Review of C & A's Chicken & BBQ Highway 32 North Sunbury, NC 27979 (252) 465-8950 (between Edenton N.C. and Suffolk VA) Mon - Sat 11AM to 9PM Sunday 11AM to 4:30PM By H. Kent Craig ©2008

Every time I've gone up to Merchant's Millpond State Park (one of the most special places on this planet, by the way) over these past years I've usually stopped by a little barbeque joint named "Jimmy's" just up the road in the nearby wide place in the road named Sunbury N.C. where I always found extremely good to excellent barbecue and like so many places I've intended to, should have written a review for but never did because of my infrequency in making the four-plus hour drive to Merchant's Mill except every year or so the last thing I usually thought about, other than satisfying my hunger after a day spent paddling my canoe around 'the pond, was taking pictures and making mental notes enough to do a review. This time I promised myself I'd at least get a couple of photos and do a proper review. So imagine my surprise on a recent trip that I found Jimmy's was no longer Jimmy's but is now renamed "C & A's Chicken & Barbecue" but fortunately is still owned and operated by the same good person and master BBQ chef, Cindy "Jimmy" Lyons (just kidding, Cindy!) who switched the name over a couple of years ago (geez, had it been that long since I had been to Merchant's Mill?) but who still was alchemy'ing the same perfectly cooked porkflesh as ever. C & A's barbecue which is made from Boston Butts only (the expensive part of the pig) reminds me a lot of what Pete Jone's at Skylight Inn (who uses the whole hog, not Boston Butts, by the way) used to make except without, thankfully, the greasy cracklin's. Think along the lines of how perfectly cooked and chopped Clyde Cooper's is except even more so, even less greasy if that's possible yet still very moist without being soggy and "grommed" to within an inch of it's squeal, not one bit of fat or burned skin or any other non-tasty bit, just perfect Eastern-NC-Style barbecue. And to think that Cindy has the courage to offer this as an all-you-can eat buffet item (as well as by the pound for take-out, $5.99 per pound, very cheap when compared to a lot of other barbecue places let alone for the quality), well, let's just say that I and most other real barbeque nuts will get their money's worth out of the $6.99 buffet price ($7.99 on Sundays) just in bar-b-q alone, let alone all the other very good buffet items as well such as collards, mac-n-cheese, chili-mac, blackeye peas and other similar country-buffet side items (and very good hushpuppies are also brought to your table complimentary) and two different kinds of fried chicken, a plain somewhat hot chicken wing and a much hotter tang-your-tongue Buffalo-style hot wing that'll put a smile on your face, this according to the wife who is as picky about her chicken as I am about my barbecue and she loved both kinds and I since I don't eat chicken I'm passing along her praise here. The only "negative" about C & A's, if location can be a negative, is that if you're not other going to nearby Merchant's Mill State Park or to or from Edenton N.C. thirty miles to the south or to Suffolk Virginia which is 30 miles to the north or from Elizabeth City which is about a forty-five minute drive to the east (near the beaches at Nag's Head/Cape Hatteras) heading back west towards I-95, they really are about as far out in the sticks as you can be in North Carolina. But do try to find an excuse of some sort to head to this remote northeast quadrant of North Carolina's tidewater country if for no other reason to sample their true 4-pig best-of-the-best porcine fare, you'll be glad you did!

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