Name: Barbee’s Bar-B-Que
Date: 8/18/17
Address: 116 Glenn Falls St, Peachland, NC 28133
Order: Small chopped pork plate with red slaw, baked beans, hush puppies, and sweet tea
Price: $10
Monk: With the advent of the interstate highways, the roadside barbecue shack has become mostly a thing of the past. In NC, they can be few and far between if you spend most of your time in cities or on highways between cities. Thankfully, the only real way to southern NC beaches from Charlotte is Highway 74 East and a half hour outside of Monroe you’ll find the platonic ideal of the NC roadside barbecue shack, Barbee’s Bar-B-Que in Peachland, NC.
There’s not much to the shack that is right off of 74 with what appears to be a little-used smoker out in front gathering dust and cobwebs. The shack itself has two small dining rooms right off a kitchen and a smoker out back with cords of split hickory logs next to it.
Barbee’s has a fairly extensive menu of barbecue and non-barbecue options. For me though , the small barbecue plate turned out to be plenty big enough for lunch and the chopped pork was perfectly smoky and moist. Even though Barbee’s looks the part, I figured it was 50/50 whether the barbecue itself would be any good. Gotta say – I was pleasantly surprised.
Other than the obvious choice in barbecue plates, there is a barbecue hot dog on the menu which sadly I did not get on this trip – perhaps next time. The hush puppies were nearly perfect orbs served with honey butter while the red slaw was fine and the beans tasted right out of the can. I’ll be getting more of the hush puppies next time. Also worth mentioning is the ridiculous banana pudding, which was the dessert special that day.
Barbee’s Bar-B-Que is open 11-8:30 Tuesdays through Saturdays and I’d recommend checking it out if you are on that stretch of 74.
Ratings:
Atmosphere – 4 hogs
Pork – 4 hogs
Sides – 3.5 hogs
Overall – 4 hogs
I’ve eaten there myself, and tend to agree with your review. It has a “locals only” vibe that some places have – – Whispering Pines in Albemarle is another such place. They really need to use a slotted spoon when adding the slaw to a plate, it tends to puddle. When I ate there a car mechanic entered the place shirtless, covered in black auto grease, and made his way to a table in the outer room – – thus my statement that it’s a place that caters to locals rather than tourists.