Robbie Robinson

A Thousand Words: The 2024 Carolina BBQ Festival

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Monk: This year’s Carolina BBQ Festival changed locations from Camp North End to Uptown and became part of the Charlotte SHOUT! annual arts and culture festival. And Speedy happened to be in town, so he and I hit up the festival courtesy of new friend of the blog, Chigger Willard of the Low and Slow Barbecue Show. Shout out to him as well as Lewis Donald of Sweet Lew’s BBQ, who puts on the festival every year.

Our favorite bites will be featured in an upcoming issue of The Smoke Sheet, but for now, here were some of the bites we tasted including whole hog from Elliott Moss and pork spare rib from Bryan Furman,.

Plus hash and rice from the recently-named James Beard finalist, Robbie Robinson. I chatted briefly with Robbie and he was understandably excited to have just been named a finalist three days prior. The winners will be announced June 10 at a ceremony in Chicago, which will be livestreamed on Eater.

Some of the faces serving barbecue on the day:

The typical Jon G’s line plus the Lincoln log cabin of beef rib bones.

No seriously, it was a gorgeous day:

Did you make it out to the Carolina BBQ Festival this year?

Linkdown 1/31/24 – The James Beard Semifinalist Nominees Edition

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Monk: The Semifinalist Nominations for this year’s edition of the James Beard Awards came out last week, and several barbecue restaurants were nominated in various categories.

Congrats to Robbie Robinson of City Limits Barbeque in West Columbia (aka “West Coalumbia”) for his Best Chef Southeast Nomination. He is the second pitmaster in South Carolina after Rodney Scott to get a semifinalist nomination.

Outside of the southeast, Texas dominated the rest of the semifinalist nominations for barbecue.

In the Outstanding Chef category, David Kirkland and Ernest Servantes of Burnt Bean Co. in Seguin, TX got a nomination. Daniel Vaughn believes this is a first time a pitmaster has been nominated in that category.

Barbs-B-Q in Lockhart got a nomination for Best New Restaurant:

Convenience West in Marfa was nominated for Outstanding Restaurant:

In Best Chef Texas, Geoff Ellis of Mum Foods Smokehouse and Delicatessen in Austin, Andrew Ho, Andrew Samia, and Sean Wen of Curry Boys BBQ in San Antonio, and Arnulfo Sánchez III of Vaqueros Texas Bar-B-Que in Grapevine were all nominated.

In Best Chef Southwest, Tabb Singleton of Phat Tabb’s BBQ in Idabel, OK was also nominated.

Congrats to all of the nominees! Finalist nominees will be announced on Wednesday, April 3, and winners will be announced at the James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards Ceremony on Monday, June 10 at the Lyric Opera of Chicago

Friday Find: City Limits Barbeque on Kevin’s BBQ Joints

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Monk: Earlier this year, Robbie Robinson from City Limits Barbeque sat down for a rather lengthy interview with Kevin’s BBQ Joints. Robbie has a different perspective as a CPA who does barbecue as his side hustle, but has some interesting insights. City Limits Barbeque has been on my list for years and someday soon I hope to be able to make the trip down to Columbia for a service.

Description: In this episode I chat with Robbie Robinson from City Limits Barbeque in Columbia, South Carolina.
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