Rocky Mount to honor BBQ heritage

In the months since this society was founded and this blog was began, one of the reoccurring king themes of North Carolina heritage is, without a doubt, barbecue. It seems like a couple of weeks can't go by without mentioning 'cue.

Now, one of the "meccas" of Eastern-style barbecue is honoring one of the original temples to pulled pork.

Rocky Mount is taking its first steps to build a park honoring the state's first sit-down barbecue restaurant – Bob Melton's Barbeque [according to the Rocky Mount Telegram].

Preliminarily dubbed BBQ Park, the city's Parks and Recreation Department will soon install a fishing pier on the Tar River near the site of the old restaurant, which moved after the 1999 flood and closed a few years later.

Eventually, through grants and capital improvements funding, the park will feature the restaurant's original cooking pit, a picnic shelter, horseshoe pits and a springhouse over the artesian well on the site, said Parks and Recreation Director Pete Armstrong. ...

Melton's restaurant is credited with firmly establishing Eastern North Carolina-style barbecue, according to the N.C. Museum of History.

The article goes on to say that Rocky Mount was once known as the "Bar-b-cue capital of the world" -- at least according to an old post card.

This new park, coupled with the new Barbecue Society, should go a long way in continuing to latch on to a great part of Tar Heel State heritage.