NC

Kyle Fletcher’s Barbecue & Catering – Gastonia, NC

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Name: Kyle Fletcher’s Barbecue & Catering
Date: 6/14/14
Address: 4507 Wilkinson Blvd, Gastonia, NC 28056
Order: Small barbecue plate with hush puppies, slaw,  baked beans, fries, and sweet tea (link to menu)
Price: ~$8

First off, I’d like to apologize to Speedy for going to Kyle Fletcher’s without him. Ever since they beat one of our favorites, Red Bridges Barbecue Lodge, in the championship round of the Charlotte Observer’s Best Barbecue in the Charlotte Area bracket year, we had discussed checking it out together. Unfortunately (for Speedy, not me), for Father’s Day Mrs. Monk decided to surprise me with a quick barbecue tour of Gastonia for lunch. So you see it was out of my hands.

The parking lot to Kyle Fletcher’s is a bit of a maze to negotiate, but we were able to find a spot without too much hassle (leaving would be a little trickier). We arrived at 11am on a Saturday, with the smokers are going full blast at the rear of the building, creating a smoky haze in the parking lot. So far so good.

Skipping ahead a little bit, you will see below that I gave the atmosphere 1 hog. That is because I am an NC State fan, and the walls and tables in Kyle Fletcher’s look like Dean Smith and Charles Kuralt collectively threw up on them (i.e. they are covered with UNC memorabilia). The only reason why I didn’t give it 0 hogs was because they did have one NC State baseball jersey on the wall towards the back.

We were able to sit right away but had we arrived 30-45 minutes later we would have been waiting for a table. There were also quite a bit of pick up orders that day. Based on what I saw, the Gastonia locals certainly seem to love this place.

Which is why it was a little unfortunate that while the pork was smoky with a good amount of bark mixed in, I found it to be a bit dry. Using the table dip – a reddish vinegar concoction which I understand is neither an eastern nor Lexington style dip – helped but the texture a bit was still a bit dry nonetheless.

At this point, I must mention that the portions here were huge. Both Mrs. Monk and I got a small plate while we ordered a kids meal for the Monk-ette. Well, as it turns out, the small plates (served in cardboard trays) were really large and the kids plates are average size. I can only imagine the size of the large plate and the giants who must eat them. It was a great value for the money, that’s for sure.

Each plate also comes with hush puppies, slaw, and fries. All were the definition of average, and none particularly stood out except maybe the hush puppies. Still, it was a lot of food for the money.

It would be an understatement to say that I expected more from Kyle Fletcher’s. I can’t see how this place was named the winner of the Barbecue Bracket by the Charlotte Observer panel of judges, unless those folks had a vastly different experience than I did. In fact, Speedy, I would gladly check this place out again with you just to see if this visit could have been an anomaly. That is, if you aren’t still holding a grudge.

-Monk

(For another review of Kyle Fletcher’s, check out Big Wayner BBQ)

Ratings:
Atmosphere/Ambiance – 1 hog
Pork – 3 hogs
Sides – 2.5 hogs
Overall – 3 Hogs
Kyle Fletcher's BBQ & Catering on Urbanspoon
Fletcher's Kyle BBQ & Catering on Foodio54
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Midwood vid

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In honor of our first re-review, here is a short, nearly 4 minute video on Midwood Smokehouse made a few years back. Owner/restaurateur Frank Scibelli is prominently featured throughout the video, and it partially focuses on their smoker that they have apparently gone to great lengths to keep its manufacturer a secret (although one YouTube commenter believes it is an Oyler pit and based on what I’ve seen, would agree). Enjoy the lo-fi.

-Monk

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)
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barbecuerankings:

Old school North Carolina barbecue is divided into two distinct regions and styles.  Eastern Carolina style, centered around the small towns of Greenville, Ayden, Goldsboro and Wilson, feature the whole hog with lip smackin’ vinegar sauce.  Western Carolina style (or Lexington Style) barbecue adds a bit of ketchup to the sauce and primarily uses pork shoulders.  There’s not a lot of variety as pretty much every old school barbecue joint’s go-to is the pork sandwich with slaw and hush puppies.  Sometimes the only seeming difference between these places is the color of the checkered tablecloths.

After visiting Midwood and Mac’s in Charlotte, I headed over to Charlotte’s most famous old school Western Carolina style spot: Bill Spoon’s.

I then headed north towards Salisbury, Lexington, Winston-Salem and Greensboro to visit the storied houses of Western North Carolina barbecue.  There were slight variations between Lexington Barbecue, Richard’s Bar-B-Q, Little Richard’s and Stamey’s in the slaw, texture of the pork and feel of the restaurants, but none of these classic places have strayed too far from what made them famous.

I don’t want to tip my cards on these famous spots so you are going to have to wait until The 100 Best Barbecue Restaurants in America book comes out to see how they all stack up against each other and hundreds of other barbecue restaurants across the country.

Good write up and photos, but Bill Spoon’s is actually an eastern NC joint despite it’s Charlotte location. They cook the entire hog and their vinegar-based sauce doesn’t contain any tomatoes or ketchup. Their slaw, however, is another story as it is mustard-based and thus really neither eastern or western.

-Monk

Linkdown – 6/30/14

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– Another dubious barbecue list, this time from Cheaptickets.com; the only NC city represented is…Charlotte. Wait, what? (via bbqboard)

– Daniel Vaughn gets a mention in this NPR article about the traditional method of cooking barbecue: low and slow

– WRAL out of Raleigh lists the best local beers for your July 4th cookouts and while not officially listed, it ends with a suggestion for barbecue

We really can’t overlook one of the beers in the Triangle that screams barbecue and is a staple for your grill – Fullsteam’s Hogwash. This beer was made for eating Carolina BBQ and would also make a fantastic marinade.

– A couple originally from Jacksonville have opened a new NC barbecue joint called Unkl Sid’s BBQ Shack near Pittsburgh

– A list on USA Today of best southern barbecue spots includes Big Bob Gibson’s (with a location in Monroe), Lexington #1, Skylight Inn, and Scott’s Bar-B-Que

– barbecuerankings also posted a review of Midwood Smokehouse this week and generally liked what he ate; he also posted a review of Mac’s Speed Shop 

I’ve been to a number of places east of the Mississippi who put their restaurant’s reputation on the line with their brisket.  Some (4 Rivers, Full Service, for example) totally back up their claim with great brisket.  Others…no need to mention names…don’t quite stack up.  Midwood’s staff have spent time studying, learning and eating in Texas to learn from the masters of the craft and the results are evident as they make a quality brisket.

– For our short family trip to Atlanta this past weekend, Grant of Marie, Let’s Eat! wrote a letter to Mrs. Monk when I mentioned we may only have time to head to one barbecue spot (he also had some nice things to say about this site, which was cool). Unfortunately, we only did eat at one barbecue joint (we did some smoking of brisket and ribs on our own Saturday) but we changed it from our original plan of Fox Brothers to Heirloom Market based on his suggestion:

With this in mind, I understand that you will be visiting Atlanta this weekend. Unfortunately, Atlanta is 88 miles from Georgia’s best barbecue (Old Clinton in Gray) and 311 miles from Georgia’s second-best barbecue (Southern Soul on St Simons Island), never mind the holy trinity of joints around Athens (Paul’s, Zeb’s, and Hot Thomas), and you can’t get Columbus mustard sauce anywhere here, never mind that weird mustard-vinegar stuff that they cook the pork in everywhere around Macon, but nevertheless, Atlanta and its suburbs are home to at least eighty – that’s 80 – barbecue joints, and those are just the ones we know about. At least twelve of those will provide meals amazing enough to give anybody pause, and I assure you that many, such as Mustard Seed, Miss Betty’s, Wallace, and Speedi-Pig, will provide meals quite unlike anything any North Carolinian can get at home.