Monk: This mostly wordless, made-for-social-media video goes back and forth between some pretty great barbecue joints: (in order) Buxton Hall Barbecue, La Barbecue, Skylight Inn, Convenience West, Lexington Barbecue, and Pecan Lodge. Despite the lack of narrative, there are still some pretty great visuals of each joint.
Lexington Barbecue
Introducing: The Barbecue Bros General Store
Monk: We are happy to re-introduce our updated “Forefathers of Lexington Barbecue” t-shirt in a refreshed design printed on a higher quality shirt than version 1.0. Plus, we have a few new items for sale. All while supplies last…meaning once they are gone they are gone.
Link to to the new General Store
Our updated “Forefathers of Lexington Barbecue” t-shirts are in an updated 2.0 design on a soft Next Level t-shirt in sizes M, L, XL, and 2XL.
Plus, we now have camouflage koozies with the Barbecue Bros logo and web address as well as limited edition retro motel-style keychains for sale.
Save money when you buy combo packs of the three items. Who doesn’t love saving a few dollars?
Introducing: The Lexington Big Board
Monk: Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that I quietly posted my Lexington rankings a few months back through the top navigation bar. Before the pandemic hit, it was my pet project to hit all of the current Lexington-area barbecue restaurants for my definitive* Lexington rankings. I’ve been a longtime fan of Lexington Barbecue and in recent years, The Barbecue Center. But as the self-proclaimed “Barbecue Capital of the World” (one of many cities claiming that title, it should be noted) boasting at times one barbecue restaurant per 1,000 restaurants (though this is not currently the case), I needed to explore the others to understand the quality and depth of the other restaurants.
I’ve broken the 14 restaurants I’ve reviewed thus far into three tiers. Someday I will get to the curiously named Lexington Trimmings for completeness sake but in the meantime, here is the most definitive list of Lexington-area barbecue restaurants on the internet*. Ladies and gentlemen, the Lexington Big Board.
*one man’s opinion
**that I know of
Tier 1
- Lexington Barbecue
- Bar-B-Q Center
- Rick’s Smokehouse
- Speedy’s Barbecue
- Smiley’s Lexington Barbecue
- Backcountry Barbeque
I need to revisit both Smiley’s and Speedy’s asap, as they may no longer be in business for too much longer as a result of the NC Department of Transportation widening Highway 8 that they both sit on. Also, both were reviewed very early in this blog’s life and while I really enjoyed both, I’ve had a lot of barbecue since.
Tier 2
To my knowledge, all of these places smoke over wood with no gas or electricity but are just a notch below the best of the best in Lexington.
Tier 3
Of the bottom tier, Kerley’s and Randy’s don’t smoke over wood and it shows in the actual barbecue.
Still to try
Lexington Trimmings
Have I missed anything? Let me know in the comments or email us at barbecuebros@gmail.com.
Friday Find: Adventures of A+K Explore Eastern vs. Western (Lexington) style
Monk: YouTube Vloggers Andrew and Kathryn, also known as The Adventures of A+K, live in a sprinter van, and document their adventures on the road. They are both Texas natives but recently made a trip across North Carolina to try our two types of barbecue – eastern and western/Lexington-style – at our two most famous barbecue restaurants: Skylight Inn in Ayden and and Lexington Barbecue in Lexington. They are both novices to North Carolina barbecue and lacked some of the proper barbecue vocabulary to describe the food (not to mention they didn’t mix the slaw with the barbecue!) but were very much open to it and, in the end, both preferred one style over the other (no spoilers).
Description:
A couple months ago we heard about the North Carolina BBQ Trail, which is a route across the state of North Carolina with 21 BBQ stops. We love BBQ, so we knew we had to try it! North Carolina has two styles of BBQ: Eastern Style and Western/Lexington Style. In this vlog we road tripped 3 hours across the state of North Carolina to try one spot for each style!
STOPS
Skylight Inn BBQ (Ayden): https://www.yelp.com/biz/skylight-inn…
Jubala Coffee (Raleigh): https://www.yelp.com/biz/jubala-villa…
Lexington BBQ (Lexington): https://goo.gl/maps/JZUpkmd6tinpjAvy5