15 North Carolina Barbecue Joints Worth the Drive, Ranked

Ask two North Carolinians to name the best barbecue in the state and you’ll start a fight before the sweet tea lands. East of I-95, they chop the whole hog and splash it with vinegar and pepper. Out in the Piedmont, they cook shoulders over hickory and dip the pork in something red. And now a new wave of pitmasters has dragged Texas brisket into the argument, which some folks consider flat-out heresy. Good. This list travels the whole state, naming towns, pit rooms, and the dishes that earn each spot. Confirm hours before you go. The old joints sell out early and don’t apologize.

Please note that some of the images in this article were created with the assistance of AI.

15. Skylight Inn BBQ, Ayden: The Whole Hog, Head and All

Pete Jones opened this place in 1947 at seventeen, on family land in Ayden just outside Greenville, and the Joneses have been cooking whole hogs since the 1830s. That’s not marketing. It’s a family that’s been doing one thing longer than most American towns have existed.

What sets Skylight apart is simple enough: they smoke the hogs with the heads still on. The pork comes chopped fine and mixed with bits of crispy crackling, and the cornbread is a dense, flat, chewy square of old-style cornpone with crisp golden edges, nothing like the cake-like kind. Minimalist to the point of stubbornness. Goldbelly slaps a James Beard award on it, but the real endorsement is the line out the door.

14. Lexington Barbecue, Lexington: The Honeymonk Standard

Wayne Monk founded this roadside spot in 1962 and the locals never bothered with the real name. To them it’s “The Honeymonk” or “Lexington No. 1,” and the Monk family still owns the original place at 100 Smokehouse Lane.

This is the gospel of Piedmont barbecue. Pork shoulders sit over hickory coals for around twelve hours, then get chopped or sliced and dressed in a thin, tangy red dip that would make an Eastern loyalist clutch their vinegar jug. Monk trained under Warner Stamey, which drops him straight into the bloodline of the style. The red slaw alone is worth the trip. I’d argue it’s the single most influential barbecue address in the state, and I’ll fight you on it.

13. B’s Barbecue, Greenville: Cash Only, Gone by 1:30

Bill McLawhorn, the “B,” quit farming in 1978 and bought a former convenience store on NC Highway 43. Smart man. The McLawhorn sisters run it now, cooking whole hogs over open pits every single day.

Nobody warns you about the rules going in. Cash only, open Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m., and it closes the moment the meat sells out, often by early afternoon. Show up at noon and you’re gambling. Show up at 2 and you’re eating somewhere else. The pork is pure Eastern, vinegar-and-pepper, no apologies. Closed Sunday and Monday, so don’t build a weekend around it.

12. Sam Jones BBQ, Winterville: The Grandson Expands the Legend

Sam Jones is a third-generation pitmaster and grandson of Pete Jones, the man behind Skylight Inn. The DNA here is impeccable.

At the Winterville spot you get traditional Eastern whole-hog barbecue, same as the family has always done, but with a longer menu than the stripped-down Skylight hands you. More sides, more options, a little more room to make an actual meal of it. There’s a second location in downtown Raleigh if you can’t make it east. Tradition carried forward without being embalmed.

11. Prime Barbecue, Knightdale: A Michelin Nod East of Raleigh

This is the spot that proves the two traditions can share a plate. It landed a Bib Gourmand in the 2025 MICHELIN Guide, Michelin’s way of saying great food at a fair price without the white-tablecloth fuss.

The menu runs Texas and Carolina head-on: brisket, beef ribs, and house-made sausage sitting right beside Carolina whole hog. Purists on both sides might grumble. Everyone else just eats. You’ll find it east of Raleigh in Knightdale, open for lunch, closed Mondays. The brisket is the reason the national critics showed up, but the whole hog is why it still counts as North Carolina.

10. Parker’s Barbecue, Wilson: The Two-Door Legacy

Opened in August 1946, Parker’s serves tangy Eastern-style pork and fried chicken that locals have been eating for three generations now.

The best story in the building has nothing to do with the food. The original place had two doors: one side served oysters and liquor, the other barbecue and sweet tea. The founders eventually chose the family side. Decide for yourself whether they picked right, but the vinegar pork and the chicken suggest they knew exactly what they were doing. Find it at 2514 US Hwy 301 S, near the US 264 exit. Classic, unfussy, still packing them in.

9. Red Bridges Barbecue Lodge, Shelby: Cleveland County’s First

Red and Lyttle Bridges started this in 1946 as Dedmond’s Barbecue, renamed Red Bridges Barbecue Lodge in 1949. The third generation runs it now, out at 2000 E. Dixon Blvd in Shelby.

It was inducted into the North Carolina Barbecue Hall of Fame in 2025, so the state treats it as a landmark rather than a lunch stop. The chopped pork is solid Piedmont work. But ask anyone who’s been and they’ll bring up the hushpuppies before they finish the sentence. Listed hours are Wednesday through Saturday 11 to 7, Sunday 11 to 3, closed Monday and Tuesday.

A 1946 pit that outlasted nearly everything around it, now run by the grandkids.

8. Stamey’s Barbecue, Greensboro: The Root of the Lexington Tree

Wood pit-cooked barbecue from a family that’s been at it since 1930, now on Battleground Avenue (with a second Greensboro location on W. Gate City Blvd). Nearly a century, which makes Stamey’s one of the oldest continuously running barbecue names in the state.

Why it matters beyond its own counter: the Stamey family’s Warner Stamey trained Wayne Monk, who went on to found Lexington Barbecue. So if you ate at number two on this list, you were eating Stamey’s lineage. The plate pictured here is chopped and sliced barbecue with crispy outside brown, served with Stamey’s slaw, hushpuppies, and a tall glass of iced sweet tea. Open Monday through Saturday 11 to 9, closed Sunday. Come for the barbecue, stay for the odd pleasure of sitting near the source of a whole regional style.

7. Jon G’s Barbecue, Peachland: Wood, Fire, Smoke, Nothing Else

A small Union County spot in Peachland, east of Charlotte, cooking with “only wood, fire and smoke.” No shortcuts, no gas assist, no apologies.

The reputation rests on Texas-style brisket and smoked turkey, which drops Jon G’s firmly into the new wave rather than the old guard. Reviewers also keep circling back to the brisket fried rice, a side that has no business being this good and absolutely is. Hours are limited, so check before you drive. Peachland is not a place you want to arrive at on a closed day.

6. Southern Smoke BBQ, Garland: A Town With No Stoplight and a Serious Pit

Garland is a Sampson County town of a few hundred people with no stoplight. That it has barbecue this good is almost unfair to the rest of us.

Opened in 2014, Southern Smoke cooks over oak the old-fashioned way, and the sides, beans, collards, mac and cheese, hold their own against the meat. The catch is the schedule. Open only a few days a week, listed as Thursday and Friday lunch, so this one demands a phone call before you point the car toward 29 Warren St. Worth it. A place you have to earn usually earned its reputation first.

5. Stephenson’s Bar-B-Q, Willow Spring

Family-owned and family-run since 1958, out on NC Highway 50 north, and the pork tells you every one of those years went toward getting it right. This is Eastern style. Chopped fine, dressed in a thin vinegar sauce flecked with red pepper that soaks into every bite — and nobody here is apologizing for that.

It sits on both the NC Barbecue Trail and Johnston County’s own JoCo BBQ Trail, the kind of double honor you earn by outlasting the fads. Listed hours run 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., but I wouldn’t gamble on a holiday without calling first.

4. Speedy’s Barbecue, Lexington

Pork shoulder dipped in a tomato-based sauce — that’s the whole argument of Lexington barbecue in one bite. Our State profiled it as the family place it has always been, now run by Roy and Ella Dunn, and the red slaw alone is worth the drive.

One caution before you set your GPS. Word is Speedy’s moved to 408 Piedmont Drive in 2023 after decades at its old spot. Confirm the address yourself, because a wrong turn in Lexington on a Saturday is a crime against your own appetite.

3. Little Richard’s BBQ, Winston-Salem

Sixteen hours over hickory. Fresh pork shoulders, smoked the old way, in a town where barbecue could easily have gone soft and corporate — and Little Richard’s just refuses. The stated mission is keeping the North Carolina pit method alive in the Triad, and the smoke ring is the receipt.

You’ll find it at 109 S. Stratford Rd. The slaw leans red, the hushpuppies come hot, and the whole plate eats like somebody’s grandfather was standing over the pit at four in the morning. Because somebody was.

2. The Redneck BBQ Lab, Benson

Opened in January 2017, which makes it a newcomer by Carolina standards. The pits don’t care about seniority. Competition-style barbecue is the whole point here, the kind built to win judging tables, and the menu runs wide — pulled pork, brisket, turkey, ribs, chicken, plus slow-cooked beans and collards that could carry a plate on their own.

Find it at 12101-B NC Hwy 210 in Benson, Johnston County. Here the old whole-hog gospel runs headfirst into the trophy circuit, and the brisket proves North Carolina can play that game too.

1. Noble Smoke, Charlotte

Charlotte chef Jim Noble put his name on the sign, and you feel it in the sides. Butter beans, field peas, collards, succotash, pan-fried corn. This is barbecue that remembers it belongs to a bigger Southern table, not just a pit.

At 2216 Freedom Dr., it’s the big-city entry here — proof that a growing Charlotte didn’t have to leave the smoke behind to feed a crowd. Come hungry for the brisket. Then stay for the vegetables you’d normally ignore and here won’t want to.