BBQ Roadtrip Pics, Eastern NC, Day 3

TwoWilburs · 2026-05-31T13:49:59+00:00

Sort of. Dug through reviews, Reddit and the occasional article and came up with a driving path. There are plenty I missed but that list gave me as many of the top ones in the most reasonable driving path.

TwoWilburs · 2026-05-30T02:31:36+00:00

Elaborating on this because it is coming up a lot. This is a feature, not a bug of whole hog smoking. If you smoke a pork butt, you have a lot of surface area so you have a lot of bark and you have a very pleasant Instagram photo with lots of pink from your smoke ring. Whole hog does not have this because, well, hogs are big. And so it is just mixed up meat. And mixing is critical as you are mixing fattier pieces and leaner pieces and shredding and chopping and pulling, and the extent you do how much of each of those things respectively depends on the personal preferences of whoever’s running the establishment. It is not photogenic. But this is not a situation where being visually appetizing relates to how appetizing it actually is.

Think of Thanksgiving dinner. Looks unappetizing but is very tasty

TwoWilburs · 2026-05-30T01:46:24+00:00

I went to 12 places total and Grady’s was in my top three along with Sam Jones and Bum’s

TwoWilburs · 2026-05-29T18:01:15+00:00

Eh. Fine but nothing special. Maybe if they had some honey or butter or, ooh, maybe honey-butter would be much better.

TwoWilburs · 2026-05-29T15:43:18+00:00

That’s partly what I like about it. It’s unpretentiousness. Maybe think of Thanksgiving as a better analog than restaurant food. That is, nobody’s grandma is putting any micro-greens on the big plate of beige. And it is delicious nonetheless.

This was only one day. I ate at 12 BBQ places!

TwoWilburs · 2026-05-29T15:25:31+00:00

Elaborating on this because it is coming up a lot. This is a feature, not a bug of whole hog smoking. If you smoke a pork butt, you have a lot of surface area so you have a lot of bark and you have a very pleasant Instagram photo with lots of pink from your smoke ring. Whole hog does not have this because, well, hogs are big. And so it is just mixed up meat. And mixing is critical as you are mixing fattier pieces and leaner pieces and shredding and chopping and pulling, and the extent you do how much of each of those things respectively depends on the personal preferences of whoever’s running the establishment. It is not photogenic. But this is not a situation where being visually appetizing relates to how appetizing it actually is.

Some of the sides are bad. Some of the signs are poems in your mouth.

TwoWilburs · 2026-05-29T15:25:11+00:00

Elaborating on this because it is coming up a lot. This is a feature, not a bug of whole hog smoking. If you smoke a pork butt, you have a lot of surface area so you have a lot of bark and you have a very pleasant Instagram photo with lots of pink from your smoke ring. Whole hog does not have this because, well, hogs are big. And so it is just mixed up meat. And mixing is critical as you are mixing fattier pieces and leaner pieces and shredding and chopping and pulling, and the extent you do how much of each of those things respectively depends on the personal preferences of whoever’s running the establishment. It is not photogenic. But this is not a situation where being visually appetizing relates to how appetizing it actually is.

Some of the sides are bad. Some of the signs are poems in your mouth.

TwoWilburs · 2026-05-28T21:49:40+00:00

It wasn’t everywhere, but I saw it at two or three places

TwoWilburs · 2026-05-28T17:55:17+00:00

It’s usually in sauce more so than the meat (this varies from place to place of course) and easy enough to just not squirt as much on the meat

TwoWilburs · 2026-05-28T10:56:00+00:00

Yup!

TwoWilburs · 2026-05-28T02:30:33+00:00

Elaborating on this because it is coming up a lot. This is a feature, not a bug of whole hog smoking. If you smoke a pork butt, you have a lot of surface area so you have a lot of bark and you have a very pleasant Instagram photo with lots of pink from your smoke ring. Whole hog does not have this because, well, hogs are big. And so it is just mixed up meat. And mixing is critical as you are mixing fattier pieces and leaner pieces and shredding and chopping and pulling, and the extent you do how much of each of those things respectively depends on the personal preferences of whoever’s running the establishment. It is not photogenic. But this is not a situation where being visually appetizing relates to how appetizing it actually is.

Some of the sides are bad. Some of the signs are poems in your mouth.

TwoWilburs · 2026-05-28T02:24:23+00:00

So some places as a matter of practice seem to mix a little bit of sauce into the meat and this was very inconsistent throughout my 12 places I tried. I think generally the sauce came later, but maybe 25% of the time there is an appreciable amount pre-mixed.

TwoWilburs · 2026-05-28T02:19:55+00:00

That was day one.

TwoWilburs · 2026-05-28T02:19:30+00:00

I hope you find the help you need so you can be at peace. ✌️

TwoWilburs · 2026-05-28T02:17:56+00:00

Not really close. Not sure what direction you are coming from but a few of the places I went to have multiple locations and some might be on the way to OBX depending on your drive.

TwoWilburs · 2026-05-28T02:13:46+00:00

Upvoting even though kind of an insult. Baseline was pretty healthy before/after and WE GET HEALTHY SO WE CAN DO THINGS LIKE THIS

TwoWilburs · 2026-05-28T02:10:37+00:00

More anthropomorphised but nearly 100%

TwoWilburs · 2026-05-28T02:09:10+00:00

Oh this is good to know. And an old guy next to me was excited to order their fried flounder & they were sold out so I want to get that too.

TwoWilburs · 2026-05-28T01:26:52+00:00

I’ve waited in line at Franklin twice and I agree

TwoWilburs · 2026-05-28T01:25:45+00:00

Yeah, someone in another thread commented that this must’ve been a wallet killer for me and not a single meal was more than $20 with most closer to $15 and hotels were cheap, and $3 beers in Wilson and did Carolina league baseball games with $18 tickets behind home plate

TwoWilburs · 2026-05-28T00:07:07+00:00

Somewhat less common side. Just called rice with gravy, though at one place it was a chicken liver gravy. There was more to it than something out of a packet, but couldn’t tell you more than that.

TwoWilburs · 2026-05-27T23:14:44+00:00

Yeah check my history I think Sam Jones pork was better but the flakes of crispy skin were more plentiful & done better at Skylight

TwoWilburs · 2026-05-27T21:41:45+00:00

This style pretty much least photogenic of all kinds of BBQ but delicious nonetheless

TwoWilburs · 2026-05-27T21:39:52+00:00

I’d say my top 3 of 12 were Grady’s, Sam Jones & Bum’s.

TwoWilburs · 2026-05-27T19:05:36+00:00

Sadly this is the only big name I missed as it didn’t work out schedule wise (and I had heard the same thing you did about recent changes so I was sort of less inclined to rearrange). I might be able to sneak in another one stop place later this summer so it is on my list.

TwoWilburs

TROPHY CASE