Revisiting Ayden, NC, after a Pandemic

If you know one of the competition cooks, she might give you a tray of extras to take home.

Ayden has to be the most barbecue-centric town in North Carolina, which is easily the most-barbecue-centric state. The community’s barbecue heritage is celebrated every year, except when the coronavirus pandemic has canceled activities. 

Businesses celebrate the town's barbecue heritage, such as Oakley Auto Body that has this pig display at its entrance.

Barbecue Heritage of Ayden

The annual BBQ competition is named “Kings of Q” in honor of the two legendary barbecue kings and their family-run barbecue establishments: Skylight Inn and Bum’s Restaurant. In the event this year, 32 teams competed, and scores of the top ones were separated by very small margins.

Teams set up in several locations throughout the town.

The weather was perfect; actually, it was sunny and hot, but having no rain makes for a good contest. Because little sun was on display the last time that I was a judge in Ayden, I appreciated the sunny skies. 

Barbecue Judging in Ayden

When Stephen Tripp, the mayor of Ayden, welcomed the judges to the event, he mentioned that barbecue is the new focus of the town’s marketing campaign. It has also adopted a new motto: Que Marks the Spot. It’s more than fitting for a town that has such a barbecue history and tradition. 

The mayor welcomes judges to Ayden and explains the new marketing campaign.

At each contest, judges have duties other than specifically judging meat turned in by the cooking teams. For Kings of Q, I was assigned to the “turn in” table with two other judges. The teams have a 10-minute window to turn in each meat at a designated time. After an entry is turned in, it is renumbered before being taken to a table to be judged. This procedure is known as “blind judging” because the judges cannot identify any cooking team. 

The town's new motto is featured on several items.

The contest, sanctioned by the Kansas City Barbeque Society, is easily one of my favorites, and I’m glad that I was able to judge at the inaugural event. The event this year was promoted as the seventh annual (although the contest for years five and six were canceled). 

The town provides amazing support for the contest, including blocking streets in the center of Ayden.

Future BBQ Contests in Ayden

Let’s hope that the weather continues to be favorable in May in future years when the contest is scheduled. It’s very important to the local community that we recognize and honor its barbecue heritage, and Ayden is a very welcoming town for anyone who appreciates great barbecue. 

Stem, NC: A Barbecue Scene Suitable for a Wedding

All judging activities for the cookoff took place in the party barn.

A wedding venue makes a great choice as the site for a barbecue cookoff. The scenery is typically extraordinary, a large hall with extra side spaces is often available, and parking is more than adequate with overflow grounds for large crowds. The Barn at Vino in Stem, NC, is a popular choice for weddings and special events, and now it is also where BBQ teams and judges will convene each spring for a contest sanctioned by Kansas City Barbecue Society. 

The rolling green fields at the Farm included lots of spaces for vendors and activities.

Located on a 95-acre property with two large ponds in rural Granville County, the farm is a clear favorite of local brides. The landscape includes rolling green fields and almost three acres of vineyards, and the drive leading to the barn is charmingly tree-lined. That scenery notwithstanding, it was even more amazing as smoke spiraled from cookers that 46 professional teams and 24 amateur teams were tending for Jimbo’s Annual BBQ Competition.

Cooking teams are set up in assigned spaces near the barn.

The contest attracted some of the top teams in the Southeast, and the top-placing teams were familiar names. The event was also a fundraiser for Wreaths Across America, a charity organization that coordinates wreath-laying ceremonies at 2,500 locations to honor fallen military veterans. In addition to watching the BBQ teams compete, the spectators also enjoyed the scene with live music, an aerial display, 30 vendors, and food trucks. 

Live music was part of the entertainment for the day.

The contest marked a renewed interest in BBQ competitions as the effects of the pandemic seem to be under control and more events are being planned. For quite a few judges, this event was the first one for them in more than a year, and it was also the first event for several new judges. 

The scenery at the Farm at Vino made the weekend special/ The cookoff in future years will be just as successful as the one this year.

   

When there's a party, the Stem Fire Department comes too.

Would You Eat BBQ Prepared in a Container Box?

Beef brisket is prepared for the smoker at Lawrence BBQ.

Of course, you would—if it’s prepared by Lawrence BBQ, the latest addition to the barbecue scene in North Carolina and one of the top new barbecue places in the South. The location is as intriguing as the chef and his barbecue. 

Boxyard RTP is the home of Lawrence BBQ.

Located in the state’s Research Triangle Park in Boxyard RTP, a shipping container startup development (really!), Lawrence BBQ is the most vibrant occupant. In the facility’s more than 18,000 square feet, about 40 shipping containers have been repurposed as restaurants, retail stores, and event spaces. While Boxyard RTP is transforming containers into functional spaces, chef Jake Wood and his wife Brandi are enchanting old and new fans of barbecue. 

The line to order at Lawrence BBQ never seems to end.

Don’t plan on table service. You order from a window and pick up a few minutes later at a second window. And plan to wait to order. The line at Lawrence BBQ seems to never end as RTP workers converge there at lunchtime. The most popular orders are Texas-style beef brisket and traditional N.C. pulled pork. Both are slowly smoked over hard oak and hickory wood. Other popular choices include turkey, chicken, and oysters. 

The pickup window with the kitchen in the background.

A large covered picnic-style outdoor seating area is where most customers sit to enjoy their food and also listen to live music, although some orders are carried back to offices for lunch. Lawrence BBQ opens at 11 a.m. (now four days a week), but it often closes when it runs out of food. Clearly a disappointment. 

Live music is featured on Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays at Boxyard RTP.

To smoke his meats, Wood uses the huge Lang 108 BBQ smoker, which is respected for how well it maintains an even cooking temperature across the racks. Three smokers are lined up in an adjacent open space outside the restaurant’s kitchen (that is in a repurposed shipping container). They will be eventually replaced by a smokehouse that will be built on site. For pork fans, only shoulders are cooked. Because space at Boxyard RTP is so limited, Wood had to abandon his original plan to cook N.C.-style whole hog. 

Chopped wood is ready for the smokers.

To complement a pork sandwich, my wife and I shared an order of tangy coleslaw and a spirited side of baked beans. (The next time I come, I'll order the three-chess mac and also hope that they haven’t sold out of desserts.) The sides are Wood’s take on classic barbecue sides, and everything is made in-house except for the buns. 

A pulled pork sandwich with coleslaw is a popular choice.

This month Robert Moss, barbecue writer for Southern Living, considers Lawrence BBQ as one of the South’s six best new barbecue joints. If you appreciate creative menus, follow the restaurant on Instagram to learn when footlong pork belly corndogs are available. Long strips of pork belly are smoked on a pit, rolled in cornmeal batter, and fried golden brown. 

The menu board is quite simple and easy to update.

The opening of Lawrence BBQ had been highly anticipated because Wood had previously been chef de cuisine at 18 Seaboard, a now-closed restaurant in Raleigh. His reputation in the region expanded when he was recently featured at the Charleston Wine + Food Festival. Plus he’s a hit with fans of white sauce that Alabama is known for since Wood has it as one of his sauces, although N.C. natives will appreciate his vinegar-based sauce. 

Our sides of cole slaw and cue beans.

The opening, originally planned for early 2020, was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic until June. Eventually the business will expand to the top level when Wood opens a leisure bar called Lagoon on what he calls his “Party Deck.” 

The kitchen is constantly busy once Lawrence BBQ opens.

Although Wood spent many years in fine dining in downtown Raleigh, he grew up cooking whole hogs at family reunions and has been smoking meats with his family for most of his life. He was taught everything about hog butchering by Allen Lawrence, his mother’s father, and the restaurant carries his name. (Another family connection is that Grandma Lawrence’s recipe is used for the sweet potato casserole.) 

The central area includes 300 picnic-style seats (covered and uncovered) with a small stage for live music.

Boxyard RTP promotes itself as a “next-generation” retail destination for the more than 55,000 employees who work in RTP. It definitely is a fascinating place to explore or bring guests, and Lawrence BBQ deserves a visit.

Don't worry about staying cool at Boxyard RTP. (Big Ass Fans keep the air circulating.)

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.

Commemorating Juneteenth with a Cookoff

Pork tenderloin, the pork entry by one team, was absolutely superior.

What event should be held to commemorate Juneteenth? Why not something that brings everyone together like a barbecue cookoff? That is exactly what Sandhills Community College in Pinehurst, NC did. 

The college’s commemoration also included music, spoken word, and other activities. The main attraction was a campus cookoff, which follows a long tradition of including food events as the commemoration of Juneteenth spread even before today when it officially became a federal holiday. 

Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865 — two months after the Confederacy had surrendered — when U.S. soldiers brought the news of freedom to enslaved Blacks in Galveston, Texas. On that date, Gen. Gordon Granger issued a general order that proclaimed freedom for the enslaved in Texas. The Emancipation Proclamation had freed anyone enslaved in most areas of the Confederacy almost 2½ years earlier, but the proclamation’s decree was not being upheld in the Galveston and other areas of Texas. 

This pulled pork was one of the top entries.

For the cookoff, four teams signed up to compete in three categories: chicken, beef, and pork. Each entry was judged in the areas of appearance, taste/flavor, tenderness, and texture by a group of four judges.

This chicken entry came complete with Texas toast and grilled zucchini.

I was fortunate to be invited to the cookoff as a judge. The three other judges were the college president, a member of the faculty, and a member of the staff. We were each impressed with the top-quality entries that the teams prepared and submitted. 

A team leader slices tenderloin just off the cooker to prepare the pork entry.

The leader of each team was a member of the college’s faculty or staff and was assisted by coworkers. Although the competition was limited to college personnel, their barbecue was as superior as that prepared by competitive cooking teams, and the college’s teams were equally serious about winning. 

Another team leader completes the cooking while it looks like he has enough supervisors.

The cooking teams and organizers had not been involved in a cookoff before. However, the rules prepared for the competition were very complete, and the procedures (e.g., scoring, judging, meat turn-in) were typical of competitive events. 

College employees gather under a picnic shelter to enjoy samples of some of the entries.

Less than five hours after the cookoff had ended, Juneteenth officially became a federal holiday on June 19 every year and will be known as Juneteenth National Independence Day to commemorate the end of slavery in 1865. What a great day today was for barbecue fans, the college, and the country.

The first entry required a lot of concentration. Photo by Laura Hill.

When a Favorite BBQ Place Goes Up in Smoke…

The initial scene photographed by the neighbor who heard the explosion. Photo by Tim Searchfield in The (Southern Pines, NC) Pilot.

 
A barbecue place on fire captures everyone’s attention and is the top news in a small community. In Carthage, N.C., a town of slightly more than 2,000, the favored Pik-n-Pig was destroyed overnight when a fire broke out early on Sunday, May 30, 2021. 

Firefighters work before dawn to put out the fire. Photo: Carthage Fire & Rescue.

Pik-n-Pig was one of my local favorite spots. (See an initial post here.) It was a place to savor slowly smoked barbecue cooked over hot coals in the traditional way. It was also where I took out-of-town company who wanted to have a real North Carolina barbecue experience. Nothing was more authentic than Pik-n-Pig, even though being located next to an active runway make it seemed like it was a gimmick made for a TV special. 

A photo of the entrance that I took in 2020.

Later in the morning when the fire had been extinguished, the owners posted on the restaurant’s Facebook page how devastating the destruction was. Soon, more than 1,000 people had clicked the “sad” emoji (no one clicked “like), more than 600 shared the post, and over 350 posted comments about how important the restaurant was to them and expressed their sadness. A Go Fund Me page was started by the community with an initial goal of $20,000. When it was quickly reached in a day as donations of up to $1,000 were contributed, the goal was raised to $40,000.

Damage is clearly evident in the early morning light. Photo: Carthage Fire & Rescue.

When barbecue is cooked slowly over hot coals, the risk of unintended consequences is always present: hot grease here, flare-ups there, floating cinders that can ignite anything flammable. Even after the cooking is over, danger can lurk undetected for hours. The Carthage Fire Chief estimated that 75 percent of the restaurant was on fire when the first firefighters arrived at 3:45 a.m. 

The fire caused extensive damage to Pik-n-Pig. Photo: Patrick Priest via WRAL.com.

The restaurant had survived more than a year of the 2020-21 pandemic restrictions. Inside service was suspended for a while, and it relied on takeout orders and later outside seating to stay in business. Now that restaurant limitations have ended in this area, the dedicated local following had been returning there in numbers that seemed greater than before the pandemic. Pik-n-Pig was appreciated that much.

Several hours later, the restaurant's property is secured by the firefighters. Photo: Carthage Fire & Rescue.

When a favorite BBQ place goes up in smoke, the whole community comes together. It tells stories about when they had been there and how important the food was to them, children blow kisses for good luck that the place will reopen, fundraising efforts start to provide seed money for the business to recover — and everyone mourns the loss. 

An aerial view shows that the fire spared little from destruction. Photo: Patrick Priest, Sandhills Sentinel.

Barbecue is more than simply food. It brings people together too.

My barbecue plate with two sides and a corn muffin last year when only outside dining at Pik-n-Pig was available.

Franklin, NC: Finally a Barbecue Cookoff

Teams were well-situated in an attractive setting.

The 2020-21 coronavirus pandemic shut down many activities, barbecue contests included. Traveling to new locations and judging barbecue in scenic locations has been a great hobby, and I was very disappointed when I had to suspend my judging activities. After being fully vaccinated and with contests being held again, I ventured on the road for another barbecue contest after an 18-month gap. The first opportunity to judge was in Franklin, NC. 

Franklin is a small town of fewer than 4,000 residents in western North Carolina that is only a few miles from the border with Georgia. Chartered in 1855, the town was developed on the site of the large Cherokee town of Nikawi after the Cherokee had been forced in 1819 to cede their land in this area to the United States. 

Cooking teams had plenty of space at their scenic sites to set up.

Contest Series 

The cookoff in Franklin is one of 20 events in the Rufus Teague Throwdown series this year. Top cooking teams at each cookoff receive cash prices. In addition, points scored at each contest determine the top winners of the series in two divisions—pro and backyard—which receive additional prizes. The title sponsor is Rufus Teague, a brand of BBQ sauces and meat rubs as well as specialty snacks.

The Rufus Teague brand of sauces is the series sponsor.

All events in the series are held at campgrounds and recreational vehicle parks in the Southeast where the teams are required to stay at least two nights. In Franklin, the event was held at the Great Outdoors RV Resort, which has 63 sites and three cabins built into the side of a hill on the outskirts of town. The resort is in an attractive wooded setting and has scenic mountain views. Its clubhouse served as the location for all judging activities. 

The clubhouse where the judges convened looks over many sites at the resort.

Throwdown in Franklin 

For the cookoff in Franklin, 17 teams completed, although usually at least 30 teams compete in events in this series. The small number of teams required fewer judges than usual, and I was fortunate to be one of them. Most judges seemed to be from North and South Carolina but a few were from Florida and Georgia. The teams also included a few from Tennessee. 

Rooters-N-Tooters, the team on the left, came in second overall in the contest and also placed first in the chicken category.

The contest adhered to the safety protocols of the Kansas City Barbecue Society, which sanctioned the event, and judges were wearing facemasks indoors when they weren’t actively judging meat. They were also separated by twice the “social distance” usually at a contest. 

All judging activities were held in the resort's clubhouse.

Being in Franklin was more than enjoyable after such as long wait to judge again at a cookoff. Seeing barbecue events slowly return to the schedule is encouraging to judges as well as the cooking teams. Hopefully, as the pandemic becomes less of a public risk, more activities can be held.

Was this sign made for judges, cooking teams, or other campers?