Ken Bosley
“You don't get a reputation like ours by cutting corners on the mutton.”
Ken Bosley is part of the Bosley family that has owned and run Owensboro's Moonlite Bar-B-Q Inn since 1963, when his parents Catherine and 'Pappy' Bosley bought the 30-seat joint for $50,000. Under the family, Moonlite grew into a 350-seat restaurant with its own USDA-inspected processing plant and a nationally known catering operation. Pappy Bosley personally butchered an estimated quarter-million mutton carcasses between 1963 and 2013, cementing Moonlite's mutton reputation. Ken has represented the family's ownership publicly, including in a Southern Foodways Alliance oral-history interview.
Philosophy
Never change what works: the same pits, the same hickory, and the same mutton that built the reputation.
Technique
Whole mutton slow-smoked over hickory coals in masonry pits, then chopped and served with a thin black dip.