Monk: Every April, the streets in front of The Pit in Raleigh shut down for a block party featuring the always undefeated combination of barbecue, beer, and bluegrass music. This year, the festival took place on April 20th and offered smoking of the pig kind on a near picture-perfect day in downtown Raleigh.
I had previously attended one other Cuegrass back in 2014 on a similarly sunny and picturesque day (although my memory is that it was a little warmer that year). This year, friend of the blog Susong and I stopped by Lexington Barbecue for lunch on the way so weren’t particularly hungry for $6 barbecue sammies from The Pit. I did take note that they had gone up in price from $5 some time in the past 5 years and that they are still served in the same foil paper packaging that Chic-Fil-A uses.
While I was too full for barbecue I did, however, partake in some beer as well as the bluegrass music, catching Alan Barnosky solo on the Beer & Banjos Stage on the side street Commerce Place once I got settled before checking out local 4-piece bluegrass group Old Habits on the Main Stage. Old Habits were a fun band of 40-something year old (presumably) dads who did play some originals but also mixed in some crowd-pleasing covers such as “The Weight” by The Band.
Plenty of other folks made it out to watch Old Habits as well.
After catching the full set from Old Habits, Susong and I wrapped it up with a few minutes of Billie Feather back on the Beer & Banjos stage before catching a few minutes of the decidedly non-bluegrass Will Hoge before heading out.
Cuegrass is an extremely family friendly event, from the face painting and games on the side street to the low key environment of watching the bands on blankets and tailgate chairs at both stages. Several kids were dancing and enjoying the sounds of Old Habits, who noted that it was the first (and perhaps only) time that anyone had ever flossed to one of their songs (sadly, I did not capture this ). I can’t recommend the event enough and hope to be back much sooner than the 5 years it took me between my first and second visit.
As mentioned in my write up of the 4th Annual Free Range and order/fire Pig Pickin’ a few weeks back, the story of both Lewis Donald as well as Sweet Lew’s BBQ is a great one. I’ll quote myself below but please check out the nearly 25-minut episode above:
In speaking with Lewis over the past few months, I’ve gotten a good sense of his vision for Sweet Lew’s BBQ – to be a community restaurant that is fully integrated with the Belmont neighborhood – but this episode really fleshed it out so much more through the conversation between Lewis and Marc. It’s hard to believe its only been about 5 months now, but Lewis clearly loves being in the Belmont neighborhood and was putting in work to build ties with neighbors starting with the construction of the restaurant last fall. And he’s got more great ideas for the coming months, from his continued practice of hiring teens from the neighborhood to a back-to-school carnival with free haircuts for kids next August. My social work wife was just eating up the backstory and vision, and for good reason because it’s something you don’t always see from a restaurant.
Daniel Vaughn gets help from Sam Jones in cooking a whole hog at home; I hope to put this to the test in the coming months
How exactly do you test a recipe for a 16-hour process that involves cement blocks, metal barrels, and an entire pig? The authors of a new barbecue cookbook find out. https://t.co/DC52VXXePr
The 38th Annual BBQ Fest on the Neusewill be held in downtown Kinston this weekend with more than 175 vendors, 100 cook teams, and an expected attendance of 40,000.
The BBQ Capital Cook-offtook place last weekend in downtown Lexington after taking 2018 off after a fire at the old Dixie Furniture plan
Might need to try Stamey’s pork skins soon
Stamey’s Elusive pork skins! They sell out so fast that people are always calling to see if we have them available. @barbecuebros I hear it’s a new obsession of yours? pic.twitter.com/UswuANgY4t
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