buffet

Williamson’s Bar-B-Que & Seafood – Chadbourn, NC

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Name: Williamson’s Bar-B-Que & Seafood
Date: 9/26/21
Address: 1011 N Brown St, Chadbourn, NC 28431
Order: From the buffet: pork, hush puppies, cole slaw, mac and cheese, banana pudding (link to menu)
Pricing: $

Monk: Heading back from the beach on a Sunday, there’s usually just a few options for barbecue. Williamson’s Bar-B-Que & Seafood in Chadbourn is one of them, and a buffet at that. A barbecue buffet (usually including seafood) is a phenomenon I’ve encountered almost exclusively in the sandhills of eastern North Carolina, and I’ve previously checked out Fuller’s in Lumberton (now closed) and Pembroke.

Williamson’s is a small roadside shack off state road 410 near Highway 76 in Chadbourn that has both a dining room and a drive through. If you are dining in, you pay for you buffet at the cash register before grabbing your plate and going through the buffet line with options ranging from barbecue to various fried fish options.

I stuck with typical barbecue fare with their eastern style pork, cole slaw, mac and cheese, and hush puppies. Nothing wowed me but all were solid except for the hush puppies, which were fantastic.

I went back to the dessert bar before I left and grabbed some of their amazing banana pudding, the highlight of the meal.

Williamson’s Bar-B-Que & Seafood does a passable version of eastern NC barbecue but much like Joe’s Old Fashioned Barbecue from earlier on my trip, it was all tang and no smoke.

Ratings:
Atmosphere/Ambiance – 3 hogs
Pork – 3 hogs
Sides – 3.5 hogs
Overall – 3 hogs

Friday Find: BBQ Mea Culpas on The Winnow Podcast

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Monk: In the first half of this podcast, some barbecue talk from Robert Moss and Hanna Raskin regarding two of Robert’s recent articles: a piece in the Charleston Post and Courier on the death (or at least decline) of the South Carolina barbecue buffet and his recent published list of Southern Living Top 50 BBQ Joints.

For the barbecue buffet article, Moss incorrectly noted that after Bessinger’s Barbecue shutting down its buffet (while still remaining open as a restaurant) there were only two more buffets left in the lowcountry. Turns out, he was wrong – and apparently people let him know about all the places he missed such as Music Man’s Bar-B-Que in Monck’s Corner and Kelly’s Barbecue in Summerville. The barbecue buffet is something you mainly see in South Carolina and I have only been to a couple in NC: Fuller’s Old Fashion BBQ in Lumberton – which has since relocated to Fayetteville from Lumberton due to flooding as a result of Hurricane Matthew two years ago – and Duke’s Old South BBQ in Leland which has since closed. I suspect if there are more barbecue buffets out there, they are more likely in the coastal plain of eastern NC since we don’t really see them in the piedmont.

In regards to his Top 50 BBQ Joints list, Moss got some grief from Texans who just couldn’t believe that a non-Texas joint was #1 on his list (Scott’s Bar-B-Que in Hemingway, SC ) and that only 3 Texas joints were in the top 10. Apparently they went so far as to refer to his list as “garbage.” Seems a bit harsh, but perhaps not unexpected from Texans when it comes to barbecue – they take that ish seriously.

Linkdown: 9/12/18

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– Southern Living Barbecue Editor Robert Moss has published his latest version of his top 50, this time with the joints ranked

– As if that top 50 list weren’t enough, Robert Moss also explored what’s in a name when it comes to barbecue restaurant

– Midwood Smokehouse’s Frank Scibelli is one half of a restaurant sibling pairing with his sister, who owns Fran’s Filling Station

– Speaking of Midwood Smokehouse, pitmaster Michael Wagner is up to something and it involves a whole hog BQ smoker and a trailer

– A veteran of Mr. Barbecue in Winston-Salem has opened Carolina Backyard BBQ

– Quite a trip by The Smoking Ho and the Tales from the Pits Podcast crew; The Smoking Ho’s recap here

– Is the SC barbecue buffet on the way out?

– B’s Cracklin’ Barbecue tops Atlanta Magazine’s 10 best barbecue restaurants

– Eater explores the whole hog barbecue tradition