Backyard BBQ Pit, Durham, North Carolina

After a great lunch at the new Sam Jones BBQ in Raleigh, I continued toward South Carolina with a detour for a light second lunch in Durham. No less than John Shelton Reed, the Godfather of Barbecue, had given Backyard BBQ Pit a strong recommendation, so to Backyard I went.

I found it without trouble, or at least my GPS did, and I pulled into the lot. Backyard BBQ is in a nondescript building on a busy street (55) just off I-40.

The interior is minimalist, with the dominant features being a huge blackboard menu and a steam table of vegetables. Beyond that the decor is graffiti, a small fraction of which you can see below. It’s a pleasant place.

It turned out that Backyard ends lunch service at 2:00, just a couple of minutes after I arrived, so I didn’t have time to enjoy a full meal and get the full flavor of the restaurant experience. That was disappointing, but just as well, in retrospect. I didn’t really need another lunch, and by this time I was behind schedule and it was rainy. The best I could hope for was to grab something to eat in the car, and continue on my way. I dared not even glance at the vegetables.

Thus constrained, I went up and ordered a pork sandwich to go, no slaw. The sandwich was up in short order, before I really had time to study the rest of the menu, transfixed as I was by the word, “Oxtail.” I ran — well, hobbled relatively briskly — through the rain back to the car and opened the sandwich.

That’s a nice sandwich, a sandwich to make the pig proud. It was delicious, the meat as moist and tender as it looks, and graced with a mix of hickory and oak. It set me back a mere $4.05, plus tip. Really.

I am reminded by the estimable Snopes1 (see comments), that Backyard BBQ was listed by Robert Moss of Southern Living as one of 10 unheralded barbecue places worth a detour. See here. And indeed it is well worth a detour.

You should hustle on over to Backyard BBQ. I know I will, next chance get. I’ll get there early, too, and spend some time with the vegetables as well as the pork. It may take a while for me to get there for a fuller report, but rest assured there will be one. Meanwhile, do take that detour and give it a try.

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