Husband & wife team of master barbecue chef Noah Temple & master southern cuisine chef Michelle Trimble

Review of "The New" Byrd's BBQ ~ Chicken & Ribs 2816 Cheek Road Durham, NC 27704 Phone: 919-530-1839 Hours: Mon-Fri 6AM-7PM (breakfast, lunch & dinner) ~ Saturday 7AM-12 Noon ~ Closed Sundays by H. Kent Craig ©2006, affirmed May of 2007

Last year in 2005 when long-time owner of Byrd's Bar-B-Que Grill, Ronnie Yeargen came down with severe health problems and had to sell the other love of his life other than his wife of almost as long, his barbecue place that he had run with so much love and epicurean perfection for so many decades, I wasn't hopeful that it would stay open.

When one of the new owners/partners, master barbecue chef Noah Temple who along with co-managing and co-chef working partner Michelle Trimble (now husband and wife) and a then-silent business partner now no longer with them bought Byrd's from Ronnie last year contacted me via email and invited me to "come on up for lunch sometime" and sample their 'cue, I have to admit I was skeptical. It's the exception and not the norm that when a restaurant of any kind let alone one so specialized as a barbecue place changes hands that the menu not only changes of course but the quality of good food actually stays the same or even on rare occasions get better. Considering that Ronnie Yeargen made some of "the best of the best" Eastern-NC-Style BBQ ever, let's just say I wasn't terribly enthusiastic about trying "The New Byrd's".

It wasn't until May of this year, 2006, not having any reason to go to the part of northern Durham that Byrd's is located in despite the fact that there is a new exit off of Highway 70 Bypass directly onto Cheek Road that makes getting to their establishment one heckuva lot easier than in years past when you'd have to go up Geer Street and then follow Junction Road to Cheek Road, now you simply go 3-4 miles up Cheek from Highway 70 and they're there on the right, that my frequent barbecue dining companion, Russell Smith and I decided to invest some three-dollar-a-gallon gas and make a special trip to the new Byrd's and what we found definitely was not what we expected.

Mr. Temple, who at his young age of twenty-something had already served his prison time, eeerrppp, excuse me, his years of apprenticeship at Danny's BBQ in Cary where he thankfully learned how not to cook the tasteless excused for barbeque that Danny's serves daily and instead used his time at Danny's to figure out exactly how to do it right, not wrong, and his rough hand-pulled-pork traditional Eastern-NC-Style BBQ is the magnificent result. He doesn't chop his 'cue even a little, but that's because he doesn't need to; his absolutely perfectly consistently cooked all the way through pig meat is so naturally moist and tender that it literally falls apart to the touch when you pick it up with your fork and the natural flavors just permeate every taste bud on your tongue. Folks, it simply doesn't get better than this, and dining-friend Russell was/is as enthusiastic about it.

No, it's not Ronnie Yeargen's barbecue that loyal Byrd's customers have been enjoying since The Sixties, it's Noah Temple's barbecue and I am thankful for he and Michele and Matt keeping the tradition as well as the name of Byrd's alive for hopefully another generation.

The one thing about Noah's barbecue as compared with Ronnie's is the fact that both are so perfectly slow-cooked the way hogs should be that there is very little if hardly any grease at all, something hard to achieve without over-cooking it and drying it out too much which is not the case here, the meat being moist just the right amount and there being just enough residual grease for flavor but again like Ronnie's old version you can put a spoonful of it on a napkin and after a few minutes there might be a trace but it won't be soaked through like would happen with barbecue from many other establishments.

Don't forget to try their Brunswick Stew which is sweet and tangy and full-bodied too, or Michele's homemade cobblers especially her cherry one (I was told by my wife who I brought home a BBQ sandwich and some of Michele's cherry cobbler which she promptly devoured while her eyes lit up with delight) and their Texas-style beef brisket which is every bit equal to their pork bar-b-q and share its similar qualities of being thoroughly cooked without being dry or tough at all. They also have the usual barbecue joint fare of barbecued chicken, ribs, some fish and seafood dishes and even a vegetable plate for the vegetarian who might be a guest of a visiting carnivore as well as a full breakfast menu served until 10:30AM.

To read my original review of Byrd's, click here , and thank you!


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