Grady’s BBQ

Linkdown: 5/10/23 – The Barbecue Hall of Fame Semi-Finalists Edition

/ Barbecue Bros / 1 Comment

Featured

Congrats to Steve Grady of Grady’s BBQ (as well as the rest of the top 10) for making the semi-finalist list for this year’s Barbecue Hall of Fame class! The inductees will be announced later this month on May 24th.

Native News

WRAL is a fan of Midwood Smokehouse‘s latest location in Raleigh

Midwood Smokehouse has some new barbecue taco specials Thursdays through Sundays in May for National Barbecue Month

Winners from this year’s Jiggy with the Piggy Challenge in Kannapolis

Congrats to Longleaf Swine for being named Readers’ Choice Awards winner for Best New Restaurant by Wake Living’s readers

Congrats to Prime Barbecue on 3 years open

Panther City BBQ out of Texas will be joining Christopher Prieto in an upcoming Latin-inspired barbecue class

Check out John Tanner’s updated list of best barbecue in Eastern NC

The Lexington Pit Stop Event Combines NASCAR and Barbecue this Memorial Day weekend; it’s a celebration of Lexington’s stock car racing teams and the pit-cooked Lexington-style barbecue for which the town is famous

Non-Native News

Scotty’s Whole Hog Barbecue is switching to a “once and month” pop-up schedule in Minnesota this year, and the next service will be on May 20

Aaron Franklin’s latest book, Smoke, from him and his photographer/collaborator Jordan McKay is now out

John Tanner’s out of state travels takes him to B. Cooper Barbecue in Austin, Pig Beach in West Palm Beach, and Pig and Pint in Mississippi

Report from the field on Kolacny BBQ House by Bryan from Tales from the Pits

Linkdown: 3/8/23 – The “Cooking with Gas” Edition

/ Barbecue Bros / Leave a comment

Featured

Monk: Southern Living readers pick their favorite barbecue in each state in the South for the annual “Best in the South” issue. While Robert Moss provides a foreword, please remember that this is a reader chosen list and not his South’s Top 50 Barbecue Joints list. So address your ire at the masses and not Moss’ inbox.

Moss does note that half of the 14 are repeat, with the other half being new to the list. For North Carolina, the reader’s pick this year was Lexington Barbecue but it was not a repeat winner as last year’s choice was Buxton Hall Barbecue.

Check out the Southern Living reader’s pick at the link below.

Native News

Steve and Gerri Grady get profiled in the local paper, the Mount Olive Tribune

Eat Raleigh checks in at Longleaf Swine and they are also a fan

Congrats to Black Powder Smokehouse on their Asheboro location, their second store

Midwood Smokehouse is doing pork versions of birria tacos

Tickets are now on sale for the Pinehurst Barbecue Festival taking place Labor Day weekend

Non-Native News

Hector Garate of Palmira BBQ is headed to Austin later this month for a collaboration with Interstellar BBQ

Sweatman’s Barbecue in Holly Hill has made the switch to gas

Howard Conyers is hosting The Roots of BBQ Invitational Memorial Day weekend in Paxville, SC (ticket link)

NYC BBQ checks out the relocated Pig Beach in Queens and found that “the quality has not declined a bit even with the big changes the past few months”

Memphis in May will be back at Tom Lee Park for this year’s event

Linkdown: 7/6/22

/ Barbecue Bros / 1 Comment

Monk: After a 2 month break to recap season 3 of “BBQ Brawl,” we’re back with a roundup of the latest barbecue news in North Carolina and beyond.

Featured

Catching up on some of the NC barbecue posts the past couple of months from Friend of the Blog John Tanner, he was making the rounds in eastern NC during the spring starting with a return trip to Parker’s Barbecue in Wilson where he enjoyed the barbecue but particularly the fried chicken

He then headed to Marty’s BBQ across town and did a head-to-head comparison with his meal at Parker’s

He followed up those meals with another return trip to Grady’s BBQ which, despite John’s near persistent drum beating, is still not a UNESCO world heritage site

John also visited Southport Smokehouse and Leland Smokehouse in the Wilmington-area and came away resolved to eating seafood at the beach in the future

But that was followed by the best pork of his trip (and contender for best in eastern NC according to him) at Stephenson’s Bar-B-Q in Willow Springs

John then swing through the Piedmont and hit up Stamey’s Barbecue in Greensboro which, while he had a fine meal, he was surprised to learn that hush puppies didn’t come with the meal

When news of Richard’s Bar-B-Q in Salisbury closing later this month, he also spun some words reflecting on the pending loss of yet another True ‘Cue joint

Native News

Congrats to Grady’s BBQ on 36 years open

Elliot Moss has parted ways with Buxton Hall Barbecue, according to his Instagram post, but will be staying in Asheville and has another restaurant in the works; as for barbecue: “I’m NOT done with BBQ. My passion for BBQ will live on forever. I’ll be doing some bbq traveling & cooking. Stay tuned”

ICYMI, our latest Lexington (NC) Barbecue Rankings

Linkdown: 2/9/22

/ Barbecue Bros / Leave a comment

I covered this on the Facebook page briefly a few weeks back, but Smiley’s Lexington BBQ has officially announced its closing due to the NCDOT widening of Winston Road in Lexington. This widening was first announced in 2018 with a start date in summer 2020 but had likely been delayed due to the pandemic.

While owner Steve Yountz is not ready to retire just yet, per him “right now there is no definite plans on relocating as far as availably and affordability.” Patrons will have until February 26 to dine at the current location of Smiley’s before it closes its doors for good.

Nearby barbecue restaurant Speedy’s is also expected to close as a result of the road widening, however they are more optimistic about reopening in a new location and plan to rebuild and relocate, depending on the compensation they receive from DOT.

While the optimist in me hopes that both restaurants are able to relocate and continue business in due time, I worry that by next month we will be down two more classic NC barbecue joints.

Native News

A helpful post from Grady’s

Non-Native News

Applications for the Preserve the Pit fellowship are due March 1st

Tim Carman of The Washington Post comes out with his annual barbecue list, with the wrinkle of releasing it in the winter time when some joints are closed

Carman also mourns the loss of pitmaster Corries Hardy

Rodney Scott and Eric Church getting into the honkey tonk game, and bringing whole hog to Broadway at Chief’s

Loro’s second location opens in Houston later this month

J.C. Reid on the evolution of the “Texas Trinity”

Roegels Barbecue opened their Katy location last week

Eater NY critic Robert Sietsema finds Myron Mixon’s Hoboken restaurant to be mixed in quality