Instead of this year’s Barbecue Festival the 4th weekend in October in Lexington, the organizers behind the festival are instead holding a food and blood drive to benefit the community. The Barbecue Center, Smiley’s Barbecue, Smokey Joe’s BBQ, and Stamey’s Barbecue (the one in Tyro) are all participating by setting up donation tents where non-perishable items or blood can be exchanged for barbecue sandwiches. “Lift Up Lexington” is a positive spin on a barbecue festival cancellation.
From the press release:
On Saturday, October 24th, when more than 125,000 people were expected to gather in Uptown Lexington for the 37th Annual Barbecue Festival, local businesses and organizations will join the festival organizers in utilizing “festival day” to uplift the community.
With an emphasis on giving back and the city’s world-famous barbecue heritage, Lift Up Lexington (#liftUPlex) will include two components: a food drive and blood drive. Event organizers will have seven drop off locations for the food drive which will benefit Pastor’s Pantry. Those who wish to contribute are asked to bring a minimum of five new, unexpired non-perishable items. Requested items include can goods, cereal, pasta & crackers.Read more here
Southern Smoke BBQ‘s collards chowder is featured in Saveur magazine
Midwood Smokehouse, Stamey’s Barbecue, and several other barbecue restaurants appear on this list of places where presidents and presidential candidates have eaten in North Carolina
B’s Barbecue makes this list of things to do in Greenville, NC
Less than 1️⃣0️⃣0️⃣ miles from the Atlantic coast you'll find @VisitGreenville.
Discover safe outdoor adventures + delicious dining options (like #CountOnMeNC certified Dickinson Avenue Public House) for your next visit to the Emerald City. 💚
Dozier's, a restaurant and meat market in Fulshear, has spectacularly juicy smoked turkey, excellent sausage, and a peppery house-made mustard. Just don't go on a Tuesday. https://t.co/BSh1BU47Nj
The Pig Out Inn originally opened in 1996 and was sold to Katie and Bubba McCabe earlier this year during the pandemic
Katie and Bubba McCabe recently purchased The Pig Out Inn Barbecue and hope to reopen the iconic restaurant in downtown Natchez, MS soon https://t.co/f7v6kmSKUV
Monk: The biggest news was of course the closing of Bill Spoon’s Barbecue in late September, which I wrote a little bit about in our 9/16 Linkdown. Afterwards, the news came out that it wasn’t only the pandemic that killed them off – it had been some time coming due to an aging customer base and Spoon’s inability to attract new, younger customers that may have wanted a more full service barbecue experience.Until the end, they thought of themselves as a “traditional barbecue house” which means they only accepted cash and didn’t serve beer or wine. And they were ok with that, even if that ultimately wasn’t what Charlotte wanted. Rest in peace, Bill Spoon’s Barbecue.
July
7/6 Sweet Lew’s BBQ announces adjusted hours of operation, now Wednesday through Sunday, removing Tuesday
7/24 Sweet Lew’s Barbecue introduces an updated menu with hash now on the menu full time and house made sausage that was helped develop with advice from Garren of Jon G’s Barbecue
7/25 Noble Smoke celebrated one year of being open with an all-day party
August
8/20 Bargarita, a “new restaurant serving margaritas and BBQ tacos” opens in the former Solstice Tavern location in NoDa. No word on where or how they smoke their brisket or pork for tacos.
8/28 The Annual Mallard Creek Barbecue, “The Grandaddy of North Carolina Barbecues,” was officially cancelled for the first time in 90 years
According to an email to Mallard Creek Presbyterian Church members, the 91st Annual Mallard Creek Presbyterian Church BBQ has been canceled #ncpol@wsoctvpic.twitter.com/jXPTsGoFy8
8/31 Big Tiny’s BBQ in Mooresville celebrated four years of being open; Pitmaster John also celebrated a birthday
September
9/1 Noble Smoke introduces Taco Tuesdays
9/8 Seoul Food Meat Co will open a second location in the Optimist Park neighborhood (not NoDa as noted in their post) as part of an adaptive-reuse project called Lintmen’s
9/16 Bill Spoon’s Barbecue closed after 57 years in business
9/20 Sweet Lew’s Barbeque begins smoking whole hogs on Sundays, the only Charlotte-area restaurant smoking whole hogs as far as I am aware of
9/28 We interviewed Garren and Kelly of Jon G’s Barbecue about what it’s like to open a barbecue restaurant in the middle of the pandemic
EXCLUSIVE: What It's Like to Open a Barbecue Restaurant in the Middle of a Pandemic https://t.co/oRzxq9Bmc9
Good news: Garren and Kelli Kirkman of Jon G’s Barbecue finally realized their dream of opening a barbecue restaurant this year. Bad news: the restaurant opening was in the middle of a global pandemic with all of the social distancing and protective measures that go along with that. A little over three months into their dream, I reached out to Garren and Kelly to see how the first few months have gone.
How has the reception been the past 3 months or so after opening your long-awaited brick and mortar? Pretty humbling to say the least. It blows our minds when people from all walks of life start lining up to eat our food. From local Anson county natives all the way to people from Texas and beyond, we truly feel so honored to get to do this week to week in our own building.
What were you able to learn from your three soft openings in June and July? Those soft opening days were crazy and hectic, but we knew that we needed to train our staff that had never worked on the food truck before.
It was also a goal of ours to help people understand how the line would work and make the wait seem like more of a party than a wait at all.
The biggest thing (more from a business perspective) was to dial in our ticket times. We wanted to be very similar in the food truck times, but still engage in our customers with conversation and a welcoming atmosphere. Amazingly, every week, be it a $10 ticket or a $300 ticket it is still a 1-3 minute turnaround.
What are some of the unexpected things you didn’t realize you’d have to do as part of running a restaurant? Well, food truck life is definitely not for the faint of heart. It prepared us in ways that we didn’t even know we needed until we opened the restaurant doors. It felt like a relief and a dream to have our own space to cook in. It is nice to not have to drive ourselves to where we are serving worrying about flat tires, generator issues, praying the food stays put in the trailer while traveling and serving in 107°or 30°.
Changing gears, how early have you been selling out each Saturday? The earliest was 3:30, but on average around 5:00 pm. Sometimes what we have on special, Brunswick Stew for example, is sold out by noon. We did Pork Chops on special (which we thought were phenomenal, by the way) that we were giving away at the end of the night. Sometimes it’s just a gamble.
What’s been the most popular menu item? Overall, brisket continues to take the top spot, but we sell double (sometimes triple) the amount of sandwiches in the restaurant versus the food truck days.
Any plans for opening outside of Saturdays in the near future? We’d love to, but not sure what that schedule looks like at this point. A very large (75% or more) of our guests are people who drive from 1+ hours away and couldn’t necessarily make that trip for a weekday lunch break.
We are finally getting catering calls again, which has been null since March. Catering is typically a weekday job, so we are at the restaurant prepping and delivering that for people as well.
With a small building comes limited refrigeration and warming space. We have to keep everything at safe temperatures and grow into whatever is next for us.
That makes a lot of sense. In terms of upcoming specials, are there any you’d like to tease? We just rolled out our Brunswick Stew, and my gracious it went FAST. We’ll continue to have that through the Fall. We are also toying with the idea of a burnt end. Posted one picture on social media and we think people will enjoy those as well.
What would you like every customer to know before they make the trip out to Peachland? Don’t let the line be a downer. The best part is that it’s outside (covered for rain and such). You can social distance and still feel somewhat back to normal in these crazy times we live in today. Make friends, BYOB, share stories and talk to us when it’s your time to order. We wouldn’t have gotten to this point without our amazing customers and staff. We love getting to know you. At the end of the day, we are a small business and it’s still us (Garren and Kelly) working the front lines and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Thanks to Garren and Kelly for taking time out of their busy schedule to talk with us.
Jon G’s Barbecue is located off Highway 74 at 116 Glenn Falls St in Peachland, NC (about 40 minutes east of Charlotte). They are open Saturdays from 11 until 6pm or until the meat runs out.
Sweet Lew’s Barbeque has started doing whole hog on Sundays as of this past Sunday, making it the only whole hog available in Charlotte smoked the old way.
The recently shuttered Bill Spoon’s cooked the whole hog but switched to gas smokers some years back. Here’s hoping whole hog Sundays catches on with Charlotte customers and Lewis Donald can continue to smoke whole hogs weekly (and maybe more frequently if its popular enough).
The price is $16/lb or $13 for a plate with two sides. This puts it just above Midwood Smokehouse ($13) and Jon G’s ($14) but below Noble Smoke ($18). Not bad, considering those are smoked pork shoulders compared with whole hog.
It certainly looks like Sweet Lew’s has been running through some wood, so hopefully I can pick up some whole hog next week for football.
The Charlotte Observer’s Theoden James has the full story, and notes that the closing wasn’t because of the pandemic. Steve Spoon, Jr.: “There is no other source of income for mom-and-pop places. There’s no financial backing, there’s no partners, there’s no corporate money to be funded in when you are short. The customers are their only source of revenue, so if they don’t come, (they) have no safety net. You have to support ’em.”
Bargarita is not looking too promising
Bargarita in Noda. Although the interior admirably attempts to mimic an authentic Mexican restaurant, the tacos and burritos are mushy and flavorless. I nearly cracked a tooth on a 1” bone found in my burrito, and then found ANOTHER bone in my taco. pic.twitter.com/EwZQlggmej
Barbecue historian Jim Auchmutey was a consultant on Netflix’s “American Barbecue Showdown,” which filmed outside of Atlanta last year but was just released on Netflix
Jim Auchmutey writes a nice article on the @netflix American BBQ Showdown…worth the read if you aren't up to speed on this show. https://t.co/FVI2cP2wau
Rasheed Philips of Philips Barbeque Co appeared on “American Barbecue Showdown” and now has his own podcast
Robert Moss has updated his website ahead of the re-release of “Barbecue: The History of An American Institution, Revised and Expanded”
Finally got the newly-rebranded and restyled website up and live this week. Still shaking out a few CSS kinks, but I'm pretty happy with how it's shaping up. pic.twitter.com/0YAbXsL7qO
In LA and looking for barbecue? Kevin’s BBQ Joints has you covered
UPDATED: There are over 2 dozen BBQ spots in and around Los Angeles hungry(I know) for your business this week. To support them and get your BBQ fix check back often as I have been updating this weekly list since the world changed earlier this year.https://t.co/tgW6CkDiUp
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