Saturday in the Pork

William Morris, Jr. outside his smokehouse in Hookerton, North Carolina. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)

To find Hookerton’s only barbecue joint follow 1st Street southeast as it leads out of diminutive downtown Hookerton. The name of the cotton field-lined road you’re now driving along is named for the half-century-old plus smokehouse down a mile on the left. Yes, that’s right, Morris Barbeque is of such local import that the town went and named a highway after it.

Cook's Barbecue: Born in the Pits

Cooks Barbecue at the end of Valiant Drive in Lexington, NC. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus



In 1969, Doug Cook built his barbecue stand by hand, in a cul-de-sac plot down the road from home. There wasn’t much to Cook’s Barbecue at first: a pit/kitchen, a wooden chopping block, and drive-up window. When customers wanted a place to sit and eat their chopped barbecue plates, Doug Cook felled trees from the surrounding oak grove, and built himself a dining room. 


Brandon Cook and Cook’s Barbecue were born just one year apart. Friends and family jokingly tell the younger Cook that he was born in his father Doug’s barbecue pits. He remembers crawling in the fireplace as a child, flirting with the waitresses as a teenager, and eventually, under his the elder Cook’s tutelage, learning how to tend the pits, shovel-sling the cherry-red hickory coals, and slow smoke the Lexington-style shoulders.      


For years Brandon Cook avoided Cook’s; he viewed the future of barbecue—not just the business but the art form—with skepticism. In 2001, he returned to his family's restaurant, inheriting the role of pitmaster. Fitting for a man born in a pit.

- Rien Fertel/ The Barbecue Bus


Brandon Cook at Cook's Barbecue. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)

Cook's Barbecue dining room. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)



Brandon Cook holds a shoulder fresh from the pit at Cook's Barbecue in Lexington, NC. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)

Wood coals glow in the pit at Cook's Barbecue. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)





Pork shoulders on the pit at Cook's Barbecue. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)

Brandon Cook takes a break before adding wood to the pit fire. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)

The cat named Barbecue rubs against a statue outside Cook's Barbecue. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)

The dining hall at Cook's Barbecue. ( Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)



Cook's Barbecue hush puppies. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)



Young cooks fry hush puppies and chop barbecue in the kitchen. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)

The lean meat is separated from the bone, the fat and the skin before chopping. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)



"Dip" is added the chopped barbecue at Cook's in Lexington, NC. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)

Cook's Barbecue, Lexington, North Carolina. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)

Cook's Barbecue
 366 Valiant Drive
Lexington, NC 27292


(336) 798-1928

Hours of Operation:

Wed - Thurs 11am - 2pm & 3:30pm - 8:30 pm

Fri - Sat 11am - 9pm

Sunday 11am - 8:30pm

Final Weigh-In

This post is for those who have been following along since our original Weigh-In. The final Barbecue Bus weights were not quite what we expected. Rien's one day of suicide sprints in the Walmart parking lot was apparently enough to keep his metabolism going, so he actually lost weight. While I ate everything in sight and moved only when absolutely necessary, though still managed to gain just a few pounds.

- Denny/ The Barbecue Bus

Final Weights:

Denny: 182lbs +5         Rien: 172lbs -1

Grady's Barbecue: "This Day is the Last This Day."

Stephen and Gerri Grady, Dudley, North Carolina. (photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)

Stephen and Gerri Grady married in 1986, the same year they established their eponymous barbecue house. The newlyweds purchased the pithouse from Mr. Grady's brother, who lasted only one day in business (he found the hardwood smoke overwhelming). Grady says he always knew how to cook a pig; by the time he was "big enough to walk," he was helping his grandfather, the neighborhood pitmaster for hire. Mrs. Grady, who, like her husband, grew up on a farm in nearby Seven Springs, also remembers helping her family roast whole hogs in ground-dug pits. The Gradys call what they do the "old-fashioned way." Tea is brewed on the stove top. All items on the generous vegetable spread are peeled, chopped, and cooked daily. The whole hog is still slow-smoked over oak and hickory coals. Grady's Barbecue was launched as a post-retirement pursuit for the pair; plans to close their business, dates circled on the calendar, have been made and passed over. But now Stephen and Gerri want to take their first vacation in three decades, and they acknowledge that their barbecue run may soon finally end. Modest and grateful, the Gradys live by the axiom "this day is the last this day."

-Rien Fertel/ The Barbecue Bus

The crisp skin from one whole hog is piled up after being pulled from the pit at Grady's Barbecue. The skin is chopped and served along with the rest of the meat from the pig. (photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)

The dining room of Grady's Barbecue. (photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)

Homemade sweet potato pie at Grady's Barbecue. (photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)

Gerri Grady at Grady's Barbecue. (photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)

Potatoes, collards, cabbage and black eyed peas. (photo by Denny Culbert)

Chopped barbecue plate, pork, potato salad, coleslaw and hush puppies. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)

Stephen Grady at Grady's Barbecue. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)

Grady's barbecue sandwich. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)

Grady's Barbecue
3096 Arrington Bridge Road
Dudley, North Carolina 28333

(919) 735-7243
Hours of Operation:
Wednesday-Saturday 10 a.m. - 3 p.m.

Kings of Pig: Nahunta Pork Center

Workers burn the hair from pig carcasses for processing at Nahunta Pork Center in Nahunta, N.C. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus) 

Pig carcasses hang in the coller for 24 hours before butchering at Nahunta Pork Center in Nahunta, N.C. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus) 

Cured hams ready for the holiday season hang in a temperature controlled house at Nahunta Pork Center in Nahunta, N.C. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus) 

Bacon, sausages, and country cured hams. Souse, chitterlings, and hogs' heads. Buckets and buckets of lard. Nahunta Pork Center, located outside rural Pikeville, uses "everything but the hair" and claims the title of "America's largest pork display." Mack Pierce opened the retail business in 1975, after decades of buying and slaughtering pigs for local farmers and grocers. The Pork Center still custom slaughters for both pig-growers and their own all-pork market, which features forty different fresh cuts of meat. Mr. Pierce's son and grandson, Larry and Brandon, now oversee the processing of up to 150 hogs a day. Nahunta also provides whole hogs to pit-cooked barbecue landmarks Wilber's in Goldsboro and Chapel Hill's Allen & Son. By staying the course while negotiating constantly evolving consumer tastes, federal regulations, and global markets, the Pierces of Nahunta's pork emporium remain North Carolina's Pork Kings.


-Rien Fertel/ The Barbecue Bus

Not a single part of the pig goes to waste in the process used by Nahunta Pork Center in Nahunta, N.C. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus) 

Larry Pierce, owner and manager of Nahunta Pork Center in Nahunta, N.C. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus) 

Every cut of meat imaginable is available at Nahunta Pork Center in Nahunta, N.C. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus) 

"America's Largest Pork Display" is open to the public at Nahunta Pork Center in Nahunta, N.C. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus) 

Nahunta Pork Center in Nahunta, N.C. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)

Cured hams for sale at Nahunta Pork Center in Nahunta, N.C. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus) 

Nahunta Pork Center in Nahunta, N.C. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus) 

Up to five days worth of hogs to process are kept on the premises at Nahunta Pork Center in Nahunta, N.C. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus) 

Hogs from North Carolina farmers at Nahunta Pork Center in Nahunta, N.C. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus) 

Nahunta Pork Center
200 Bertie Pierce Rd NW
Pikeville, NC 27863


(919) 242-4735


Hours of Operation:
Monday - Friday 8am - 5pm
Saturday 8am - 3pm
Closed Sunday

Pit Master James Henry Howell: Audio SlideShow

Pit master James Henry Howell at Skylight Inn, Ayden, North Carolina. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)

James Henry Howell is a nine-year veteran of Ayden's Skylight Inn. From 6 to noon he drifts back and forth between chimney and pit firing the whole hogs with worn shovel and hickory coals. As the lunch shift begins, he moves into the kitchen. With cleavers in each hand, James rhythmically staccato-chops before seasoning the barbecue. By three in the afternoon, he's hefting a new batch of hogs onto the pits, collecting wood, and starting the fires anew. 
- Rien Fertel


Use the controls below the image to start the slideshow.

Audio by Rien Fertel with Photography by Denny Culbert