Monk: Hong and Phong Tran, owners of Brisket & Rice just outside of the Houston city limits, like to say they are the only gas station restaurant with both an offset and a wok burner – “only in Texas.”
Description: Brothers Hong and Phong Tran, with Hong continuing his work as a machinist, transitioned to becoming pitmasters and specialized in brisket and rice. In this chat, they talk about how they started Brisket & Rice and how the community has supported their business.
Monk: Farm BBQ is bringing the whole hog gospel by serving eastern Carolina whole hog to Baltimore, Harford, and Cecil Counties in Maryland. In this episode of The Low and Slow Barbecue Show from last month, Chigger sits down with two of the three guys behind Farm BBQ, Tommy and Will, to learn more about their beginnings in barbecue and how they see it as a way to promote not only whole hog but the local farms that produce the ingredients in their food.
Description: Believe it or not, the Carolinas don’t hold a monopoly on “Carolina barbecue.” In fact, you can even find it in the land of crab cakes. That’s where you’ll meet Farm BBQ, a Maryland-born barbecue pop-up that serves Carolina whole hog barbecue and promotes local family farms. In this episode of The Low & Slow Barbecue Show, we talk to Farm BBQ founders Mark, Tommie, and Will, and find out why they brought our Carolina barbecue traditions to Maryland. We discuss their business strategy focused on local farmers and creating a Carolina craft barbecue experience – 400 miles northeast of Lexington, N.C. Will and Tommie reveal the details about their house barbecue sauce – is it east or west? – and don’t miss their turn in the Low & Slow showdown. Barbecue – verb or noun?
Monk: Pitmaster Ed Mitchell is in a curious spot these days. His name is in many ways synonymous with eastern North Carolina whole hog barbecue and his reach in the barbecue world is unmatched by few, but he hasn’t operated a barbecue restaurant in almost 10 years.
In this episode of the Southern Foodways Alliance’s Gravy podcast, North Carolina native Wilson Sayre recaps Mitchell’s story from starting to cook pigs at his parent’s grocery store in Wilson, NC in the wake of his father’s passing to that restaurant getting shut down for failing to pay taxes tax (with Mitchell spending time in jail) to partnering in opening The Pit in Raleigh and eventually the opening and closing of his short-lived Durham restaurant Ed Mitchell’s ‘Cue. Along the way, Ed brought on his son Ryan as a business partner to help him with his business decision making.
The Mitchell’s latest venture with restaurateur Lou Moshakos is called The Preserve and was set to open in 2020 (which was to be Raleigh’s “Year of Barbecue”) before getting sidetracked by the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, this episode is light on solid details for that restaurant, only saying that it is set to open “this spring” (though the episode was released May 22). But of course we’re starting to get into the summer months with little in the way of updates and The Preserve website doesn’t have much more information, only stating that “2023 is our year.”
Unfortunately, it seems as if Ed Mitchell is once again going to have to do it the hard way. All of us North Carolinians will be rooting hard for him.
Description: Ed Mitchell’s name has come to be synonymous with Eastern North Carolina wood-smoked whole-hog barbecue. From Wilson, North Carolina, he grew up smoking hogs and has tried to continue that tradition, using old techniques and traditionally farm-raised pigs.
But almost since the start, Ed Mitchell’s barbeque journey has not been a straight line—business relationships, racism, and smoke have all shaped his rollercoaster ride.
Monk: Kreuz Market has been a fixture in downtown Lockhart, Texas ever since Charles Kreuz Sr. purchased a meat market from Jesse Swearingen in 1900 and renamed it. In this video, Trey’s Chow Down visits Kreuz and gives a short video tour before chowing down on beef rib, brisket, sausage, chicken, and their comically large pork chop.
Description: A Texas BBQ legend since 1875 in Lockhart, Texas
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