffets are some of my favorite places to go and most buffets these days rely on quantity of food vs. quality of food. Going into my first BBQ buffet I had mixed hopes honestly…I was thinking I’d have a large quantity of some of my favorite smoked meats that were prolly leftovers from the night before just reheated in a pit, and placed on a warmer but I was genuinely surprised to see all the meats are freshly smoked and Moonlite provides a really excellent product when it comes to BBQ to feed the masses for a buffet.