Review Of Clyde Cooper's Barbeque 109 East Davie Street (1 Block East Of The Mall) Raleigh, N.C. 27601 919-832-7614 by H. Kent Craig Original Review ©1998, revised 2008

Brief Review Addendum, February 2008

Had a chance the other day to stop by Cooper's early when the first opened up in the morning around ten a.m. and leisurely enjoy my large bar-b-q plate without having to deal with the hustle and bustle of the lunchtime crowd to follow in a couple of hours. As much as I have always loved Cooper's, when Clyde owned it and after the new owners took over in 1998 and made his classic 'cue even better, it was still a surprise the other day when the first fork of barbecue hit my tongue . . . it not only was as perfect as usual, it was the absolute best I've ever had there.

When the new owners took over they managed to keep the classic taste of a purist's-pure Eastern-NC-Style pork barbecue the Clyde had served since 1938 and reduce the total amount of grease and fat in the process but what hit my tongue was a revelation. Not only was the same extraordinary taste still there but there was absolutely not the first bit of fat, gristle, skin or any other unwelcomed bits of stuff even the most ardent barbecue fan generally doesn't like to try to eat around, it having been "groomed" to death before serving, but the chop was also as consistently fine but-not-too-fine as I've ever seen it, it was served piping-hot and the portion of the large barbecue plate which had always generous was even more so, being right at if not over a full pound of perfectly prepared angelic swineflesh.

Folks, they are the living definition of a "barbecue institution", a place that's been around for decades, always serving consistently great carnivore fare that if anything evolves into something even better over time while not losing its unique charms that make it a foodie's destination location.

Prologue: Some Interesting History & Nostalgia

Before I get into the meat of the review, pardon the mild pun, of Clyde Cooper's Barbecue restaurant in beautiful downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, a couple of modest confessions, and a little bit of local history.

My family knew Clyde and his family since around 1949 or so, when my father started his plumbing contracting business and began doing Clyde's plumbing service work at his house and at the restaurant sometime thereafter. Myself, I knew Clyde on a casual but friendly basis since I was a child through my father, as I helped keep Clyde's house and restaurant plumbing systems in good working order by helping my father on service calls.

One thing that always impressed me about Clyde's barbeque operation was the absolute, near-hospital-in-sterility cleanliness of the garage-type building behind Clyde's house where he actually cooked his pigs. Every time we'd go there to fix a faucet or unstop a drain, all the utensils, all the porkspits, everything that touched porkflesh, even the concrete floor itself, would be so utterly spotlessly clean that you would expect an human surgical operation to be taking place soon instead of a soon-to-be conversion of sanctified pork carcasses into The Holy Grub.

I was in a lot of restaurant kitchens doing service work with my father growing up in the plumbing business, and I can tell that if you, a member of the general public, saw the general nastiness and filth that I usually would see as a serviceperson in restaurant kitchens, you would never eat out again, period. But if you were to see the inside of Clyde's cooking building, you'd want your balloon angioplasty done there, to take care of the inevitable cholesterol build-up that would follow from becoming addicted to his barbecue, needing at least a weekly or more frequent fix of it, it was that good.

When Clyde still owned his restaurant, before he sold it to a nice young couple (according to an article I read a couple of years ago in The News & Observer) who took over things as advancing age caught up with him (he died in a local rest home in 1998, having been a resident there for some years prior), had I been writing these reviews of N.C.-Style BBQ restaurants then, I would have easily given his barbecue a "four pig" rating, it was that good, it was always that good, and I must have eaten a hundred pounds of it or better over the course of our coincidental timestreams on this planet.

Truth be known, his main barbecue chef who had worked for him for literally decades, "Boss" Faison, probably, maybe made it a tiny bit too greasy for a lot of folks' tastes, sometimes back then you could see the grease puddling around the meatpile on your plate, but it always perfectly cooked, perfectly fine chopped, and perfectly presented, a true four-pig'er rating equal to Bullock's or Wilber's or anyone else's 'cue.

When Clyde Cooper sold his restaurant operations to that young couple, the new owners, I stayed away for years, deliberately so. I just didn't want to tinker or tamper or unintentionally damage my childhood and adolescent memories of one of the true temples of The Holy Grub that also happened to be run by someone I and my family considered to be a friend and a neighbor (he lived just a mile or so down the street from where we did).

Oh, sure, a couple of friends who stopped there told me that if anything the new owners made better barbeque than Clyde and Boss Faison had, but I ignored them. It wasn't until my wife and mother-in-law stopped there a few months ago and came back just raving about how truly perfect their burned porkmeat was, that I paid any thought to going back sometime, sometime. But, eventually, I did go back, and have gone back several times since, and I am happy to give you the following un-biased report, keeping in mind that I don't personally know the new owners, don't know their names, don't have any rooting interest in their keeping the tradition of Clyde Cooper's perfect barbecue alive, other than just doing my job of telling you why I have a certain opinion, or not, of them.

The Original Review, 1998

In more than one way, I almost dread saying the following words. Not because they are bad or malicious words, in fact it's just the opposite, the following words are so positive about Clyde's that they feel almost, well, blasphemous against the fellow Holy Grub temples of Bullock's and Wilber's especially, and they're not meant that way.

It's just that over the course of several visits in the past few months, on different days and during different times of day, I've never been served anything less than the best Eastern North Carolina-style barbecue I've ever eaten, period, bar none. How do you describe perfection for NC BBQ? Go to Clyde Cooper's Barbeque, and have the benchmark firmly established in your own mind . God don't punish me for saying these words, but the new owners, whoever they might happen to be, cook even more perfectly cooked barbecue than Bullock's or Wilber's, and you can't get any better than those later two, except for Clyde's.

The meat itself is an absolutely uniform grayish-tannish color throughout, never a hint of pink, never a hint of uncooked fat, what fat pieces there are being so tiny as to be almost imperceptible, fine chopped but not mushy, with a texture that allows not just for enjoying the meat, but savoring it, savoring every single perfect bite of it. In contrast to how Boss Faison and Clyde used to cook and serve their version of barbecue, the new owners cook it so much more slowly, so evenly, so long-ly, so perfectly that what grease there might be on the portion of 'cue on your plate would barely stain a clean white paper towel if you tried to use it as a blotter to see how much grease was actually there, but it's not overcooked or burned at all to achieve that. If there can be such a thing as low-fat or "healthy" Eastern NC-Style BBQ, this really is it.

Their side dishes are equally impressive, but not quite equal in being so superior to other barbecue restaurants side dishes, just merely equal to them. Their "red" potatoes aren't truly red ones, having a lighter sauce than many, being listed as plain "boiled potatoes" on the menu, but are never the less delicious.

Their hushpuppies are every bit the equal to White Swan's, who has the best hushpuppies of any BBQ place; light, fluffy, but with a chewy but not burned and again not greasy at all (though they are a little greasier than the barbecue itself) perfectly browned outside, one can just about make a meal off the hushpuppies by themselves.

Their chicken, ribs, fried pork skins, and cole slaw are, according to both my wife and mother-in-law (I can't eat cole slaw because of allergies and usually don't eat either chicken, ribs, or friend pork skins from personal preferences), equal to the very best they've had at any other restaurant.

Their Brunswick Stew is the weakest item on their menu, missing the mark a little when compared with Bullock's or with Melton's, but I say that because it has whole tomato bits in it, which I can't eat because of food allergies, and pieces of string beans, which I generally don't care to eat. Their Brunswick Stew, in its defense, is thick and rich, and is made in what I consider to be a more traditional than modern style and recipe.

If Clyde Cooper's Barbeque as a dining experience entity has a weakness somewhere, it's in the lack of a "signature dish" dish, such as a homemade banana nutbread or traditional homemade banana pudding or some other traditonal or non-traditional dessert, or lack of sidedish prepared a certain way that most diners would remember as being unique to Clyde's.

Of course, having the simply the best Eastern NC-Style BBQ in the whole State Of North Carolina is to have a signature dish without equal, but I do wish the new owners would ever-so-slightly risk screwing with sixty-one years of unmatched history and tradition by putting something on the menu that is more reflective of their own personalities whatever they might be, create a menu item that would say "we honor and respect the legacy that Clyde Cooper left us, but here's a little something that is for the next generation of loyal diners to come to enjoy and happily remember eating".

The main real negative about eating at Clyde's, and this is a fault of location and not anything they do, is that parking if you can call it that in downtown Raleigh has always sucked bigwind and still does so. There is a small for-pay parking lot directly across the street them, but during most times Monday-Friday it stays pretty much full. Davie (pronounced day-VEE) Street is a two-way street, not one-way like most downtown, and you can luck up on empty on-street spaces sometimes, but most of the time if you try to eat lunch there during the week you'll end up parking at the parking lot on S. Wilmington Street near the Civic Center and walking the two-three blocks up to them. For those of you unfamiliar with trying your luck at downtown Raleigh's parking crapshoot, I won't begin to describe all the nooks and crannies and potential places you might have to park to be able to get to Clyde's within a five minute or so walk. But, wherever you have to park and however far away you have to park, the without-peer Eastern NC-BBQ fare served at Clyde's will be worth your effort, promise!.

Another ever-so-slight negative, which is also part of it's charm, is it small seating area, less than a hundred sitting spaces mainly booths with some counter barstools and the odd table thrown out on the floor at maximum peak times, and it wouldn't surprise me if Fire Code capacity was less than seventy-five.

When you go, especially during the week, you'll be rubbing elbows with Raleigh's glitterati such as famous politicians, every Governor of the Great State of North Carolina as well as every U.S. Senator and every local Congressman let alone the hordes of ravenous NC House and NC Senate warmbodies that frequently descend on Clyde's like locusts attacking a wheatfield in biblical numbers having eaten there since it opened in 1938, and with Raleigh's literati, the non-vegetarian carnivores that populate Raleigh's modest but solid artistic community, as well as the legions of working-type folks, the plumbers and painters and asphalt crews that keep the city up and running as well as the lower-paid but slightly-sweeter-smelling and better-dressed white collar peons that work in support of the schools of piranha-fish lawyers and bankers and CP&L executives downtown. Clyde's, like all truly great barbecue joints, creates its own legion of followers that cuts across all class and economic and racial lines, converts to the religion of Holy Grub, united solely by their love of perfectly cooked pigflesh.

Click on this Yahoo!Maps button  

to see exactly where in beautiful downtown Raleigh N.C. that Clyde Copper's Barbeque is located at, thank you.

Cooper's is being surrounded now by brand-new highrise buildings. This makes finding a parking spot near them, which used to be difficult, almost impossible at times. Cruise around the block a time or two to see if an on-street spot is open but if that fails then you'll have to park in a public municipal or private parking lot and walk anywhere from a couple to as many as six or seven blocks but their barbecue will be worth it, promise!

The historic inside of Cooper's looking outwards to the future in the form of the new highrise building across the street, one of many that now surround it.

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