{
 "schema": 1,
 "id": "scotts-bar-b-que",
 "type": "place",
 "names": {
  "name": "Scott's Bar-B-Que",
  "aliases": [
   "Scott's Variety Store and Bar-B-Q",
   "Scott's Variety Store",
   "Scott's BBQ",
   "Scott's of Hemingway"
  ],
  "sort": "Scott's Bar-B-Que"
 },
 "region": [
  "sc-pee-dee",
  "sc"
 ],
 "facets": {
  "state": "SC",
  "status": "open",
  "founded": "1972",
  "fuel": "wood",
  "styles": [
   "sc-pee-dee"
  ]
 },
 "text": {
  "what": "A whole-hog pit behind a country store on the Hemingway Highway in Williamsburg County, in the Pee Dee. Roosevelt and Ella Scott opened the store in 1972 and the barbecue began as a weekend sideline; it grew into the business, and into the pit where their son Rodney Scott learned the trade before he opened his own restaurant in Charleston in 2017. Whole hogs cook eight to twelve hours over coals burned down from hickory, oak and pecan, and the meat is pulled and dressed with a thin sauce of vinegar and pepper. It sells by the plate and the sandwich, cash only, four days a week.",
  "story": "Roosevelt and Ella Scott came from Philadelphia to the Pee Dee in 1972 with their infant son, farmed tobacco and raised hogs near Nesmith, and opened a variety store and gas station on the Hemingway highway. Ella and the family smoked a hog on weekends; demand climbed from one or two a week to four or six, and Rodney cooked his first pig at eleven and joined full time at seventeen. John T. Edge profiled the store in 2009, and when Rien Fertel recorded Rodney for the Southern Foodways Alliance in June 2012 the pits were turning eight to ten hogs a night. On November 27, 2013, at 4 a.m., a pit flared while two employees roasted fourteen pigs in the wooden cookhouse beside the store; the cookhouse burned, no one was hurt, and the store kept cooking on other pits. Rodney answered with the Bar-B-Que in Exile Tour: fundraising dinners in Birmingham, Charleston and elsewhere, staged with the Fatback Collective — the chefs and restaurateurs around Nick Pihakis of Jim 'N Nick's — to raise $100,000 and rebuild in metal, so the pits could be insured. Rodney had taken the business over in 2011; in 2017 he left to open Rodney Scott's Whole Hog BBQ in Charleston with Pihakis. Roosevelt Scott died on December 10, 2020. Ella Scott died in 2023, the store closed for five months, and in May 2024 her brother Sam Wilson and Rodney's son Dominic Scott reopened it.",
  "how": "Hogs are split and cooked eight to twelve hours at around 250 degrees over coals of hickory, oak and pecan, shoveled under the meat through the night; *Tradition holds —* the coals come from a burn barrel, a steel drum in which the logs burn down. The cooked meat is pulled from the bones and seasoned with the family's sauce, which Rodney Scott gives as 'vinegar, pepper, some more pepper, some love'. Orders are a whole-hog plate or a sandwich; the SCETV crew in 2021 filmed the same wood-burning pit and the same counter. The rebuilt pit house is metal.",
  "today": "Open at 2734 Hemingway Highway, Hemingway. Destination BBQ lists Wednesday to Saturday from 9:30 a.m., closing between 5 and 7 p.m., cash only. Run since May 2024 by Sam Wilson and Dominic Scott. Checked September 15, 2026 against the sources named; check before driving."
 },
 "kin": [
  {
   "to": "sc-pee-dee",
   "as": "the style it stands for: whole hog over wood coals, vinegar and pepper, in the Pee Dee.",
   "rel": "whole"
  },
  {
   "to": "whole-hog",
   "as": "the cut — the entire pig, split, cooked through the night and pulled.",
   "rel": "part"
  },
  {
   "to": "vinegar-pepper-sauce",
   "as": "its sauce: vinegar, black and red pepper, nothing thicker.",
   "rel": "sauce"
  },
  {
   "to": "hickory-and-oak",
   "as": "its wood — hickory, oak and pecan — burned to coals for the pit.",
   "rel": "part"
  },
  {
   "to": "rodney-scott",
   "as": "the son who cooked his first hog here at eleven, ran the business from 2011 and left in 2017 for Charleston.",
   "rel": "person"
  },
  {
   "to": "rodney-scotts-whole-hog-bbq",
   "as": "the Charleston restaurant Rodney opened in 2017 with the same hogs and the same sauce.",
   "rel": "descendant"
  },
  {
   "to": "southern-foodways-alliance",
   "as": "recorded Rodney Scott here in June 2012 for its South Carolina barbecue project.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "to": "rien-fertel",
   "as": "interviewed Rodney Scott here in June 2012.",
   "rel": "person"
  },
  {
   "to": "browns-bar-b-que",
   "as": "the Kingstree buffet house twenty miles west; the two are Williamsburg County's whole-hog names.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "to": "pig-pickin",
   "as": "Hemingway's spring Bar-B-Q Shag Festival is the town's version: a cookoff of pork barbecue and the state dance.",
   "rel": "event"
  }
 ],
 "confusable_with": [
  {
   "id": "scotts-famous-barbecue",
   "tell": "Two Scott's, two states. Adam Scott's is Goldsboro, North Carolina, from 1917, with a bottled sauce; this Scott's is Roosevelt and Ella Scott's Hemingway store from 1972, whole hog behind the counter. The two histories in this project's sources never meet."
  },
  {
   "id": "rodney-scotts-whole-hog-bbq",
   "tell": "Rodney Scott's is the Charleston restaurant opened in 2017 and closed since May 2026; Scott's Bar-B-Que is the family store in Hemingway where he learned, now run by his uncle and his son."
  }
 ],
 "geo": {
  "lat": 33.7433,
  "lon": -79.47498,
  "precision": "street",
  "source": "OpenStreetMap"
 },
 "address": {
  "street": "2734 Hemingway Hwy",
  "city": "Hemingway",
  "county": "Williamsburg",
  "state": "SC",
  "postcode": "29554"
 },
 "links": [
  {
   "label": "Scott's Bar-B-Que — Southern Foodways Alliance interview (2012)",
   "url": "https://www.southernfoodways.org/interview/scotts-bar-b-que/"
  },
  {
   "label": "Scott's Variety Store and Bar-B-Q — Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott%27s_Variety_Store_and_Bar-B-Q"
  },
  {
   "label": "Backroad Bites: Scott's Bar-B-Que — SCETV (2021)",
   "url": "https://www.scetv.org/stories/2021/scotts-bar-b-que-backroad-bites"
  },
  {
   "label": "When His Pit Burned Down — NPR (2014)",
   "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/02/04/271526910/when-his-pit-burned-down-a-southern-bbq-master-took-hogs-on-tour"
  }
 ],
 "sources": [
  "s:wp-scotts-variety-store-and-bar-b-q",
  "s:wp-rodney-scott-pitmaster",
  "s:web-sfa-scotts-bar-b-que",
  "s:sfa-oral-histories",
  "s:web-live5-scotts-fire-2013",
  "s:web-npr-pit-burned-down-2014",
  "s:web-carolina-trust-roosevelt-scott-2020",
  "s:web-scetv-scotts-backroad-bites-2021",
  "s:web-destination-bbq-scotts",
  "s:wp-hemingway-south-carolina",
  "s:osm",
  "s:web-truecue-sc"
 ],
 "provenance": {
  "default": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-scotts-variety-store-and-bar-b-q"
  },
  "fields": {
   "text.story": {
    "tier": "cited",
    "source": "s:web-sfa-scotts-bar-b-que",
    "note": "fire: Live 5 News, Nov 27, 2013; tour: NPR, Feb 4, 2014; Roosevelt Scott's death Dec 10, 2020 from the Carolina Trust memorial post — the Wikipedia article says 2010, which the obituary contradicts; Ella Scott's death and the May 2024 reopening rest on Wikipedia alone"
   },
   "text.how": {
    "tier": "cited",
    "source": "s:web-npr-pit-burned-down-2014",
    "note": "the burn barrel is marked as tradition inline"
   },
   "text.today": {
    "tier": "cited",
    "source": "s:web-destination-bbq-scotts",
    "note": "hours as listed by Destination BBQ; undated page"
   },
   "geo": {
    "tier": "harvested",
    "source": "s:osm"
   },
   "address": {
    "tier": "harvested",
    "source": "s:osm"
   },
   "tags": {
    "tier": "cited",
    "source": "s:web-scetv-scotts-backroad-bites-2021",
    "note": "SCETV (August 31, 2021) names Ella Scott as a co-founder — 'The restaurant was founded in 1972 by Ella and Roosevelt “Rosie” Scott' — but the store has been run since May 2024 by Sam Wilson and Dominic Scott, so no current woman-owned tag is set. No source read on 2026-09-16 — the SCETV feature, the SFA interview, the SFA South Carolina project page or the Wikipedia articles — describes the Scotts as Black or the business as Black-owned, so no black-owned tag is set either."
   },
   "hours": {
    "tier": "cited",
    "source": "s:web-destination-bbq-scotts"
   }
  }
 },
 "confidence": "high",
 "needs_verification": true,
 "images": [],
 "updated": "2026-09-16",
 "tags": [
  {
   "tag": "whole-hog",
   "source": "s:wp-scotts-variety-store-and-bar-b-q",
   "tier": "cited",
   "note": "Whole hogs cook eight to twelve hours and are pulled from the bone."
  },
  {
   "tag": "wood-cooked",
   "source": "s:web-scetv-scotts-backroad-bites-2021",
   "tier": "cited",
   "note": "SCETV (August 31, 2021): 'Pitmasters use the downhome technique of slow cooking whole hogs over a wood-burning pit.'"
  },
  {
   "tag": "cash-only",
   "source": "s:web-destination-bbq-scotts",
   "tier": "cited",
   "note": "Cash only, per Destination BBQ's listing."
  },
  {
   "tag": "family-run",
   "source": "s:web-sfa-scotts-bar-b-que",
   "tier": "cited",
   "note": "Roosevelt and Ella Scott opened the store in 1972; since May 2024 Ella's brother Sam Wilson and Rodney Scott's son Dominic Scott have run it."
  }
 ],
 "recognitions": [
  {
   "by": "true-cue",
   "what": "certified wood-only pit, listed as Scott's Bar-B-Que, Hemingway",
   "source": "s:web-truecue-sc",
   "url": "http://www.truecue.org/true-cue-sc"
  },
  {
   "by": "sfa",
   "what": "an oral history recorded with the pit",
   "source": "s:web-sfa-scotts-bar-b-que",
   "year": 2012,
   "url": "https://www.southernfoodways.org/interview/scotts-bar-b-que/",
   "note": "Rodney Scott, interviewed by Rien Fertel, June 2012."
  }
 ],
 "hours": {
  "open": [
   "We",
   "Th",
   "Fr",
   "Sa"
  ],
  "closed": [
   "Su",
   "Mo",
   "Tu"
  ],
  "text": "Wednesday to Saturday from 9:30, closing about five.",
  "source": "s:web-destination-bbq-scotts",
  "url": "https://destination-bbq.com/stores/scotts-bar-b-que/",
  "tier": "cited",
  "checked": "2026-09-16",
  "note": "cash only. The listing read 2026-09-16 gives 9:30 to 5, and to 5:30 on Friday."
 },
 "blurb": "A whole-hog pit behind a country store on the Hemingway Highway in Williamsburg County, in the Pee Dee.",
 "region_terms": [
  {
   "key": "sc-pee-dee",
   "name": "The Pee Dee",
   "state": "SC",
   "note": "the northeast of the state along the Pee Dee River: Florence, Hemingway, Kingstree, Marion"
  },
  {
   "key": "sc",
   "name": "South Carolina",
   "state": "SC"
  }
 ],
 "kin_out": [
  {
   "to": "sc-pee-dee",
   "type": "style",
   "name": "Pee Dee whole-hog barbecue",
   "as": "the style it stands for: whole hog over wood coals, vinegar and pepper, in the Pee Dee.",
   "rel": "whole"
  },
  {
   "to": "whole-hog",
   "type": "pit",
   "name": "whole hog",
   "as": "the cut — the entire pig, split, cooked through the night and pulled.",
   "rel": "part"
  },
  {
   "to": "vinegar-pepper-sauce",
   "type": "sauce",
   "name": "vinegar-and-pepper sauce",
   "as": "its sauce: vinegar, black and red pepper, nothing thicker.",
   "rel": "sauce"
  },
  {
   "to": "hickory-and-oak",
   "type": "pit",
   "name": "hickory and oak",
   "as": "its wood — hickory, oak and pecan — burned to coals for the pit.",
   "rel": "part"
  },
  {
   "to": "rodney-scott",
   "type": "person",
   "name": "Rodney Scott",
   "as": "the son who cooked his first hog here at eleven, ran the business from 2011 and left in 2017 for Charleston.",
   "rel": "person"
  },
  {
   "to": "rodney-scotts-whole-hog-bbq",
   "type": "place",
   "name": "Rodney Scott's Whole Hog BBQ",
   "as": "the Charleston restaurant Rodney opened in 2017 with the same hogs and the same sauce.",
   "rel": "descendant"
  },
  {
   "to": "southern-foodways-alliance",
   "type": "org",
   "name": "Southern Foodways Alliance",
   "as": "recorded Rodney Scott here in June 2012 for its South Carolina barbecue project.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "to": "rien-fertel",
   "type": "person",
   "name": "Rien Fertel",
   "as": "interviewed Rodney Scott here in June 2012.",
   "rel": "person"
  },
  {
   "to": "browns-bar-b-que",
   "type": "place",
   "name": "Brown's Bar-B-Que",
   "as": "the Kingstree buffet house twenty miles west; the two are Williamsburg County's whole-hog names.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "to": "pig-pickin",
   "type": "event",
   "name": "pig pickin'",
   "as": "Hemingway's spring Bar-B-Q Shag Festival is the town's version: a cookoff of pork barbecue and the state dance.",
   "rel": "event"
  }
 ],
 "source_list": [
  {
   "id": "s:wp-scotts-variety-store-and-bar-b-q",
   "kind": "wikipedia",
   "title": "Scott's Variety Store and Bar-B-Q — Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott%27s_Variety_Store_and_Bar-B-Q",
   "license": "CC BY-SA 4.0"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:wp-rodney-scott-pitmaster",
   "kind": "wikipedia",
   "title": "Rodney Scott (pitmaster) — Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Scott_(pitmaster)",
   "license": "CC BY-SA 4.0"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:web-sfa-scotts-bar-b-que",
   "kind": "web",
   "title": "Scott's Bar-B-Que — Rodney Scott, interviewed by Rien Fertel, June 21, 2012",
   "publisher": "Southern Foodways Alliance",
   "url": "https://www.southernfoodways.org/interview/scotts-bar-b-que/",
   "accessed": "2026-09-15"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:sfa-oral-histories",
   "kind": "oral-history",
   "title": "Southern Foodways Alliance oral history collection — barbecue projects (North Carolina, South Carolina)",
   "url": "https://www.southernfoodways.org/oral-history/",
   "note": "interviews with pitmasters and owners; cite the individual interview page in the record's links"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:web-live5-scotts-fire-2013",
   "kind": "web",
   "title": "Scott's BBQ damaged in early morning fire (November 27, 2013)",
   "publisher": "Live 5 News (WCSC), Charleston",
   "url": "https://www.live5news.com/story/24084634/scotts-bbq-damaged-in-early-morning-fire/",
   "accessed": "2026-09-15"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:web-npr-pit-burned-down-2014",
   "kind": "web",
   "title": "When His Pit Burned Down, Southern BBQ Master Took Hogs On Tour — Debbie Elliott, The Salt, February 4, 2014",
   "publisher": "NPR",
   "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/02/04/271526910/when-his-pit-burned-down-a-southern-bbq-master-took-hogs-on-tour",
   "accessed": "2026-09-15"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:web-carolina-trust-roosevelt-scott-2020",
   "kind": "web",
   "title": "In Memory of Roosevelt Scott (December 17, 2020)",
   "publisher": "Carolina Trust Federal Credit Union blog",
   "url": "https://blog.carolinatrust.org/blog/in-memory-of-roosevelt-scott",
   "accessed": "2026-09-15"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:web-scetv-scotts-backroad-bites-2021",
   "kind": "web",
   "title": "Scott's Bar-B-Que — Backroad Bites (August 31, 2021)",
   "publisher": "South Carolina ETV",
   "url": "https://www.scetv.org/stories/2021/scotts-bar-b-que-backroad-bites",
   "accessed": "2026-09-15"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:web-destination-bbq-scotts",
   "kind": "web",
   "title": "The Scott's Bar-B-Que in Hemingway, SC",
   "publisher": "Destination BBQ",
   "url": "https://destination-bbq.com/stores/scotts-bar-b-que/",
   "accessed": "2026-09-15"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:wp-hemingway-south-carolina",
   "kind": "wikipedia",
   "title": "Hemingway, South Carolina — Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemingway,_South_Carolina",
   "license": "CC BY-SA 4.0"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:osm",
   "kind": "dataset",
   "title": "OpenStreetMap — places tagged cuisine=barbecue in North Carolina and South Carolina",
   "url": "https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright",
   "license": "ODbL 1.0",
   "note": "harvested by tools/harvest_osm.py via the Overpass API; share-alike"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:web-truecue-sc",
   "kind": "web",
   "title": "True 'Cue SC — certified pits",
   "publisher": "The Campaign for Real Barbecue",
   "url": "http://www.truecue.org/true-cue-sc",
   "accessed": "2026-09-16",
   "note": "65 entries listed on 2026-09-16."
  }
 ],
 "tiers": {
  "text.what": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-scotts-variety-store-and-bar-b-q"
  },
  "text.story": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:web-sfa-scotts-bar-b-que",
   "note": "fire: Live 5 News, Nov 27, 2013; tour: NPR, Feb 4, 2014; Roosevelt Scott's death Dec 10, 2020 from the Carolina Trust memorial post — the Wikipedia article says 2010, which the obituary contradicts; Ella Scott's death and the May 2024 reopening rest on Wikipedia alone"
  },
  "text.how": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:web-npr-pit-burned-down-2014",
   "note": "the burn barrel is marked as tradition inline"
  },
  "text.today": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:web-destination-bbq-scotts",
   "note": "hours as listed by Destination BBQ; undated page"
  },
  "geo": {
   "tier": "harvested",
   "source": "s:osm"
  },
  "address": {
   "tier": "harvested",
   "source": "s:osm"
  }
 },
 "primary_image": null,
 "tag_facts": [
  {
   "key": "whole-hog",
   "label": "Whole hog",
   "icon": "🐖",
   "group": "pit",
   "evidence": "what the pit says it cooks, or a press piece",
   "resources": [],
   "source": "s:wp-scotts-variety-store-and-bar-b-q",
   "note": "Whole hogs cook eight to twelve hours and are pulled from the bone.",
   "tier": "cited",
   "url": ""
  },
  {
   "key": "wood-cooked",
   "label": "Cooks over wood",
   "icon": "🔥",
   "group": "pit",
   "evidence": "True 'Cue certification, the NCBS Historic Barbecue Trail, the SCBA, an SFA interview, a press piece describing the pit, the pit's own site",
   "resources": [
    "r:true-cue",
    "r:ncbs-trail",
    "r:scba-trail"
   ],
   "source": "s:web-scetv-scotts-backroad-bites-2021",
   "note": "SCETV (August 31, 2021): 'Pitmasters use the downhome technique of slow cooking whole hogs over a wood-burning pit.'",
   "tier": "cited",
   "url": ""
  },
  {
   "key": "cash-only",
   "label": "Cash only",
   "icon": "💵",
   "group": "visit",
   "evidence": "the business's own site or a dated press piece",
   "resources": [],
   "source": "s:web-destination-bbq-scotts",
   "note": "Cash only, per Destination BBQ's listing.",
   "tier": "cited",
   "url": ""
  },
  {
   "key": "family-run",
   "label": "Family-run",
   "icon": "👪",
   "group": "ownership",
   "evidence": "a press profile or the business's own history",
   "resources": [],
   "source": "s:web-sfa-scotts-bar-b-que",
   "note": "Roosevelt and Ella Scott opened the store in 1972; since May 2024 Ella's brother Sam Wilson and Rodney Scott's son Dominic Scott have run it.",
   "tier": "cited",
   "url": ""
  }
 ],
 "recognition_facts": [
  {
   "key": "true-cue",
   "label": "True 'Cue (Campaign for Real Barbecue)",
   "what": "certified wood-only pit, listed as Scott's Bar-B-Que, Hemingway",
   "url": "http://www.truecue.org/true-cue-sc",
   "year": null,
   "source": "s:web-truecue-sc"
  },
  {
   "key": "sfa",
   "label": "Southern Foodways Alliance",
   "what": "an oral history recorded with the pit",
   "url": "https://www.southernfoodways.org/interview/scotts-bar-b-que/",
   "year": 2012,
   "source": "s:web-sfa-scotts-bar-b-que"
  }
 ],
 "acclaim": 2,
 "kin_in": [
  {
   "from": "sc-pee-dee",
   "type": "style",
   "name": "Pee Dee whole-hog barbecue",
   "as": "the Scott family's store and pit house at Hemingway, since 1972.",
   "rel": "place"
  },
  {
   "from": "burn-barrel",
   "type": "pit",
   "name": "burn barrel",
   "as": "two 55-gallon drums welded together, fed with hickory, oak and pecan.",
   "rel": "place"
  },
  {
   "from": "hickory-and-oak",
   "type": "pit",
   "name": "hickory and oak",
   "as": "feeds hickory, oak and pecan through the top of a burn barrel.",
   "rel": "place"
  },
  {
   "from": "whole-hog",
   "type": "pit",
   "name": "whole hog",
   "as": "the Hemingway store that went from one hog a week to seven or eight a day.",
   "rel": "place"
  },
  {
   "from": "browns-bar-b-que",
   "type": "place",
   "name": "Brown's Bar-B-Que",
   "as": "the Hemingway pit twenty miles east; the two are the county's whole-hog names.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "from": "rodney-scotts-whole-hog-bbq",
   "type": "place",
   "name": "Rodney Scott's Whole Hog BBQ",
   "as": "the Hemingway store and pits where the method and the sauce come from.",
   "rel": "origin"
  },
  {
   "from": "rien-fertel",
   "type": "person",
   "name": "Rien Fertel",
   "as": "interviewed Rodney Scott there in June 2012; one of three places named Scott's in his book.",
   "rel": "place"
  },
  {
   "from": "rodney-scott",
   "type": "person",
   "name": "Rodney Scott",
   "as": "his parents' store and pits at Hemingway, where he cooked his first hog at eleven and which he ran from 2011 to 2017.",
   "rel": "origin"
  },
  {
   "from": "southern-foodways-alliance",
   "type": "org",
   "name": "Southern Foodways Alliance",
   "as": "an interview in its South Carolina set.",
   "rel": "place"
  },
  {
   "from": "pee-dee",
   "type": "term",
   "name": "Pee Dee",
   "as": "Hemingway, 1972: the Pee Dee's best-known whole-hog pit.",
   "rel": "place"
  }
 ]
}