Monk: The Charlotte barbecue scene, along with the entire restaurant industry, remains in flux. Longtime Belmont staple Buddy’s BBQ closed in February after 25 years. A second location of Noble Smoke opened in Optimist Hall. The Carolina Barbecue Festival was announced for May and has a chance to put Charlotte on the map. However, no barbecue boom appears on the horizon for Charlotte anytime soon. Here’s a roundup of news from the past 3 months.
January
1/2 Big Tiny’s BBQ expands its hours in the new year
1/3 By popular demand the pizza collab by Jon G’s Barbecue and Salud continued into January
1/4 Noble Smoke is the only barbecue restaurant on Charlotte Magazine’s annual list of the 50 best restaurants in Charlotte
1/10 RayNathan’s celebrates 3 years open
1/20 Garren of Jon G’s Barbecue profiled on the Ministers of Smoke Instagram page
1/21 A fun story from Charlotte Magazine on how Chapel Hill-born fashion designer Alexander Julian got paid in barbecue for designing the original Charlotte Hornets jerseys
February
2/7 Buddy’s BBQ in Belmont closed after 25 years
2/9 Cornelius-based Barvecue has raised $600 million thus far
2/9 The latest barbecue list from Only In Your State includes Jon G’s Barbecue
2/23 Lewis Donald of Sweet Lew’s BBQ announces the Carolina Barbecue Festival to be held May 22 at Camp North End in Charlotte
2/27 Congrats to Garren and Kelly from Jon G’s, who 2 years ago on this date closed on the former Barbee’s Barbecue location, which they would open in June 2020 just a few months into the pandemic
March
3/12 Actor Eric Wareheim made it all the way from LA to Jon G’s Barbecue for a Barbecue Saturday
3/14 Noble Smoke‘s second location at Optimist Hall opens; it was originally scheduled to open on 3/2
3/22 Noble Smoke is involved in a bit of controversy when a miscommunication between its landlord and a neighboring business kicks off a brouhaha
3/24 Noble Smoke and Jim Noble’s official response. As of this writing I have not seen whether an agreement has been reached.