Here’s a place that’s figuratively in the middle of nowhere that does a land office business. Get ready for a true gem — and a big surprise. My first stop on Day 2 of the First Upland South Carolina Barbecue Tour was Midway BBQ in the town of Buffalo, South Carolina. You probably aren’t familiar with Buffalo. It had 1,266 residents in 2010, and the … Continue reading Midway BBQ, Buffalo, South Carolina
After an excellent lunch at Bucky’s, I headed to downtown Greenville. The city has received much publicity lately, and I wanted to see what had prompted all the fuss. I was impressed. Greenville is a small city, with only 67,000 residents and a bit over a half million in the county, and the downtown is small, but lovely. Trees line and shade the principal street, … Continue reading Henry’s Smokehouse, Greenville, South Carolina
After my memorable breakfast at Eddie’s Place in Charlotte, I finally began my First Upland South Carolina Barbecue Tour. For once, I did considerable planning before the trip, and it was a good thing. My main resource was my Ultimate South Carolina Barbecue Guide, with intersection or overlap between the Campaign for Real Barbecue South Carolina list of wood-only places and the South Carolina Barbecue … Continue reading Bucky’s BBQ, Greenville, South Carolina
After delicious lunches at the new Sam Jones in Raleigh and Backyard Barbecue Pit in Durham, I headed down the highway to Charlotte to see family. A heavy rain made passing Lexington without stopping to eat a lot easier. I managed to find Scott and Nora’s house, despite the best efforts of my GPS, and we went to dinner with Sinclair and Eric. You met … Continue reading Eddie’s Place, Charlotte, North Carolina
You should order this book, whether you like barbecue or not. About much more than barbecue, it’s about culture and change and homogenization and human idiosyncrasies. And it’s a truly wonderful read, with an oh so rare mixture of scholarship and wit. The Godfather, of course, is John Shelton Reed, distinguished scholar and Scott Griffin’s favorite professor at Chapel Hill; co-author of the seminal work … Continue reading The Godfather “On Barbecue”
After a great lunch at the new Sam Jones BBQ in Raleigh, I continued toward South Carolina with a detour for a light second lunch in Durham. No less than John Shelton Reed, the Godfather of Barbecue, had given Backyard BBQ Pit a strong recommendation, so to Backyard I went. I found it without trouble, or at least my GPS did, and I pulled into … Continue reading Backyard BBQ Pit, Durham, North Carolina
Upon my return from my Eastern Virginia Barbecue Tour on behalf of the Campaign for Real Barbecue (see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here), I decided to take a vacation. The perfect break from my routine, I decided, would be to head to South Carolina to eat barbecue. I’d eaten at a lot of barbecue places in and around the Low Country, so … Continue reading Sam Jones BBQ, Raleigh, North Carolina
Southern Maryland is all about seafood, especially crabs. The area is full of crabs, and they are delicious. That means lots of crab houses that specialize in steamed crabs, and that’s one face of Captain Leonard’s. There are rooms full of those six-person cafeteria tables covered with paper and ready to groan under piles of crabs and discarded shells. A lot of the places look … Continue reading Captain Leonard’s, Mechanicsville, St. Mary’s County, Maryland
Nancy and I went over to St. Mary’s County to buy some plants and such at Stauffer’s Farm in Loveville, an Amish community, and then over to the Patuxent River to check out a riverside restaurant for future exploration. Then on to Leonardtown, a nice little town with a small historic core and a riverside park, boardwalk, and playground. Michael and Liza take the girls … Continue reading Sweetbay, Leonardtown, St. Mary’s County, Maryland
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