Review Of Backyard BBQ Pit 5204 Highway 55 Durham, NC 27713 919-544-9911 Monday thru Friday (closed weekends) ~ Lunch & Dinner ~ 11AM thru 8PM Phone: 919-544-9911 By H. Kent Craig Reviewed: May, 2007

When AW's BBQ was bought out by a new owner earlier this year, I have to admit I was skeptical since the first thing a new buyer of an existing restaurant does is come in, kick butt and take names and change things to suit themselves which generally results in a loss of quality and customers.

I'm very happy to report that the new owners of the old AW's, now renamed Backyard BBQ Pit, not only kept Master BBQ Chef Lloyd Lewis but other key employees as well and instead of radically changing things have simply concentrated on making their existing fare better (which they have done, in spades) and keeping their existing customer base happy with their new emphasis of even-more consistent quality and stressing better customer service along with their perfect porcine product which will guarantee than new customers soon will become regular ones.

The main thing to me is that they kept Lloyd on the payroll since he's been one of the last Old Masters Of North Carolina Barbecue left, having learned the fine art of cooking pork barbeque on live hot hardwood coals from past masters of the craft and it is his intimate knowledge of the nearly lost art of the alchemy of turning a simple earthly hog into heaven-sent meat using oak and hickory hot coals over an open grill that separates his/Backyard's barbeque from most of their competition. He's been grilling hog carcasses over live hardwood coals ever since he was old enough to walk and apprenticed under family who taught him the finer points of exactly how to make barbecue as good as it can humanly be made and in the decades hence has perfected his craft to the point where I just shake my head every time I take that first bite off my plate or sandwich in near-disbelief how truly good it is.

Ahhh, live hardwood coals used to cook the meat. It's not enough to burn actual hardwoods to create beds of red-hot coals just below the racks where the pig parts slowly bask in the warmth of their destiny, any fool can cook anything over coals, but it takes a true Master BBQ Chef such as Lloyd Lewis to know exactly how thick the coal bed should be and exactly how long and when to turn the pigs before bringing them off the heat and then how to not just prepare but scrupulously groom the meat of all "nasty bits" of extra fat and burned edges of skin and things that you don't want in your mouth and then top the meat off with a plain but flavor-enhancing Eastern-NC-Style vinegar-based sauce that is so good it has to be tasted to be believed.

In fact, it's this sauce which brings out the true smoky flavor of the meat (it's cooked out back in a special pit house, not twenty feet from the restaurant itself) and brings the meat flavor - not the smoke or sauce flavor - to the forefront of your palate the way the best-of-the-best barbecue should and doesn't leave any unpleasant aftertaste the way some other 'cues do.

Messr. Lewis cooks his meat so expertly that it doesn't dry out at all to begin with and is never over or under-cooked, and with his sauce added it makes it one of the most moist examples of Eastern-NC-Style you'll ever experience. Combine its moistness with its consistently fine chop and you have, well, true 4-pig barbecue at its best.

Their side dishes are typical and while not as world-class as their barbecue (kinda hard to make world-class Mac & Cheese or green beans), their round, golf-ball-sized hushpuppies - which have enough of a slight onion flavor to make them interesting - are a perfect compliment to their BBQ, and their boiled potatoes (which I normally order) and sweet potatoes and others sides are good enough not to disappoint, as is their thick-as-syrup-as-it-should-be ice tea.

And I'm happy to report that the construction and re-working on Highway 55 in front of their establishment has been finished and it's no longer a danger to your exhaust system or your car's suspension to turn into their driveway, it's totally smooth now and there's even a new ABC liquour store just opened up next to it as well should you need to pick up a fifth for later.

Preparing the grill for the day's pigs

Lloyd Lewis shoveling hot hardwood coals underneath the grill

A hot container of their perfect barbecue

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