Columbia

Linkdown: 4/21/21

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Kevin’s BBQ Joints out here again doing yeoman’s work. This time, he reached out to 158 restaurants (4 were added since this Tweet) across the country to get what a best first order would look like. From North Carolina, Black Powder Smokehouse in Jamestown, Lawrence Barbecue in Raleigh, Longleaf Swine in Raleigh, Noble Smoke in Charlotte, Red Bridges Barbecue Lodge in Shelby, Southern Smoke in Garland. Naturally, Texas represents a large portion of the list and a separate “Texas-only” list is located here.

Native News

Wilber Shirley is celebrated on the UNC Press Blog by reposting his interview with John Shelton Reed and his late wife Dale Volberg Reed from “Holy Smoke: The Big Book of NC Barbecue”

D.G Martin also remembers Wilber Shirley and thanks Wilber’s and other community-based restaurants for their hospitality in addition to their food

Smoke Show BBQ will be doing another pop-up at Crown Station in Charlotte

Jon G’s gets in the pit fabrication game

Non-Native News

Less than a week until Black Smoke comes out

John Tanner gets a dispatch on Salvage Barbecue from his “Senior South Portland (Maine) Correspondents”

Smoked wings are a big hit in Columbia

The Riverdale Park, MD-based 2Fifty Texas BBQ is opening up a D.C. location

Vegan Mob was started in 2019

https://twitter.com/soulphoodie/status/1383188966418083841

Linkdown: 12/9/20

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Last week, an article that former Charlotte Observer food writer Kathleen Purvis did for Charlotte Magazine appeared online. It digs into Chef Jim Noble and his complicated stature in Charlotte’s restaurant landscape. On one hand, he is a well-respected and successful chef and restaurateur whose philanthropic pursuits include his King’s Kitchen restaurant that employs people who are under normal circumstances considered unemployable due to poverty, homelessness, or addiction. He is also a reverend who leads bible study at that same restaurant. On the other hand, he has a religiously conservative view on gay rights and was one of only two restaurateurs who officially supported House Bill 2 (or HB2) passed by the NC Legislature in 2015 that required transgender people to use the bathroom that conformed with the gender on their birth certificates, essentially wiping out a nondiscrimination ordinance enacted shortly before by the Charlotte City Council.

From there, Purvis zooms out to explore some of the history of discrimination in the south in both the past and the present. I won’t recap it here, but it’s definitely worth a read.

It should be noted that while Noble declined to be interviewed for Purvis’s story there is no record of Noble’s restaurants discriminating against anyone in the LGBTQ+ community. But that doesn’t mean that potential patrons of his restaurants (which, in addition to Noble Smoke includes two Rooster’s Kitchen locations and Bossy Beulah’s) won’t take his views into account in deciding whether or not to spend money there, regardless of whether they are part of the LGBTQ+ community or not.

I haven’t made a decision either way, but it certainly has been and will continue to be on my mind going forward.

Native News

Check out this beautifully restored sign at Red Bridges Barbecue Lodge

A City Barbeque will soon be occupying a former Steak ‘n Shake in Greensboro

Get your Jon G’s preorder in by next week

BBQ King in Lincolnton is also taking preorders for Christmas

Non-Native News

John Tanner doing yeoman’s work by taste testing the McRib

Speaking of the McRib, here’s Francis Lam’s bite-by-bite review from 10 years ago

A combination oyster bar, barbecue joint, and microbrewery is in the works from an ambitious Columbia, SC developer

A roundup of Greenville (SC) barbecue joints with a very high level primer on barbecue in the state

ICYMI, our Nashville Top 5 Posted on Monday

HOG POT

Linkdown: 11/11/20

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Even in the midst of a pandemic and all that 2020 had to offer, Tim Carman of the Washington Post went ahead with his annual “best barbecue joints in DC” list, with the main change being that he got takeout from every joint he tried. And he found that, even while getting more and more expensive, the state of barbecue in DC is strong and only improving. To wit, three of the joints in his top ten were brand new to the list.

Cheers to Tim Carman for pushing ahead!

Native News

10% off today for veterans and active duty military at Wilber’s Barbecue

Have you seen Apple City BBQ’s pig? It was recently stolen from the Taylorsville barbecue joint.

Midwood Smokehouse’s brisket cheesesteak makes Charlotte Magazine’s list

Non-Native News

Another writeup on Desiree Robinson, 2020 Barbecue Hall of Fame Inductee

https://twitter.com/soulphoodie/status/1325136946264338432

Several barbecue restaurants in Columbia are offering Thanksgiving specials

Four Savannah barbecue joints that offer comfort food during COVID

Smoked Turkey Explosion in Texas:

The Athens episode of TrueSouth brought together neighbors; watch at the link below

Linkdown: 7/27/20

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“Black Smoke” by James Beard Award-winning “Soul Food Scholar” Adrian Miller is officially a go for Spring 2021. Very excited to read this next year.

A short interview with Derrick Walker of Smoke-A-Holics BBQ on “Tex-Soul” and being a black pitmaster

This year’s Barbecue Festival has been canceled, which should surprise no one

John Tanner’s Barbecue Blog stops by a few eastern NC barbecue restaurants on his way to the beach: Boss Hog’s Backyard Barbecue in Washington, Stephenson’s in Willow Spring, Marty’s in Wilson, the rebooted Wilber’s in Goldsboro, and Southern Smoke in Garland:

City Limits Barbeque gets a shout out in this feature on Columbia

22% of Americans say Texas style is their favorite regional style of barbecue, according to a recent HuffPost/YouGov poll

Steven Raichlen has some tips for barbecued ribs, which he calls”barbecue at its most primal and unadorned”, in the New York Times

The “Ultimate Guide to Barbecue,” from The Wall Street Journal

Pig Beach is heading south, but not just for the winter; it plans to open a Florida location in West Palm Beach by the end of the year

“Carolina-style” BBQ cauliflower? C’mon man…