Barbecue's "Golden Secret"

Melvin's  barbecue sandwich topped with the "golden secret" sauce. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus) 

Bessinger, certainly the most famous surname in South Carolina barbecue. Mustard sauce, Piggy Park. Icons of South Carolina history and culture and Bessinger family inventions.

One of fourteen children born to Mack Bessinger, restaurant patriarch Joseph Jacob, was known as ‘Big Joe.’ He moved from the family farm near Orangeburg to open the Holly Hill Café in 1939. There, together with the Sweatman family, he concocted a mustard-based barbecue sauce, owning to their shared German roots. That “Golden Secret,” as the Bessingers call it, became the state’s signature sauce.

Melvin Bessinger, like most of his ten siblings, followed his father into the barbecue business. In 1961, with another brother, Melvin opened his first barbecue restaurant in west Charleston. Three decades later, Melvin split off to found his own barbecue joint. Today, third-generation barbecue entrepreneur, David Bessinger, maintains the Bessinger family tradition.

— Rien Fertel/ The Barbecue Bus

Melvin’s Legendary Bar-B-Q
538 Folly Road
Charleston, SC 29412
(843) 762-0511

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

Rust Gravy in Orangeburg

Barbecue pork covered with Dukes' rust-colored sauce with slaw, crisp skin, and rust colored hash over rice. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)

At least a dozen barbecue establishments, covering nearly two-thirds of the State’s geography, operate under the Dukes name. Most South Carolinians across the Midlands and Lowlands claim a favorite. So, ask a local for directions to Dukes Bar-B-Que and you’re hazarding a geographic mixup.  

Earl Duke founded the original Dukes Bar-B-Que along Whitman Street in downtown Orangeburg. From their the dukedom spread, with family members and others opening locations. The first Dukes eventually passed to Harold Kittrell, formerly a carpenter, and then onto his son, Tony, the present manager/co-owner.

Dukes Bar-B-Que (note, never spelled Duke’s) still stocks a loaded buffet line with sides—green beans, baked beans, macaroni and cheese, slaw, potato salad, pickles, and bread—and the heavy hitters: rice, hash, barbecue chicken, fried chicken, and, of course, chopped shoulder and ham barbecue pork. The standout remains Earl Dukes’ sauce recipe: sweet, ketchup-based, thicker then most, and orange-yellow tinged, giving it a color and viscosity Tony Kittrell deems “rust gravy.”

— Rien Fertel/ The Barbecue Bus

Dukes Bar-B-Que

1298 Whitman Street Southeast

Orangeburg, SC 29115

(803) 534-2916

Politics in the Pits

Smoke billows from the pits at Jackie Hite's Bar-B-Q. (Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)

Since 1966, James Lee “Jackie” Hite has served as the Fire Chief, Water Commissioner, a City Councilman, Magistrate, and Mayor (three terms) of Leesville, South Carolina. He also smokes barbecue. Thus he serves his people two ways, through politics and pork; “Once you been there,” Hite says “you can't get it out of your blood.”

He opened Jackie Hite’s Bar-B-Q, across the railroad tracks from town, in May 1979. He learned the trade from his father, a plumber, fisherman, and part-time barbecue man. During the annual Firemen’s Balls, while the people square danced in the streets, little Jackie would help his father with the hog smoking, staying up all night, watching, waiting, and doing what he was told. Today, the pigs are still hickory-smoked, the sauce, mustard and vinegar and pepper. 

He is 72 years old and underwent open heart surgery five years ago; his constituents are begging him to run for mayor again. He just might. As long as he doesn’t quit cooking barbecue.

— Rien Fertel/ The Barbecue Bus

Jackie Hite’s Bar-B-Q

460 East Railroad Avenue

Batesburg-Leesville, SC 29006

(803) 532-3354

"Highly Seasoned Food."

Stephen & Gerri Grady of Grady's Barbecue, Dudley, NC.

Click to see our original text and photo profile of the Gradys: http://www.thebarbecuebus.com/2011/12/gradys-barbecue-this-day-is-last-this.html

Recorded and cut by Rien Fertel. Shot and chopped by Denny Culbert.

"We Just Didn't Ever Stop."

Bum and Larry Dennis of Bum's Restaurant, Ayden, NC.

Click to see our original text and photo profile of Bum's: http://www.thebarbecuebus.com/2012/03/first-barbecue.html

Recorded and cut by Rien Fertel. Shot and chopped by Denny Culbert.

"Dad Put Barbecue Grease in My Milk Bottle."

Samuel Jones of Skylight Inn, Ayden, NC.

Click to see our original text and photo profile of Skylight Inn: http://www.thebarbecuebus.com/2012/03/standard-bearers-of-barbecue-skylight.html

Recorded and cut by Rien Fertel. Shot and chopped by Denny Culbert.

Bruce and Samuel Jones of Skylight Inn, Ayden, NC.

"It Goes Over Pretty Good."

Randy Russell of Bunn's Barbecue, Windsor, NC.

Click to see our original text and photo profile of Bunn's Barbecue: http://www.thebarbecuebus.com/2012/02/survivalist-cue-bunns-barbecue-windsor.html

Recorded and cut by Rien Fertel. Shot and chopped by Denny Culbert.

"A Taste of the Past."

Tommy Moore of Moore's Olde Tyme Barbeque, New Bern, NC.

Click to see our original text and photo profile of Moore's: http://www.thebarbecuebus.com/2012/01/new-bern-north-caronlinas-king-of-cue.html

Recorded and cut by Rien Fertel. Shot and chopped by Denny Culbert.

"The Right Niche."

Larry & Brandon Pierce of Nahunta Pork Center, Pikeville, NC.

Click here to see our original text and photo profile of Nahunta Pork Center: http://www.thebarbecuebus.com/2011/12/kings-of-pig-nahunta-pork-center.html

Recorded and cut by Rien Fertel. Shot and chopped by Denny Culbert.

"You Just Gotta Know that Smell."

Rudy Cobb of Jack Cobb & Son Barbecue Place, Farmville, NC.

Click here to see our original text and photo profile of Rudy Cobb: http://www.thebarbecuebus.com/2012/01/rudy-cobb-place-is-space.html

Recorded and cut by Rien Fertel. Shot and chopped by Denny Culbert.

Barbecue by Consensus.

William Morris, Jr. of Morris Barbeque, Hookerton, NC.

Click here to see our original text and photo profile of Morris Barbeque: http://www.thebarbecuebus.com/2011/12/saturday-in-pork.html

Recorded and cut by Rien Fertel. Shot and chopped by Denny Culbert.

"Lucky Enough to Be a Part of this Place."

Donald Williams & Kevin Lamm of Parker's Barbecue, Wilson, NC.

Click here to see our original text and photo profile of Parker's Barbecue: http://www.thebarbecuebus.com/2011/11/parkers-barbecue-wilson-nc.html

Recorded and cut by Rien Fertel. Shot and chopped by Denny Culbert. 

"I Gotta Keep It Going."

Debbie Holt of Clyde Cooper's Barbecue, Raleigh, NC

Click here to see our original text and photo profile of this nearly 75-year-old institution: http://www.thebarbecuebus.com/2012/01/defend-barbecue-clyde-coopers-in.html

Recorded and cut by Rien Fertel. Shot and chopped by Denny Culbert.

"Redhead Mama B."

Natalie Ramsey & Chase Webb of Red Bridges Barbecue Lodge, Shelby, NC

Click here to see our original text and photo profile of the sister and brother of barbecue: http://www.thebarbecuebus.com/2012/02/brother-sister-barbecue-red-bridges.html

Recorded and cut by Rien Fertel. Shot and chopped by Denny Culbert.

"Getting your daily fix of barbecue sauce."

David Wilson & John David Wilson of Short Sugar's Pit Bar-B-Q, Reidsville, NC

Click here to see our original text and photo profile of the Wilsons: http://www.thebarbecuebus.com/2011/11/short-sugars-bar-b-q.html

Recorded and cut by Rien Fertel. Shot and chopped by Denny Culbert.

"Evolving Out of Necessity and Good Taste."

Chip Stamey of Stamey's Barbecue, Greensboro, NC.

Click here to see our original text and photo profile of Mr. Stamey: http://www.thebarbecuebus.com/2011/11/stameys-barbecue-root-of-it-all.html

Recorded and cut by Rien Fertel. Shot and chopped by Denny Culbert. 

"Still Smokin' and Gonna Keep on Kicking at It. "

Brandon Cook of Cook's Barbecue, Lexington, NC.

Click to see our original profile of Brandon Cook: http://www.thebarbecuebus.com/2011/12/cooks-barbecue-born-in-pits.html

Cut by Rien Fertel and Chopped by Denny Culbert

"We call it dip because we're always dipping stuff in it."

Sonny Conrad of the Barbecue Center, Lexington, NC

Click to see our original Barbecue Center profile: http://www.thebarbecuebus.com/2012/02/sonny-conrad-barbecue-center-when-you.html

Audio: Rien Fertel / Photographs: Denny Culbert

The First Barbecue?

Latham "Bum" Dennis and Larry Dennis, owners of Bum's Restaurant in Ayden, NC. (Photo by Denny Culbert)

According to lore, the Dennis family follows a tradition set half a million years ago when man first roasted a wild animal over wood. Most of humanity quit smoking pigs and other creatures over burning embers, but “We just didn't never stop,” says Larry Dennis, manager and pitmaster at Bum’s Restaurant in Ayden. His father, the namesake “Bum,” opened his place back in 1963, thus placing himself in the innumerable company of Dennis barbecue masters.