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Linkdown: 9/16/20

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Monk: When I moved to Charlotte in 2005, I was surprised at the lack of barbecue options in town. Though had I been paying attention then as I do now, it shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise. Mac’s Speed Shop was a fun option for awhile but eventually fell off a cliff after it jettisoned its original barbecue partner and began to expand too quickly. It wasn’t a few years living in Charlotte until I finally checked out Bill Spoon’s Barbecue on South Boulevard, and while the style of barbecue seemed out of place (eastern NC whole hog in the Piedmont?) it was clear to me that it was Charlotte’s classic barbecue joint.

Unfortunately, as of close of business today after 57 years in business, that will no longer be the case. It was announced on Facebook Monday by current owner Steve Spoon, who in 2006 bought it from his grandfather Bill and began operating the barbecue joint in much the same way he had since he opened it in 1963 (albeit in a different location than their current one on South Boulevard). Screw you 2020, and screw you COVID-19.

Kathleen Purvis summed it up perfectly with this poignant quote that doubles as a warning for us lovers of other classic joints: “If all the hard lessons of 2020’s season of terrible teaches us anything, it’s that: Those places don’t last, can’t last, if we don’t make sure of it.“

Charlotte Magazine’s Greg Lacour also pitched in, noting that the restaurant was struggling before COVID and had been operating in takeout only mode for the past few months

Sadly, its taken the restaurant closing for Charlotte to show up again

Native News

Seoul Food Meat Co will open a second location in the Optimist Park neighborhood (not NoDa as noted in their post) as part of an adaptive-reuse project called Lintmen’s

Bear’s Smokehouse BBQ is a small Connecticut chain that will open a Kansas City-style barbecue restaurant in Asheville’s South Slope

Non-Native News

Rodney Scott’s BBQ in Charleston has been getting a big bump from “Chef’s Table: BBQ”

Home Team BBQ’s smoked wings makes the list

The best barbecue options in Virginia, according to Virginia Living

Solinsky’s in the Catskills of New York is serving some “epic brisket”, says Eater NY critic Robert Sietsema

I like this guy’s style

Friday Find: BBQ&A Stops By The Bar-B-Q Shop in Memphis

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Monk: BBQ&A host Robby stops by The Bar-B-Q Shop, a Memphis barbecue institution, to meet pitmaster Eric Vernon (as well as his dad Frank) for spare ribs, a Texas Toast barbecue sandwich, and barbecue spaghetti.

Description: Eric Vernon at Memphis’s The Bar-B-Q Shop is a second generation Pitmaster. He was nice enough to give us a tour of the restaurant, shares it’s history and introduces us to his legendary dad, Frank Vernon. Eric and Robby talk dry, wet, and glaze ribs and eat the #1 ribs in America (maybe the world). They top it of with the Original Texas Toast BBQ Sandwich, Smoked Bologna Steaks and Bar-B-Q Spaghetti. Check out the Bar-B-Q Shop: https://thebar-b-qshop.com/

Linkdown: 6/10/20

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The Wilber’s Barbecue pits have officially been refired

Congrats to Desiree Robinson of Cozy Corner Restaurant, 2020 BBQ Hall of Fame Inductee and the first African-American woman to be honored with that distinction

Backyard Barbecue Pit is a black-owned restaurant to support in the Triangle of NC

Black-owned barbecue restaurants that ship overnight nationwide: Bludso’s BBQ, Interstate Barbecue, The Bar-B-Q Shop (sauces)

Jones Bar-B-Q is among this list of black owned businesses to support

Greg Gatlin of Gatlin’s BBQ in Houston spoke with Rien Fertel in this oral history for Foodways Texas in 2013

Helen Turner of Helen’s Bar-B-Que was interviewed by the Southern Foodways in 2012

“The Cooking Gene” by Michael Twitty has been on my list and I need to get around to it

Derrick Walker’s of Smoke-A-Holics BBQ in Fort Worth is one of four pitmasters to help the backyard smoker

Lolis Eric Elie remembers David McAtee

https://twitter.com/soulphoodie/status/1270381270804168707

Friday Find: “Somewhere South” Explores Barbecue

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Link to episode

Starting in Lenoir County, NC and making stops elsewhere in North Carolina as well as Tennessee, Florida, and Texas, Chef Vivian Howard seeks to expand her barbecue palette beyond eastern North Carolina whole hog and barbecued chicken.

I do love that while Chef Howard visits her good friend Sam Jones at Skylight Inn, she highlights the side of barbecue not often seen in barbecue media from turkey barbecue that’s becoming increasingly popular in African American communities to female pitmasters in a male dominated field to smoked fish to restaurants in Texas that celebrate the fusion of barbecue from different cultures.

At the very least, be sure to luxuriate in the Florida section where Chef Howard attends a “Cracker barbecue” (21:20) – don’t worry, they explain the name – as well as a smoked mullet competition (25:14).

Description:

Southerners are particular about the way they cook and eat barbecue. No dish says eastern North Carolina more than the region’s signature whole hog barbecue; however, the art of cooking meat over fire and smoke is one shared by all cultures. On a tour of eastern North Carolina barbecue joints, Vivian is reminded of traditions that define the area’s version of pork barbecue while being introduced to new techniques.

Flipping what she already knows about ‘cue, Vivian sets out to uncover buried barbecue histories and to learn about the unexpected ways that different types of meat are smoked, pit-cooked, wood-fired and eaten. We learn that barbecue—both the food and the verb— cannot be pigeonholed into one definition. On her journey starting from the whole-hog pits in her figurative backyard, Vivian learns the history of Black barbecue entrepreneurship, from the North Carolina families who started turkey barbecue to the women firing up pits in Brownsville and Memphis, Tennessee.

Curious about other iterations, Vivian travels to the west coast of Florida, where a storied “Cracker” history at a smoked mullet festival drastically changes her perspective on Southern ‘cue. She then heads further south to Texas, where robust barbecue techniques steeped in tradition are being morphed by longtime Texas families doing what they know best. This includes a pair of sisters in the small southern Texas town of San Diego adding a Tejano touch to their barbecue joint menu, and two Japanese-Texan brothers with a smokehouse that pairs brisket and bento boxes.