{Thanks to Jimmy Crawford of Raleigh letting us know that Park
Diner has closed their restaurant part of their business to
concentrate on the catering end of things, October of 2007}
Park Diner is not a barbeque joint. Park Diner
is a very popular nouveau American' cuisine
lunch-time gathering spot that feeds the minions of the
world's research and development elite that work in nearby
Research Triangle Park (technically, they're in Durham Co., which the Park itself is also mostly situated in). Park
Diner does not have a single weak item on the menu,
virtually anything you order from the hot or cold counters
will be excellent, and the prices are reasonable, almost as cheap as an ordinary fast-food place like Burger King or
Wendy's. Park Diner does have a unique
interpretation of what they consider to be Eastern-NC-Style BBQ, which is so good and so unique that I'm giving
it my full four-pig rating on a scale of 1-4, even though
they don't have hushpuppies, thick sweet ice tea, banana
pudding, or any of the periphery of a barbeque restaurant
that makes for a normally great BBQ dining experience. The
meat, so perfect, the light sauce, such a complimentary
balance to it, has enough substance to stand alone as being superb.
The meat itself is pork shoulders, very roughly, very
coarsely pulled, chopped precious little if any; it's not
usual to have a mound of ring-finger-sized, or
half-a-racketball-size, pieces of pork piled high onto your plate. Being cooked from shoulders, it's 95% lean, with
just enough fat for flavor. What makes it worth going back
to again and again (I've eaten there probably 20-30 times
or more) is the Eastern-Genre but not really Eastern-Style
sauce, which is vinegar-based, of course, and with hot red
and mild black pepper and mixture of fine ground spices,
which of course their Chef keeps a secret. I can't emphasis
how truly marvelous the sauce is, how it really finishes
the perfectly cooked pigflesh off to an enth degree, and
how difficult that first batch of sauce of must have been
to come up with.
Park Diner is very easy to find, it's in the Greenwood
Commons Shopping Center, which is the last shopping center
on the right as you head south towards Apex from the
intersection of NC Highways 54 & 55, respectively, in that
collection of them between Highway 54 and Alexander Drive.
From Alexander Drive, go south on same until it deadends at
Highway 55, turn right, go approximately 1 mile, turn left
at the stoplight, as you turn left you'll see Greenwood
Commons on your right. From Highway 147 South/Durham
Freeway South, follow it all the way until it deadends at
Alexander Drive, make a left at the light, follows
directions previous from Alexander. From I-40 east or west
before or after the merge with Durham Freeway, take the
Highway 55 South exit. Their phone number is 919-405-2270,
an RTP number, reachable in the RTP Metro calling area
without being a long-distance call.
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