This is Progress?

Big news from downtown Raleigh where the venerable Clyde Cooper’s Barbecue will soon disappear from the building it has occupied since 1938.  Cooper’s is not going out of business but will soon move to make way for new development.

Losing a historic spot like Cooper’s is the downside of the continued real estate boom that has brought hundreds of millions of dollars of new investment to downtown Raleigh in recent years.  The modest building that long-housed Cooper’s, even as the shadows of nearby buildings grew longer and longer, seemed invincible for awhile–every time a development proposal bubbled to the surface, it popped and Cooper’s was spared.  But this time looks like it will be different. The Holts, who own Coopers, were forced to choose between moving or trying to survive what would have been an estimated 15 months in dormancy while development went on around them.  So they are moving.

Thanks to reader Dave “Pork Skins” Schiller for sending me the article from the Raleigh Public Record that describes the situation Cooper’s faces.  As Dave said to me, it’s hard to imagine Cooper’s anywhere but 109 East Davie Street.  Where will they land next?  Probably not too far from their current location, according to the Triangle Business Journal.  Good luck to the Holts as they try to move forward while preserving the restaurant’s distinct history.


Barbecue Sauce Contest



Piedmont Barbecue Happenings

A few Piedmont-area NC BBQ articles of note:

1) Speedy Lohr’s boldly mixes meat and dairy.

2) New heavy metal barbecue restaurant coming soon in Gastonia.

3) Yankee transplant unleashes Porkasauras, and new BBQ joint, on Belmont.

Bull City BBQ Classic




Porky’s Pulpit: Barbecued Newt

Newt Gingrich has about as much chance of winning the 2012 GOP Presidential nomination as I have of being named spokesperson for the Kosher Cheese of the Month Club.  Nevertheless, America’s Most Self-Aggrandizing Amphibian is headed to North Carolina to campaign.  Hide your barbecue plates, Tar Heels, unless you want to wash your pork down with a tall glass of unsweetened Newt.

In a wide-ranging interview with WRAL news, Newt proclaimed: “I like barbeque well enough I’m prepared to eat the right barbeque in the east and the right barbeque in the Piedmont. As a Georgian, I think I can lay some claim to barbeque, and so I’m happy to come and eat both kinds.”  A solid answer from the Newtser, assuming the ‘q’ spelling of barbecue is WRAL’s doing and not his.  However, Newt missed an opportunity to push for the environmental benefits of wood-cooked pit barbecue: a step toward homegrown energy independence and less controversial than natural gas given the fracking issue. (It occurs to me that “frack-free” barbecue might be the South’s answer to gluten-free cornbread.)

Certainly Newt’s BBQ credentials are better than his yankee-competitors, Rick “No Google Stock in My Portfolio” Santorum and Mitt “Don’t Call Me Mittens” Romney.  If Newt can avoid a Rick Perry-sized barbecue gaffe, he has a good chance to dominate the Republican primary’s barbecue voting bloc.

Riding the NC Barbecue Trail

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Carolina Pork Experiment

