A Legacy of Smoke and Flavor
One summer Sunday long ago, Chris Holloway was a kid running endlessly through the churchyard until an arm reached out and grabbed him. It was his mother’s. In that moment she more or less shoved a bite of smoked pork in his mouth from the church pig-picking. It was one of those illuminating instances parents sometimes share with their kids, like learning about the moon and tides or seeing E.T. for the first time, where the world seems larger and maybe your life seems different.
“I stopped in my tracks,” Holloway said. “I don’t think I had ever tasted smoke before.”
Picnic, the Durham restaurant Holloway bought and took over two years ago, has been named the best barbecue in the Triangle by readers of The News & Observer. It beat out Raleigh’s Lechon Latin BBQ for the crown by more than 2,000 votes.
The Rise of Picnic
Picnic opened in Durham in 2016 as part of a wave of new barbecue joints in North Carolina helping to reinvigorate a cherished culinary tradition. Of the new school spots, with cocktail lists, draft beer and brisket on the menu, Picnic is one of the oldest in the state.
What was revolutionary about Picnic 10 years ago remains true today, that ancient whole hog barbecue can still taste fresh and exciting today. But ultimately ideas of new and old take a backseat to the biggest truth in barbecue: good is good.
“Barbecue is different,” Holloway said. “When people come in here, we’re up against their very notion of barbecue, we’re compared to the memory of their first bite.”
A Founding Vision
Picnic was founded by Wyatt Dickson, chef Ben Adams and farmer Ryan Butler, whose Green Button farm supplied the restaurant’s pigs. New whole hog restaurants were a rarity at the time, with most barbecue joints smoking shoulders. Picnic represented a traditional restaurant, with whole hog, fried chicken and Brunswick stew, in modern trappings.
Adams and Butler would later depart and Dickson sold the restaurant to Holloway in 2023, though he continued to believe in the power of barbecue.
“If I’ve learned anything, it’s how important barbecue is to lots of folks in North Carolina,” Dickson said in 2023. “It’s a vehicle for us to connect. There aren’t that many things that bring us together anymore, but barbecue is one of those things that remains. I see it as having a greater importance today and that’s what will always interest me.”
A Natural Successor
Holloway, who has worked in restaurants for decades while playing in local bands, was the ideal successor for Picnic, living a few hundred yards from the restaurant and having grown up in North Durham.
“This is where I ran around as a kid and this is the food I ate,” said Holloway.
Since taking over Picnic, Holloway said he continues to see the connection barbecue has in the lives of diners and what it means to do the work. Much of his cooking career has been in large restaurant and catering kitchens, but smoking a pig is a different kind of job.
“People recognize my truck in the parking log; cooking whole animals with wood is not easy and people are appreciative,” Holloway said. “I love the feeling I have lighting hickory and watching the sun come up with a cup of coffee.”
The Menu of Memories
Today, the Picnic menu continues to reflect its inspiration, those annual Sunday lunches at North Carolina churches, where congregations would get together and smoke a pig. Alongside whole hog barbecue, there are hushpuppies, collards, cole slaw and a rich mac and cheese. The desserts, banana pudding, chocolate chess and bourbon cake, are straight out of the fellowship hall.
In North Carolina, we like to make fun of people who use barbecue as a verb. But as Picnic continues to show us, barbecue is a noun, as elemental as fire and water, but it’s also an act, it’s a plate of food that creates a moment.
“It’s a pig picking here every day,” Holloway said.
A Runner-Up with a Unique Approach
Runner-up: Lechon Latin BBQ
What Jorge Thorne does with an old pizza oven from an old California Pizza Kitchen is not strictly speaking barbecue. No one seems to care and that’s not the point.
At Lechon Latin BBQ, there is no smoke and there is no wood, but there is slow-cooked pork and cracker-like pork skin and all the magic that that combination commands.
“Our barbecue is a fusion of Latin flavors with barbecue tradition,” Thorne said. “Diners see barbecue in the name and they expect traditional Eastern style with the vinegar. We get a lot of new customers and get different experience.”
Lechon opened in 2022 in the Triangle Town Center, replacing a major national chain with a new concept for the Triangle. Making use of the old CPK oven, Lechon marinates its pork shoulders for 48 hours, then blasts them with a high heat before shutting off the oven and letting the meat slowly cook through the night.
At first, Thorne said, Lechon sold the prized pork skin separately, but ultimately decided that wasn’t fair.
“The crispy skin is the main feature,” Thorne said. “We were running out and people would drive an hour for the Lechon and not get the skin.”
Though it blurs the barbecue lines, Lechon has already collected its share of praise. Last year, Southern Living shouted it out as one of the seven best barbecue restaurants in the Triangle.
In the year it opened, readers of The News & Observer named it the second best new restaurant of 2022, bested by upscale French bistro Bluebird.
“I think we’re already in a winning situation,” Thorne said of Lechon’s success in the best barbecue poll. “Being a finalist proves that barbecue can be diverse while honoring this tradition. This recognition fuels our growth.”
