6 New Jersey Towns Ranked Among Best BBQ Cities in 2025

A new list has been published that ranks the best BBQ towns in America, and a half dozen BBQ hot spots in New Jersey have made the list. That's good news for Jersey BBQ lovers, especially during summer, a favorite time of year for BBQ.

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What Makes For A Delicious BBQ?

Great BBQ should be mouthwatering on its own, but when paired with the right sauce, sweet, tangy, spicy, or bold, it hits another level. It’s more than food; it’s comfort, tradition, and a whole lot of patience and passion.

Good BBQ is all about balance—tender, slow-cooked meat that’s juicy and flavorful, kissed by smoke and infused with seasoning that enhances, not overpowers.

According to new data from LawnStarter, the Garden State has six cities that offer great American BBQ. This is a great honor, and it's a great list to visit and try this amazing BBQ this summer.

2025’s Best BBQ Cities in America

"The online platform for lawn care and outdoor services gathered data on 500 of the biggest U.S. cities across 13 metrics to determine the top spots and rank into 4 categories: consumer satisfaction, access, competition awards and elite BBQ memberships.Below are the six cities from New Jersey with their ranks and overall score."

#90 Paterson; overall score 19.35
#129 Newark; overall score 17.89
#213 Clifton; overall score 15.09
#354 Trenton; overall score 13.36
#367 Jersey City; overall score 13.11
#457 Elizabeth: overall score 9.57

Top 10 BBQ cities in America

Kansas City
Los Angeles
Houston
St. Louis
Austin
Chicago
Las Vegas
Memphis
Nashville
New York

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LOOK: Best Beers From Every State

To find the best beer in each state and Washington D.C., Stacker analyzed January 2020 data from BeerAdvocate, a website that gathers user scores for beer in real-time. BeerAdvocate makes its determinations by compiling consumer ratings for all 50 states and Washington D.C. and applying a weighted rank to each. The weighted rank pulls the beer toward the list's average based on the number of ratings it has and aims to allow lesser-known beers to increase in rank. Only beers with at least 10 rankings to be considered; we took it a step further to only include beers with at least 100 user rankings in our gallery. Keep reading to find out what the best beer is in each of the 50 states and Washington D.C.

Gallery Credit: Angela Underwood