Right after a fine meal at Longleaf Swine, I hustled over to Backyard BBQ Pit in Durham, about 20 or 30 minutes away.
Backyard BBQ Pit is a treasure, and they need help.
My report on my initial visit here, will give you a feel for the place. Adrian Miller, author of Black Smoke, has praised Backyard, as have John “The Godfather” Shelton Reed, and Robert Moss, who included it in his list of Barbecue Places Worth a Detour. I only had a sandwich, but what a sandwich!
That’s a nice sandwich, a sandwich to make the pig proud. It was delicious, the meat as moist and tender as it looks, and graced with a mix of hickory and oak.
I got anther pork sandwich ($4.30), but as I’d just eaten, I wasn’t in a position to take full advantage of the menu,
including the seductive vegetables.
I really need to return to do the place justice. I just hope Backyard will be there.
Backyard is indeed a treasure, and they certainly need help. COVID has been hard on local restaurants, and supply chain issues and inflation have added to the burdens of small places. As the Backyard folks put it, “Durham’s hole in the wall is starting to cave in.” Their freezer and walk-in cooler both failed, and in addition to the loss of product and associated damage, Backyard is holding on with a borrowed cooler and a freezer powered by a diesel powered generator. Paying for diesel is yet another burden.
In this emergency, Backyard has started a GoFundMe page, which you can access here. They need to raise $50,000. I urge you to show them some love. The financial burdens on hole-in-the-wall barbecue places can be crushing.
One more reason to give. Backyard is one of only two black-owned Barbecue places in North Carolina. (The other, also highly regarded, is Grady’s.) I frankly don’t really pay attention to much of anything about barbecue places other than their food. I appreciate, however, the precariousness of a long and noble tradition, and the value of promoting entrepreneurship and increasing wealth in the black community.
There are small businesses hanging by their fingernails these days. They add special value to the wider community, and deserve your support. We all should stand ready to lend a hand. Please contribute to their GoFundMe page.
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John Tanner's Barbecue Blog 
Thanks for explaining why Backyard should survive. I have a personal interest because it’s the nearest place where I can get good NC barbecue. More importantly they’re great folks who, as you say, are preserving a great tradition. As of this morning they’re about $3000 shy of their $50,000 GoFundMe target. I hope your readers will help them reach it.
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Thanks. I’ve posted this on a few food-oriented Facebook pages, too. I would post it on local listserves. But they get mad about out of area posts.
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