Gravy

In “Grandpa’s Barbecue Blooms Out West,” Gravy producer Monica Gokey takes listeners to Idaho Falls, Idaho, to explore what happens when a Southerner leaves the South and opens a barbecue joint in the West.  Grandpa’s Southern Bar-B-Q originally opened in the small town of Arco, Idaho, which is obscurely famous for being the first community in the U.S. powered by nuclear energy. At the time Grandpa’s opened, Arco’s population was about a thousand people. It was an unlikely location for any restaurant, much less a Southern food restaurant.  Menu items like smoked brisket, collard greens, gumbo, and buttermilk pie were new fare for many locals, and it wasn’t the locals who patronized Grandpa’s at first. It was tourists—either passing through Arco on their way to Yellowstone or the nearby Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve.  Craters of the Moon is aptly named, and in 1969, Apollo 14 astronauts flew to Craters for a bootcamp on rocks. Their Apollo mission was focused on lunar exploration, and t