Celebrating in Apex, NC, with Barbecue

Winner of the pork category, Top Gun also scored high enough in the other categories to be the grand champion.

The Peak City Pig Fest has been a top community event in Apex, NC, each summer for bringing the community together over barbecue as well as attracting visitors to its downtown business district … until the coronavirus pandemic caused the ninth annual cookoff to be canceled in 2020. 

The beer garden is always a popular spot at the Pig Fest.

At the judges meeting, Mayor Jacques Gilbert heartily welcomed everyone and emphasized how important the event has been to the town since the inaugural cookoff was held in 2012. 

Judges await the arrival of the mayor to start the meeting.

The cookoff also important for cooking teams to showcase their talents as well as for judges who traveled this year from as far north as New Jersey and Ohio and south as Florida to participate in an event sanctioned by the Kansas City Barbecue Society. 

The first turn-in of the contest is brought to Doug Reid (left), KCBS contest representative.

The Pig Fest continues to be one of my favorites, perhaps because it was where I cooked with one of the competition teams in 2016. It also attracts the top cookoff teams in the Southeast. For this year, 30 cooking teams competed. 

Banners promoting the Pig Fest adorn posts in downtown Apex...

The organizers couldn’t hold the usual street festival with a wide assortment of vendors and activities because they had decided very late to conduct the cookoff this year. Concerns about the pandemic and the new delta variant delayed the decision. 

... where streets are unusually quiet without any vendors,...

However, the weekend still featured a beer garden and barbecue plates for sale; both are important activities for the Apex Sunrise Rotary Club because the Pig Fest is its signature fund-raising event. Because so many people were interested in attending the event, lines for both beer and food sales were very long. 

... but the line for the beer garden was long.

Even with the disruptions of the pandemic over the last 18 months, the cooking teams were performing at a very high level. With a total score of 694.2516, Top Gun Barbecue squeaked out a win over the second-place team, Smoke N Brew Mafia, by only 0.046 points, less than a tenth of a point. 

Plates of BBQ were sold to contribute to the fund-raising efforts of the organizers.

Seeing the Pig Fest return to Apex is a hopeful sign and shows how important such community events are for everyone involved.