Jones Bar-B-Q Diner

Jones Bar-B-Q Diner, a barbecue spot in Marianna, Arkansas, has been in business since at least the 1910s. The Black Business guide calls it the nation's oldest black-owned restaurant. The James Beard Foundation gave it an "American Classic" award in 2012.

The smoking operation was started by Joe, the great-uncle of the current owner. The opening year is debated: Garden & Gun said 1910, while the Beard Foundation said "since at least the 1910s." The Encyclopedia of Arkansas calls it possibly the oldest continuously running restaurant in Arkansas and the oldest in the South run by a black family. The Oxford American describes it as the oldest black-owned restaurant in the South and one of the oldest family-owned black restaurants in the country. The Southern Foodways Alliance notes some believe it is the oldest continually operated African American-owned restaurant in the South. The Chicago Tribune reports food historians think it may be one of the nation's oldest African American family-owned restaurants.

Joe's nephew, Walter Jones, first sold barbecue on Fridays and Saturdays from the back porch of his dogtrot house. Walter's son recalled in a 1986 interview that the original pit was just a hole in the ground with iron pipes, fence wire, and two pieces of tin. Walter's son, Hubert Jones, took over next. Hubert's son told Saveur that his father's original place was called The Hole in the Wall, because it was just a window in a wall where meat was sold from a washtub. Hubert moved the business to its current location in 1964 and renamed it Jones Bar-B-Q.

The current owners are Hubert's son, James Jones, and his wife Betty. In 2010, James told the Oxford American that his son, a local coach, did not plan to keep the business going. In 2017, James shared his recipes and allowed Kevin Arnold to open a Jones Bar-B-Q in Jacksonville, Arkansas, about 100 miles away. A grease fire in 2021 destroyed 70% of the building. The owners vowed to rebuild with fire-resistant metal instead of wood.

The Marianna diner sits in a white cinder block two-story shotgun house at 219 West Louisiana Street. Hubert and his wife lived upstairs when they ran it. Jones smokes 10 to 12 pork shoulders over oak and hickory in cinder-block pits for at least ten hours, three times a week. The cooked meat is then simmered in sauce in a slow cooker.

The sauce is thin, vinegar-based, with paprika and cayenne. The menu offers only chopped pork, sold by the pound or as sandwiches on white bread like Wonder or Sunbeam, with or without mustard-based coleslaw. As of August 2019, sandwiches cost $3.50, a pound of meat $7.00, and a pint of sauce $3.00. The diner opens at 6 a.m. six days a week and closes when it sells out, often by 11 a.m. The Chicago Tribune notes that on a summer Saturday, that could happen before 10 a.m. There are only two tables, seating at most ten people. As of 2010, the restaurant also offered smoking service for hunters who brought in their catches.

Recognition includes: the 2012 James Beard Foundation America's Classic award (Arkansas' first Beard winner), induction into the inaugural Arkansas Food Hall of Fame in 2017, and being named best barbecue in Arkansas by Food & Wine in 2019.