MOULTRIE — For Ruth Hall, life is all about her family, sports and running a local barbecue restaurant.

Hall was born in Alabama but grew up in Florida, where she met her husband, Bill, a Moultrie native. He played baseball for 15 years, including three with the Pittsburgh Pirates, before the couple settled in Moultrie.

After her husband retired from baseball, Hall said, her focus shifted to football, particularly University of Georgia football. Her son, Keith, earned a scholarship to play at UGA, and he was a member of the 1980 national championship team. The couple had three other children, Billy, who also lives in Moultrie, Teri of Madison, Fla., and Tim of Gainesville, Fla.

The sports world shifted again when Hall’s grandson, John Michael, became a star basketball player, she said. Hall played for Colquitt County High School before attending Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton on a basketball scholarship. He recently completed his first year with the Drake University Bulldogs, who won their conference championship and took part in the 2008 NCAA basketball tournament.

In between her husband’s baseball days and her son’s football days, Hall worked with her sister at a barbecue restaurant in Lake City, Fla. After coming to Moultrie, she ran Neal’s Dress Shop, but her sister was telling her she should open up a barbecue restaurant of her own.

Hall said an opportunity to lease a building at 311 First Ave. S.E. opened up, and she opened up The Barbeque Pit on July 12, 1982, with her son Billy. The lease ran for three years with an option to buy the building, and she bought it when the lease ran out. There may have been other barbecue places in town when it opened, but Hall said The Barbeque Pit was the best of them.

“It seems to me like we had the best barbecue,” Hall said.

That claim has been backed up by a variety of customers who have come to the restaurant over the years. Many visitors to Moultrie have told her they were sent to The Barbeque Pit when they asked where to go for good barbecue.

One thing that sets The Barbeque Pit apart from other places is all of the sauces, dressings and baked beans are all homemade, Hall said. They serve only sliced barbecue dinners from the menu but will chop up the meat by special request. Homemade cakes and pies complete the meal.

The menu has basically remained the same since opening, as Hall said she wanted to have a variety of food available for different tastes. In addition to the barbecue, they offer steak and chicken dinners and have recently added catfish filet dinners.

“We had a little bit of everything on the menu when it opened,” Hall said. “It has basically stayed the same since then.”

Hall said business at The Barbeque Pit has been steady ever since it first opened. The prices, however, may have been adjusted some, but she tries to keep them within reason so that no one pays too much for a night out.

“We have been blessed here because we’ve been busy,” Hall said. “I’m just blessed.”