Monk: The Charlotte barbecue news seemingly slowed down in the last 3 months of 2020 as the restaurants that thankfully are still open continue to struggle through the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. As we begin 2021, here’s hoping the news is more positive than negative. Fingers crossed!
11/23 – Perry’s Pig Pickin’ in Mint Hill is part of a small grocery store; the history of how this Perry brother didn’t get into the jewelry business in the Charlotte Ledger
You've heard of Perry's at SouthPark. But have you heard of Perry's of Mint Hill? 1 of the 4 Perry brothers chose not to go into the jewelry business and instead runs a convenience store that sells bait, BBQ and cigarettes. @CristinaBolling with the story. https://t.co/DRzQCikCFk
In his latest issue of The Cue Sheet, Robert Moss examines the ten best college cities or towns to attend according to nearby barbecue options. While my alma mater NC State is mentioned as a future possibility once the planned restaurants like Sam Jones BBQ, Wyatt’s Barbecue, and Longleaf Swine open their doors in 2021 (not to mention Prime BBQ in Knightdale that opened this year and the upcoming Ed Mitchell’s The Preserve), several NC towns make the list. Not on the list either is Chapel Hill, primarily due to the loss of Allen & Son last year.
East Carolina University in Greenville has B’s Barbecue, Sam Jones Barbecue and the two Ayden joints nearby (Skylight and Bum’s) and comes in at #9. Surprisingly, Catawba College in Salisbury, NC makes the list just ahead of Greenville due to a couple of joints in town (College Barbecue and Richard’s) plus its proximity to Lexington and its myriad options for barbecue.
That’s it for NC on this list but both Columbia and Charleston appear further down from our neighbors to the south. I won’t spoil the rest of the list, but if you think hard enough you can probably guess which university and city takes the #1 spot on the list.
Whether you major in ribs or brisket is up to you: The Top 10 Colleges in the South, Ranked by BBQ https://t.co/RUzoistHAi
This smothered tater tots collaboration between Fox Bros Bar-B-Q and Nina and Rafi looks amazing
Announcing our collaboration w/ our friends at @ninaandrafi! “Meat Me In Detroit Tots”! Tots smothered in N&R Marinara, mozz, pepp, soppressata & capicola! At N&R try the old fashioned with our bbq sauce, mozz, pork, onions, spicy cherry peppers, finished w/ our vinegar sauce! pic.twitter.com/a8l6raflYt
An American pitmaster living in Hong Kong names the US barbecue restaurantshe dreams of going back to some day, including Rodney Scott’s BBQ, Cozy Corner, Franklin Barbecue, and Valentina’s Tex Mex BBQ
Pork n’ Pine Santa delivers pulled pork sammies in Baltimore
In Baltimore there’s a business called Pork n’Pine where Santa comes to your house on a bicycle with a fresh 9-foot-tall Christmas tree strapped to the front, and a sack of pulled pork sandwiches. This is undoubtably the most brilliant business concept in human history. pic.twitter.com/rA9B2jSSSB
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.
Chef Jim Noble and an Ever-Changing Charlotte: He's one of this city’s most successful, innovative, and philanthropic restaurant owners—and a lot of people won’t set foot in his eateries. Via @kathleenpurvis: https://t.co/Gb2KyO6WdN
Jordan Jackson, formerly of Bodacious Bar-B-Q in Longview, has resurfaced at Franklin Barbecue after a stint in rehab. Shortly after Bodacious Bar-B-Q was named the #4 barbecue restaurant in the last Texas Monthly top 50 list from 2017, Jackson disappeared and left both the restaurant and his protégé Bryan Bingham behind in reasons related to drugs and alcohol. This is a wonderfully reported story from Daniel Vaughn on the restaurant and people he left behind in Longview. Well worth your time.
In mid-2019 Jordan Jackson of Bodacious BBQ in Longview, the #4 BBQ joint in TX, seemed to disappear from barbecue. Months later, he resurfaced in the Franklin BBQ pit room. Here’s his story. https://t.co/9S8JIlRfzm
Charlotte Agenda has a local Charlotte gift guide, including barbecue rub from Midwood Smokehouse
Today is Small Business Saturday. Shop local today and always. Here's our all-local gift guide with many online shopping options. https://t.co/2sEoT0dAFK
Happy 4th Anniversary to the NC F&B Podcast who has interviewed lots of great NC barbecue personalities
Happy 4-year Anniversary to us!🥳 We’ve thoroughly enjoyed having conversations with restaurant owners, brewers, chefs, wine connoisseurs and more from throughout the state, the country, and even the world during the past four years, and can’t wait to see what the future holds. pic.twitter.com/HahrgDJFlD
John Tanner’s Barbecue Blog gets in on the recent Georgia barbecue action
More Georgia barbecue
DAWG GONE GOOD BBQ, Athens, GA-Great family owned joint. Perfectly moist pulled pork (8.6). I Recommend the vinegar or the mustard sauce. Best collard greens anywhere! Afterward stumble across the street to Classic City Lager for a beer. That’s a Dawg Gone Good day! pic.twitter.com/9t4UoSXHKA
DW: There are some millennials like me that seem to really care about these things, including some chefs opening bbq restaurants that care about continuing a regional bbq tradition, like Buxton Hall in Asheville. Organizations like the Southern Foodways Alliance are also trying to document what’s important about bbq in all of these various regions and profiling the key restaurant players in those places in the south. One of my favorite blogs, BarbecueBros.co, is run by some young guys who are just friends and like to write about regional bbq traditions and restaurants, particularly in the Carolinas which, in my view, is where we should start when talking about pork bbq.
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