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.

The Standard Bearers of Barbecue: Skylight Inn, Ayden, NC

Skylight Inn (Pete Jones Barbecue) and Samuel Jones (Photos by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)

At age 4, Samuel Jones told a newspaper reporter that, when he grows up, he wanted to be a trashman and the Prince of Barbecue. Sam’s grandfather, Pete Jones, the designated “King of Barbecue,” opened the Skylight Inn in 1947. Then only seventeen, Pete set out on his own after learning the trade from his extended family, the Dennis clan, whom history shows to be the first in North Carolina to serve pit barbecue to the public.

Survivalist Cue — Bunn's Barbecue, Windsor, NC

Bunn's Barbecue cornbread sandwich, Windsor, NC. ( Photo by Denny Culbert/ The Barbecue Bus)

Hurricane Ginger struck in 1971. After two-and-a-half decades of calm, Dennis, Floyd, and Irene made 1999 a hurricane-heavy year. Rain-soaker Tropical Storm Nicole fell in 2010. Hurricane Irene landed in August of the year following. All six storms caused the Cashie River in tiny downtown Windsor to overflow its banks, in effect, inundating historic, since 1938, Bunn’s Barbecue each time. As Bunn’s co-owner Randy Russell tells it, “We know all about flooding.”