Dreamland Bar-B-Que Has Alabama's Best Banana Pudding, According To Our Readers

When Southerners have a hankering for banana pudding, they can always count on a barbecue joint. Something about the combination of salty, smoky pork and cold, creamy pudding just works, so it’s no surprise that the state’s favorite version of the dessert is made by a legendary barbecue restaurant. Learn why our readers voted Dreamland Bar-B-Que's banana pudding the best in Alabama in the 2024 South's Best Awards.

History of Dreamland Bar-B-Que

Most people in Alabama know Dreamland Bar-B-Que for its slow-cooked, hickory-smoked ribs, created by original owner John “Big Daddy” Bishop at Dreamland Cafe in Tuscaloosa in 1958. A brick mason, Bishop built the crimson-colored cinderblock building, as well as the original barbecue pit, himself. In the early days, Dreamland not only sold barbecue but hamburgers and hot dogs, too. But it was their meaty, hickory-smoked pork ribs that had people clamoring for more and soon it became not only the most-ordered item at the restaurant but something of a regional phenomenon. 

As the restaurant expanded with multiple locations over the next 35 years, the menu stayed the same: ribs, barbecue sauce, Sunbeam white bread, chips, and soda. Until Mobile came along in 1995.

“The people of Mobile basically said, ‘We have to have sides, or we’re not coming back,’ ” CEO Betsy McAtee recalls. “They would actually bring their own sides into the restaurant.” 

Two years later, sides (like baked beans and potato salad) were added to the menu. Mobile started a snowball effect, and by 2000 the restaurant started a small-scale catering operation. McAtee remembers loading food into the back of customers’ vans and noticing pies made by competitors. The very next day, they began brainstorming a dessert to add to the menu. Banana pudding emerged as the winner because it was Southern, easy to serve for catering or dine-in, and didn’t require an oven (something the Birmingham restaurant lacked). 

Dreamland's Secret Recipe

Now offered in all 11 locations, banana pudding is a top-three seller for the business. McAtee maintains that the recipe isn’t complicated. “It’s all things you can buy off the shelf,” she says. The secret, however, is in the cookie. Instead of Nabisco Nilla Wafers, Dreamland uses vanilla wafers from longtime favorite local company Bud’s Best Cookies–and of course, “a lot of love.”

“I have people tell me all the time that next to their grandmother or mother or mother-in-law, it’s the best banana pudding they’ve ever had,” McAtee says. “Which I take to mean that it really is the best, but they’re not going to throw grandmother’s under the bus.

dreamlandbbq.com; multiple locations; 205-943-7900