Country Tavern

We got to the Fernbrook RV Park in Longview, Texas from Little Rock around 2:30PM on Wednesday. It gave us a couple of hours to relax before we headed out for dinner. We headed out about 4:30PM and drove just west of Kilgore on Texas Highway 31 to the Country Tavern.


The Country Tavern has been in business since 1939 and serves only beer and wine. It does not have a typical food menu--because it only serves BBQ with your choice of sides. The Country Tavern is famous for its award-winning BBQ, especially its pork ribs, that are smoked with oak and hickory wood.

We’ve been eating Country Tavern baby back ribs for over 20 years and have never eaten better ribs anywhere on the planet. You can have a small order (3 ribs), medium order (5 ribs) or large order (7 ribs). The ribs are perfectly cooked: nice layer of bark, moist, very meaty, and not over-cooked to where the meat falls off the bone. They’re very rich and a medium order of just 5 ribs is more than enough for me. A sweet but tangy, thick BBQ sauce is warmed in the bottle and brought out with your ribs. The server brings you small, hot towels to clean up with after eating.

Okay, we went back to Country Tavern again last night for dinner. I had talked about ordering brisket for dinner earlier in the day, but quickly nixed that idea once we got there. We both ordered the ribs again. Julie got a small order and I got a medium order. Yum!

Steve & Julie Cornelius