Pete Powdrell, founder of Mr. Powdrell’s Barbecue, which has a longtime location on Central Avenue, aka Route 66, died on Sunday at age 86, according to the Albuquerque Tribune.
He started the restaurant in 1962 just a few years after moving to Albuquerque from Texas. He used his grandfather’s secret recipes, and it’s been consistently hailed as the best barbecue in town ever since.
And here’s a nice excerpt from the Journal article:
… [H]is son Joe Powdrell said his father’s spirit lives on in the community and the restaurant.
“I tell you, I can’t walk in that place and not smell him,” Joe Powdrell said.
Powdrell’s legacy, including a slew of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, is two restaurants that employ 60 people and a lot of respect in the community.
Here’s another story about Powdrell in the Albuquerque Journal:
“We came here with nothing but a boot and a shoe and a lot of determination,” Catherine Powdrell told the Journal in a 1981 interview. She died in 2004, after 65 years of marriage.
Within two years, they had opened a takeout barbecue restaurant on South Broadway, although their previous experience was limited to family and neighborhood cookouts in Texas.
“We just felt that if we made good food, everybody would eat it,” Pete said in the same interview.
They did. And I’ll stand on Charlie Vergos‘ coffee table and say that Mr. Powdrell’s has some of the best barbecue in the country. We have a case of Powdrell’s barbecue sauce to prove it.
(Hat tip: Duke City Fix)