A short documentary entitled Skylight Inn’s Whole Hog BBQ about the Skylight Inn and Sam Jones.

Sam Jones is the seventh generation pitmaster of his family’s BBQ restaurant, the Skylight Inn. Since 1947, the restaurant has become an icon in the BBQ world for selling one thing and one thing only: chopped Eastern-style North Carolina whole hog pork—served only on a bun or in a tray with corn bread. As Sam Jones says, when the customers arrive at Skylight Inn, “they’ve already made the decision of what they’re gonna be eating for lunch, it’s just a matter of how much of it they’re gonna have.”

Linkdown: 4/16/14

– The Charlotte Observer has a list of various road trips for Spring (including one for beer), and here is a 10-stop NC barbecue tour which includes some not-so-obvious choices

– Speaking of road trips, the latest reviews from Marie, Let’s Eat!’s NC barbecue roadtrip: The Barbecue Center in Lexington, Allen & Son Barbeque in Chapel Hill, Hursey’s in Burlington, and Short Sugar’s in Reidsville

– Bar-B-Q King in Charlotte is included as part of the history of Wilkinson Boulevard from the March 2014 issue of Charlotte Magazine

Few places are more familiar on Wilkinson than Bar-B-Q King. Follow the curved arrow of its sign, and most days you’ll see a lot full of cars. Behind the counter, a static buzz fills the room as co-owner Gus Karapanos flips on the speaker system.

“Same one we’ve had for 40 years,” he says. “People love to hear it.”  The sign, too, has been the same since Karapanos’s uncles opened the place back in 1959. Except for a few days after Hurricane Hugo knocked it down in 1989, that sign and the billboard–sized, ice-cream-eating Inuit at Dairy Queen next door have remained constants in a changing neighborhood. 

– Ed Mitchell, Sam Jones, and Rodney Scott are the pitmasters from the Carolinas in this year’s Big Apple Barbecue Block party in June

– I think I’ve seen a version of this list before, but in case you missed it Lexington comes in at #4 in this list of 10 best barbecue cities (h/t Rudy)

4. Lexington, North Carolina

Pork is the game in Lexington, a small town just an hour’s drive northeast of Charlotte, where a regional favorite is the wood-smoked pork shoulder, coarsely chopped and topped by a mostly vinegar based sauce -0 those who know their way around a Lexington grill often order it with some outside brown, which means more flavorful extra bark from the meat) and sometimes extra dip, which is just the word for the thinner sauce. Another Lexington trademark is red slaw, coleslaw that’s swapped out the mayo for BBQ sauce. There’s a lot to the Lexington scene, which is why the city throws the annual Barbecue Festival to celebrate it. For the regular season, Lexington Barbecue #1, established in 1962 and better known by locals as the Honeymonk, is the quintessential Lexington joint, widely hailed as the best in the business, always happy to help a diner out with a big plate of pork and some Cheerwine.

– Speaking of Lexington, this year’s BBQ Capital Cook-Off is April 25-26

– The Charlotte Smokeoff at Unknown Brewing is this Saturday in Charlotte:

Linkdown: 2/19/14

– Hillsborough’s Hog Day will be back after all

– Big Wayner’s mini Georgia barbecue crawl hit up three spots in the Atlanta area

– Beef prices are getting a bit ridonkulous and are affecting Texas barbecue as a result

– The Ballantyne Hotel will be hosting weekly $15 barbecue plate specials throughout the month of May (which just so happens to be National Barbecue Month)

– This month’s barbecue photographer is Ken Goodman, who had some nice photos from this year’s Whole Hog Extravaganza at 17th Street Bar & Grill in Murphysboro, IL including this great one of Sam Jones with his double cleavers

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– Thrillist’s “American BBQ Field Guide” doesn’t get the details right, particularly about NC barbecue (via), though their 33 best barbecue joints in the USA post by two different writers is a little better