There are tons of fantastic small mom n' pop restaurants across the United States, especially for southern barbecue. Last year, the Twitter account Shelby Foote Appreciator decided to highlight one of his favorite small bbq joints.

"If you’re in the Deep South and you see a place like this, you better stop and eat," he said. "The place is about 20 mins from my house. It was packed tonight."

But while Shelby championed his local gas station gem, plenty of others had fewer kind words for his way of thinking. @SarahTheHaider even called it "romanticizing impoverishment." 

"People love romanticizing shit like this," @redemptionarcs commented, "and nobody wants to come to terms with the fact that for every GOOD one of these, there are 50 more with... some of the most disappointing BBQ you can imagine."

Replies to the tweet were mixed between other Southerners sharing their local gems, and memes of what many region's "local" food really means. Here are some of the best: