fruitwoods or pecan, even grapevine. Wade is all in favor of cooks experimenting. “You take a general concept - pork and smoke were made for each other - you try different stuff.” Like when he played around with the pulled pork burrito. His brother was skeptical, but the public reaction was “Are you kidding me?” - they loved it.
ARRAY’s next expert is a seasoned professional in the
barbecue business, owner of Cape Fear BAR-B-QUE and Chicken, June Massengill. June has owned Cape Fear BAR-B-QUE and Chicken since 1987 when it was a Smithfield Chicken and BBQ franchise. She went out on her own in 1999, and it became Cape Fear BBQ and Chicken. Now she has three locations with a total of 38 employees in whom she tries to instill a pride of product. Her own daughters Maggie and Morgan work with her. She’s proud of how they work, and she knows they’re going to do it right. The move to independence gave June a chance to implement her own ideas and add things to menu and recipes. Her personal favorites are her barbecue and Brunswick stew. Everything is made fresh, nothing is pre-packaged. Their barbecue is cooked fresh every day, slow cooked 12 hours overnight. The pork barbecue is cooked with a vinegar base, and she serves it just that way, allowing people to top it with their own choice of table sauce. The pork is all hand-pulled, the cole slaw hand-chopped. June’s drive to develop pride in her workers extends to sharing her knowledge. Showing them how to handle the food with care and understanding enables them to take pride in the result. Training, she says, is all about “making people understand you kill flavor in a food quick.” They reheat the barbecue with steam after its temperature has been brought down. Care must be taken not to overheat it; food flavors must be consistent. “It’s not about changes in recipes, but about variables and adjustments to circumstances. If it’s cold outside, even though the cookers are inside, the temperatures must be lowered, or the food will cook too fast. In warmer weather, the temperature must actually be hotter to cook properly. And a clean cooker cooks differently than one that’s been used.” Food growing conditions make a difference, too. If the cabbage for the slaw arrives wet, it will need less mayonnaise, more if it’s been a dry season. If it doesn’t have green leaves, the resulting slaw will be very white.
Alfred Barefoot, owner BBQ Hut, talks barbecue at the Owen Drive location June says her business is never dull or boring. It’s “get up every morning and figure it out, day by day. I love Fayetteville because we get so many traveling people. I’ve shipped barbecue as far as Florida. Why do people like barbecue so much? “In North Carolina? It’s pork. We’ve all grown up on pork. It’s good, it’s easy.” [ARRAY found Cape Fear BAR-B-QUE and Chicken’s pork (tasted without extra sauce) to be good solid barbecue, meaty, a little fatty, and juicy.]
ARRAY’s fourth barbecue expert is Alfred Barefoot
whose family has owned and run BBQ Hut for over 50 years. The location at Owen Drive is a low building with
clean tables and plenty of glass, two order windows and a drive-through. Alfred and his wife Julie have owned BBQ Hut since June of 2000, but it’s been owned by June’s family since 1982. It was originally started in the mid-1960’s by the Bedsoles. Alfred and Julie still use the Bedsole’s original recipes. Among them is an Eastern North Carolina vinegarbased barbecue that’s been passed down generation to generation. “Sweet and tangy,” Alfred says. “Of course, it’s my favorite.” He’s tasted sauces from mustard-based to ketchup-based but “to me,” he says, “the vinegar-based is best.” When asked if it has a secret ingredient, Alfred smiles
Van Herring said, “There is no bad barbecue, just different.” and says “It’s all a secret.” In fact, the sauce is licensed to BBQ Hut, Inc. Their pork is slow-cooked with gas. They premix the sauce into it when it’s served and then make more sauce available at the table. They make nearly everything at the BBQ Hut from scratch – from their pork barbecue to their pies. Owning a restaurant is a lot of work. Alfred, who wears a constant smile on his open face, is up at six and works ‘til two in the afternoon. After a break to spend time with family he goes back and works from five or six until around ten o’clock six days a week. “We have a great staff, and a good management team.” There’s some differences between the stores in how they prepare the food, because they each have their own unique way of doing things. “They tweak it a little bit. The recipes won’t be identical, but both stores at the end of the day do great…It doesn’t hurt to smile and thank you.” His pride in his work is obvious. “We are family-owned. BBQ Hut has been around for over 50 years. We’ve established over the time and we’ve weathered the storm and proven ourselves to be here for the long haul.” BBQ Hut is a fixture in the community, serving generation and generations of family. Alfred tells backyard chefs his best tip is “Buy my sauce.” It’s said with a grin, but BBQ Hut does sell their pork sauce. His second, more serious tip is, “Chop your BBQ by hand.” As for why people like to eat barbecue so much, he says, “It’s the South.” Then he laughs, adding his thoughts about those who like to barbecue. “It’s a man thing. A man likes to get out there and cook on the grill...It’s a weekend-warrior man thing.” [ARRAY found the BBQ Hut barbecue to be sweet, tart and robust with an almost lemony flavor.]
Not every great barbecue place is a small outfit. ARRAY
went to Jonathan Windham, General Manager at Mission BBQ, a privately-owned chain that started for a noble mission. Founders Bill Kraus and Steve Newton were personally touched by 9/11, losing friends - po-lice and firefighters - in the World Trade Center. Bill became involved in starting charities to raise funds for the families. Mission BBQ came about as a way to create a place where people could feel safe again and to help support their charitable work. They opened their first restaurant on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 in Glen Burnie, Maryland. They will soon open their 25th restaurant in Nashville, Tennessee. The restaurant walls are a living testament to what the restaurant is for. Covered with uniforms, helmets, photographs and other memorabilia for military and first responders (many of them donated by customers) they represent the depth of the founders’ feelings. In giving back to groups like the Wounded Warrior project (one
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