Thanksgiving Every Day of the Week

A sampling of the fare from the Brown's Bar-B-Q buffet in Kingstree, South Carolina. (photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)

Thomas M. Brown, Jr. is a farmer. He plants soy, wheat, hay, and oats to sell on the market. Additionally, he grows corn, squash, zucchini, and broccoli, okra, butter beans, collards, and cabbage for his restaurant’s massive buffet line. At Brown’s Bar-B-Q, these fresh vegetables are served in season alongside pilau rice and white rice, macaroni, yams, barbecue chicken and fried chicken, barbecue turkey and baked turkey, barbecue ribs, smoked ham, potato salad, coleslaw, and, yes, chopped barbecue.   

A motorcycle accident left a teenage Thomas Brown with a broken leg. Confined to bed and with a hot plate set up within reach, he learned to cook for himself. In 1981, he started serving takeout plates—rice and gravy, yams, barbecue—from a window on the family farm. A decade later, he built the dining room, as large as the buffet table is long.

At Brown’s Bar-B-Q, dinner, or lunch, is like Thanksgiving eating enjoyed every day of the week. The fresh vegetables, the variety of meats; all the desserts that can’t fit on one plate. It’s hard to keep track of all the gravies.

— Rien Fertel/ The Barbecue Bus

Brown’s Bar-B-Q

809 Williamsburg County Highway  

Kingstree, SC 29556

(843) 382-2753