Style
Carolina Barbecue
Whole-hog and pulled pork with vinegar or mustard sauce.
Rodney Scott's Whole Hog BBQ
Charleston, United States
Rodney Scott's Whole Hog BBQ started on King Street in Charleston in 2017, and it made Rodney Scott a James Beard Best Chef: Southeast — the pitmaster who has spent his life keeping the whole-hog tradition alive, cooking the full animal low over coals. This is where it began.
Skylight Inn BBQ
Ayden, United States
Pete Jones built this place on a simple idea: whole hog barbecue, Eastern North Carolina style, cooked the way it's meant to be. Seventy-six years later, it's still doing exactly that — no drift, no reinvention. The James Beard Foundation noticed in 2003 and called it an American Classic. They were right. Open six days a week, ten to seven. The hog is the thing here. Everything else is just details.
Bum's Restaurant
Ayden, United States
Bum's Restaurant sits on 3rd Street in Ayden and cooks in the Eastern North Carolina style. Wood fire, straightforward work, the kind of place that doesn't need to explain itself.
Carolina Brothers
Ashburn, United States
Carolina Brothers serves the whole-hog, vinegar-forward style of Eastern North Carolina — the real thing, not a regional interpretation. No smoke and mirrors, just the regional tradition as it's meant to be. They work through baby back ribs, smoked pork, chicken, and beef. Open daily from 10:30 a.m., with extended hours Friday and Saturday until 8 p.m. Call 703-729-7070 or check their website for the day's specifics.
City Barbeque
Garner, United States
The business started in 1999 with competition-quality barbecue as the standard, and this North Carolina location keeps smokers running daily. Hickory from nearby, meat cooked low and slow, no shortcuts in the method. Open seven days — late morning through evening most nights, an hour later on Fridays and Saturdays. The address is 110 Cabela Drive, and the phone picks up if you need it.
City Barbeque
Winston-Salem, United States
The business started in 1999 with competition-quality barbecue in mind, and this North Carolina location carries that forward: low and slow over hickory, cooked where you order it. No shortcuts in the method, no pretense in the setup. They offer delivery, curbside, and in-store pickup — practical options for getting smoked meat home or to the table without the wait.
City Barbeque
Rock Hill, United States
The business started in 1999 with competition-quality barbecue as the benchmark; this South Carolina location opened in 2026, bringing that same approach — meat smoked in-house, hickory from nearby, no shortcuts — to Rock Hill. They call it a smokehouse, and the smokers are there to prove it. The method is low and slow; the fuel is local hickory. What comes off the pit is what you'd expect from a kitchen that takes competition barbecue seriously and applies it daily.
City Barbeque
Greensboro, United States
The business started in 1999; this North Carolina location carries the same low-and-slow approach that built the brand. Hickory from nearby suppliers feeds the smokers, and the meat comes off when it's ready. No shortcuts. The smoke does its work, and the plate shows it. Call ahead if you're planning to feed a crowd.
Grady's BBQ
Goldsboro, United States
Grady's has been serving the same thing for nearly forty years: chopped pork, sweet tea, hush puppies, and fried chicken. No drift, no reinvention. Open Wednesday through Friday from 10 to 3, Saturday 10 to 4. That's it. It's the kind of place that doesn't need to explain itself. You know what you're getting, and you show up when they're open.
Holy City Hogs
Wadmalaw Island, United States
This is a hog farm that knows what it grows and how to cook it. Whole hog barbecue, built on heritage stock: Ossabaw Island hogs and old line Durocs, breeds that carry flavour most industrial pork has forgotten. Based on Wadmalaw Island, South Carolina. Find them at holycityhogs.com or on Instagram @holycityhog.
Home Team BBQ
Greenville, United States
This is one of several Home Team BBQ locations across South Carolina and beyond, part of a barbecue operation that's been running since 2006. The full menu runs from 11am to 10pm; after that, a limited late-night menu carries things through to midnight — a rarity in barbecue. No reservations. First come, first served. The kitchen stays open late, and the doors stay open later.
Home Team BBQ
Charleston, United States
Aaron Siegel started Home Team BBQ on Ashley River Road in 2006, back when Charleston's barbecue scene was quieter and a good rack of ribs was harder to come by. The original West Ashley location is where it all began — a barbecue restaurant that set out to do things properly and found an audience willing to show up seven days a week. What started as one room has grown into a small family of locations across South Carolina, but this is the address that launched it. The kitchen runs from eleven in the morning until midnight, which means you can walk in for lunch or show up late after everything else has closed. No reservations, no fuss — just barbecue that's been holding the same corner of Charleston for nearly two decades.
Lexington Barbecue
Lexington, United States
Lexington Barbecue, going since 1962, is the definition of Piedmont-style North Carolina 'cue: pork shoulder cooked low over coals, chopped or sliced, seasoned before the heat and left alone — no sauce in the pit. Southern Living readers keep voting it the state's best. Curb service available; closed Sundays and Mondays.
Melvin's BBQ
Charleston, United States
Melvin's has made South Carolina mustard-based barbecue since 1939, built around the "Golden Secret" — the tangy, gold mustard sauce that goes on everything and that you can take home by the bottle. It is a restaurant and a sauce maker both, staking eighty-odd years on one idea done consistently. Carolina 'cue, mustard-forward, the way the Lowcountry does it.
Melvin's BBQ
Charleston, United States
The James Island Melvin's runs the same Golden Secret mustard sauce that has defined the brand since 1939 — a Carolina style built on vinegar and gold. Ribs, burgers and the mustard-sauced classics, on Folly Road, open ten-thirty to nine most days. Call ahead if you need to.
Melvin's BBQ
Mount Pleasant, United States
Melvin's has done one thing since 1939 — South Carolina mustard-based barbecue — and the Mount Pleasant location keeps to it: the Golden Secret sauce, ribs, burgers, the mustard-forward Lowcountry style. Local readers' polls have handed it best-ribs and best-burger nods over the years. Open six days, ten-thirty to nine.
MISSION BBQ
North Myrtle Beach, United States
Two friends passionate about barbecue started MISSION BBQ in 2011, and the chain has since spread across the country. This South Carolina outpost sits on Highway 17 North, serving the same menu that built the brand: smoked meats, sides, and a patriotic sensibility that runs through every location. Open daily — eleven to nine most days, half-eleven to eight on Sundays. The format is fast-casual: order at the counter, fill your tray, find a seat. No phone number listed, but the website has the full menu and a locator for every branch.
Old Colony Smokehouse
Edenton, United States
Adam Hughes runs a counter-service barbecue operation in Edenton that takes wood seriously — all-wood fire, no gas, no electric, hardwood sourced locally. They move fast enough that fresh daily means fresh daily; order online for drive-thru if you want to be certain of a plate. Open Wednesday through Friday until six, Saturday until three. Closed the rest of the week. When it's gone.
Rodney Scott's Whole Hog BBQ
Homewood, United States
This is the Homewood outpost of Rodney Scott's operation, serving barbecue daily from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Stop by 2701 18th Street South, call ahead if you need to, or find them online — they're there when you're ready.
Rodney Scott's Whole Hog BBQ
Atlanta, United States
This is the Atlanta outpost of Rodney Scott's Whole Hog BBQ — the James Beard-winning pitmaster's operation, in a converted auto shop on Metropolitan Parkway since 2021. Whole hog cooked the old Carolina way, the full animal over coals. Open daily, 11 to 9. Call ahead.
Sam Jones BBQ
Winterville, United States
This is where it started. Wood-fired whole hog barbecue, cooked low and proper, the way the Piedmont has done it for generations. Sam Jones built something that works — simple enough that it's opened more than one location, but rooted enough that the original still matters. Open daily from 11 a.m., six days a week until 9 p.m., and Sundays until 8:30. Find it on Fire Tower Road in Winterville, or online at samjonesbbq.com.
Sam Jones BBQ
Raleigh, United States
Sam Jones is third-generation Eastern Carolina barbecue — his family has run the Skylight Inn in Ayden since 1947 — and in 2015 he and partner Michael Letchworth opened this expansion of that tradition. Whole hog cooked over wood, chopped with the crackling skin worked back in, the way it's done east of I-95. This Raleigh location on West Lenoir Street serves it daily from eleven. Come hungry; whole hog rewards it.
Scott's Bar-B-Que
Hemingway, United States
This is South Carolina whole-hog barbecue done the old way: wood-cooked over embers, served with vinegar-pepper sauce and skins. Scott's has been at it for decades, which is the only credential that matters. Open Wednesday through Saturday. Call ahead.
Southern Soul Barbeque
St. Simons, United States
Harrison Sapp and Griffin Bufkin started Southern Soul as a pop-up on St. Simons Island in 2006, went permanent in a converted gas station at the island roundabout, and rebuilt with the community after a 2010 fire. Whole hog, ribs, brisket and turkey over local oak, with four house sauces. Southern Living, Garden & Gun and Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives have all come calling — but the point was always the pig. Open daily on Demere Road.