58 CHARLOTTEMAGAZINE.COM // JUNE 2019
“YOU’LL SEE A LOT OF SMOKE come out of here in a second,” Jared
Smith warns as he lis the lid to the stainless steel cooker in BBQ King’s
smokehouse, across the parking lot from the Lincolnton restaurant.
Sure enough, plumes of smoke gush out and reveal 14 golden pork
shoulders. A bucket lined with a plastic trash bag sits below the electric
appliance and collects gallons of grease as the pork roasts and holds for
about 20 hours. “Once that bone is fully out and loose,” Jared says, “that’s
when it’s done.”
Well, almost done. A chunk of hickory wood is lodged inside the cooker
to give the meat some avor, but the real avor intensies once Jared
moves the shoulders into the smoker, where they absorb four more hours
of straight hickory-coal smokiness.
Jared, 27, has watched this process his entire life. His dad, Keith Smith,
started working at BBQ King at age 15, just ve years aer Steve and Becky
Abernethy opened the restaurant in 1971. Now, Keith is co-owner, and
sons Jared and Jordan are assistant managers.
Most of the employees tell me they started working at BBQ King at age
15 or 16, Jared included. Sometimes they’ll go o to college or try dierent
jobs, but many come back. “Everybody’s like a family here,” Jared says. “And
there’s a lot of good perks.”
He’s talking about easy access to good food: Sliced or chopped barbe-
cue sandwiches—regular or “king”-sized—and trays with hushpuppies,
white or red slaw, vinegar-based sauce, and fries. You can
nd a hamburger, fried chicken, and a few other sandwiches
on the menu, but BBQ King (sometimes spelled Bar-B-Q
King) is for the barbecue purist.
The nearly 50-year-old restaurant doesn’t bother with
much else. Its WiFi password is “12345678.” There are no
high-def TVs around, no cra beer. BBQ King accepts only
cash or check, and aer you place your order, the employ-
ees behind the counter shout it back to the kitchen: “Sliced
king!” “Two chopped trays, hushpuppies!”
Jared tells me the shouting sometimes startles rst-tim-
ers. “The girls up front, they’re all nice and smiling. As soon as
you get done ordering, they turn around and yell,” he says.
“You can tell the people who are new here.”
Most customers aren’t. Some have eaten at BBQ King
since the ’70s, when Steve smoked the shoulders at his
home farm a few miles away and lugged them to the res-
taurant every day. “We have our regular people that come in
every single day,” Jared says, “sometimes twice a day.”
Barbecue—pit-smoked and slow-roasted for a full
day—isn’t something people tire of. It takes time, though.
Pitmasters are usually up way before the sun, tending to
what’ll soon become an order for a chopped pork sandwich,
hollered out: “Chopped king!” —Emma Way
BBQ
KING
2613 E. MAIN ST., LINCOLNTON
704§735§1112, BARBQKINGNC.COMEST.^1971Jared Smith smokes
pork shoulders on the
pit at the BBQ King in
Lincolnton. A “king-sized”
barbecue sandwich with
white slaw (above) is one
of its top sellers.Your credit
cards are no
good here.
Cash and
check only.