How Rendezvous Became Memphis’ Must-Visit Barbecue Institution

By Lola Jahant • Dec. 15, 2025

Ask any Memphis local for a recommendation on where to eat true Memphis Barbecue and Rendezvous is guaranteed to make the list. Since 1948, the Vergos family has been serving locals, tourists and celebrities their signature dry ribs.

“You’d be stupid to not go to Rendezvous,” Hatcher Hart said, a St. Louis native who visits Memphis often and frequents Rendezvous.

Located near the iconic Peabody Hotel, Charlie Vergos started the basement restaurant as a deli and snack shop. In efforts to diversify the shop’s menu from hand sandwiches and beer, Vergos turned an old elevator shaft into a smoker.

Using paprika and seasoning from his father’s Greek chili recipe, ingredients both atypical for a rib rub, Vergos created his original dry rub and people went nuts, according to the Rendezvous website.

“My father used to say he would sit at the bar to get an order of ribs, and he always said ‘You’ve got to tug at the meat,’” co-owner Tina Vergos Jennings. “It should never fall off the bone. It should be tender enough where all you have to do is pull—and that's how ours is.”

Today, the recipe hasn’t changed, and the restaurant has remained true to itself as well. Enter Rendezvous through its alley entrance to find walls cluttered with Delta merchandise (where a Vergos family member worked) and pictures of decades-long servers, sometimes even posing with Rendezvous fanatic Justin Timberlake.

“We’ve had servers here that were with us for years that passed, but then we have other servers that are still here working,” Vergos Jennings said. “One of them has been here 52 years, so we’re like family. We’re really like family. A lot of us have grown up together.”

Upstairs from the main basement dining area is Rendezvous’s own venue space. Modeled to look like a steam boat, the venue has hosted everything from wedding receptions to a Rolling Stones concert.

"We've served a lot of people from all over, celebrities, presidents,” Vergos Jennings said. “Never in a million years would I have thought they would have come, but we got to meet and serve Prince Harry and Prince William."

The "Rendezvous special” doesn’t stop at the door. With a warehouse just down the street, the restaurant delivers ribs to your doorstep, and their dry rub and sauces can be bought at grocery stores.

“I feel like we kind of made a name for it, and it’s truly amazing to see where my dad started and where he ended up,” Vergos Jennings said. “I’m totally amazed that it got to be like this. When I remember how it was small and just a few people in the basement, and to have all these people come down, truly amazing.”