Top US cities for BBQ?

[Panhead John]

If that article wasn’t bad enough, look what just aired on the morning news today.

[pkadare]

The full article is a pretty good read. For instance Houston and San Antonio are one the list for the worst places for BBQ in the US. There's a valid statistical reason for this seemingly bizarre ranking and that is that Houston is #1 and San Antonio is #3 in the nation for the sheer number of BBQ places. Quantity doesn't equal quality. I personally know that those 2 cities host some of the best BBQ joints in the world, however, given the ranking methodology, the relatively large number of poorly rated BBQ spots in those cities pulls the rankings down for both cities. IMO a fairer way to rank them would have to say restrict the list of cities to only those which have at least 5 BBQ joints, then rank based on the ratings of the top 5 joints in each city.

https://www.chefspencil.com/americas-best-cities-for-bbq

[rickgregory]

Panhead John - it's not their rankings. It's just TripAdvisor ratings. And if you notice, the 7 highest ranked were about 4.3 or so... and the worse above are 3.9. So a) the variance isn't high, b) most people rate far too high. Anyway, "best" and "worst" aren't the correct terms, it's really "highest rated" and "lowest rated"

[jfmorris]

The other issue is that it is TripAdvisor ratings rickgregory - who is making the ratings? A bunch of 20-somethings most likely, many of which don't know BBQ.

[MarkN]

Kind of a silly way to rank cities for BBQ. It only makes sense if you plan to go out to eat and decide to blindly and randomly pick a BBQ joint, your odds of picking a good one depend on them having only a few good places rather than a lot of places from good to bad.

I wonder how many of those ratings are based upon thinking a wienie on a stick is BBQ.

[Clark]

I think I'll drive up to #2 Wichita tomorrow to treat my wife to a famous BBQ sandwich at a 7-11. It probably would taste like #2.