If my wife and I hadn’t found Smokey Bones in Fayetteville and Greensboro NC, respectively, last month which – even though they’re a regional chain and chain barbecue restaurants generally are mediocre at best, ‘Bones is not mediocre – offers simply the best pulled-pork barbecue I’ve had in over 20 years, then I’d be plugging Lewis BBQ in Durham which, despite the fact I moved to Apex this past June not 5-6 miles from Lewis’, I finally managed to get to for lunch yesterday and all I can say is WOW!!!, if not for Smokey Bones and Lewis’ is 98% as good as Smokey’s, just a more traditional Eastern North Carolina chopped pork style, then I’d be telling you that Lewis has the best barbecue I’ve had in over 20 years, yeah, Wow!
Per my SOP, I’m going to eat there at least one more time before writing a formal review of them and putting it on my wildly popular NC-BBQ Page
http://hkentcraig.com/bbq.html
. . . so look for it there sometime between now and Christmas, but please do consider stopping by and enjoying Lewis’ fine porcine fare if you’re near the intersection of NC Highways 54 & 55 just off I-40, they’re just south of the Golden Corral there on the right on ‘55 as you head south.
February 27, 2006 at 5:45 am
I just now ran across your posting and I’m glad to find out about Smoky Bones here in Greensboro. I’d just about given up on finding good, genuine Eastern NC Barbecue in these parts. Since BoHogs opened here on Muir’s Chapel Road and W. Market Street, the picture has improved somewhat. Not many places can compete with “down east” area “Q” like in Wilson and the like. However, I grew up in Bynum, NC, a little mill town on the Haw River between Pittsboro and Chapel Hill, and I thought as a child that Henry Hearne, a man from Bynum who could do darn near everything, carpentry, electrical, masonry, raise hogs, and best of all, cook, made the only barbecue in the world. I just didn’t know it existed anywhere else until I became old enough to drive and leave the relative seclusion of that little piece of Paradise. I found the place where Henry got his inspiration….. Down East. Ever since then, I’ve been on a constant quest to find that special kind of heavenly “Q” just about every place I’ve lived.
Now, there’s always been great barbecue in my hometown of Bynum. When Henry sold his restaurant in Bynum to James Allen, James carried on the tradition and recipe for not only Henry’s barbecue, but also his best-in-the-world brunswick stew. James opened up another retaurant on Highway 86 just north of Chapel Hill, and now his son runs both. If you have a hankerin’ for some of the best Q and Stew you ever had, take a ride to Allen’s at Bynum (5 miles north of Pittsboro, or 12 miles south of Chapel Hill) or to Allen and Son on Highway 86 between Chapel Hill and Hillsboro and partake and enjoy!
P.S. For “chain” barbecue, “Bar-B-Cue & Ribs”, in Graham and Siler City ain’t bad. I just wish the poor, underprivileged, uninformed folks who think that Lexington, NC has anything close to Eastern Barbecue could just have an opportunity to taste the real thing! Tomato sauce is for pizza!