Is Pollard's Bar-B-Que Still Open? Restaurant: Impossible (FN) Update

Pollard's Bar-B-Que, a barbecue restaurant at 4560 Elvis Presley Boulevard in Memphis, Tennessee, appeared on Restaurant: Impossible (Food Network) in an episode that aired May 30, 2012. As shown in the episode, owner Tarrance Pollard had run a small takeout barbecue operation for sixteen years using a cherished family recipe, then invested his savings and retirement funds to move into a much larger, sit-down restaurant only about four months before Chef Robert Irvine arrived. The larger space brought growing pains: Irvine found an owner reluctant to change long-standing habits and struggling to adapt his systems, staffing, and food costs to the scale of the new restaurant.

Irvine and his team spent two days and about ten thousand dollars reworking the dining room and helping Pollard build processes suited to a full-service restaurant rather than a small takeout counter, while preserving the barbecue recipe at the center of the business, since the show framed the recipe itself as the one asset worth protecting through the overhaul. Unlike many restaurants featured on the show, Pollard's Bar-B-Que continued operating at the same Elvis Presley Boulevard address in the years that followed, and it is frequently cited as one of the program's more durable turnarounds. A Yelp business listing for Pollard's BBQ at this address remains active rather than marked closed, showing customer reviews and ratings with an update dated July 2026, and describing a barbecue restaurant still serving lunch and early dinner Tuesday through Sunday with online ordering now available.

The restaurant also maintains an active Facebook page under the Pollard's BBQ name. Together, these currently active listings indicate the business Robert Irvine renovated in 2012 has kept running at the same Memphis location for more than a decade since its Restaurant: Impossible episode aired, without a name change, an ownership change, or a relocation reported anywhere in the intervening years.