Carolina BarbecueEvents (7)

Hog Day, Hog Day Festival, Hillsborough Hog Day Festival

A two-day barbecue festival and cook-off at River Park in downtown Hillsborough, Orange County, held since 1983 — the oldest continuing barbecue festival in North Carolina, by the Daily Tar Heel's account — and run…

the Barbecue Festival, Lexington BBQ Festival

A one-day street festival on Main Street in uptown Lexington, Davidson County, each October since 1984, built on the town's pork-shoulder barbecue: up to twenty area restaurants cook and sell, several blocks close to…

Mallard Creek Presbyterian Church Barbecue, the Mallard Creek BBQ, the granddaddy of barbecues

The one-day church barbecue of Mallard Creek Presbyterian Church in northeast Charlotte, held on the fourth Thursday of October from 1929 to 2024 and retired in 2025 after ninety-three editions.

Festival of Discovery, SC Festival of Discovery, Greenwood BBQ and Blues Festival of Discovery

A three-day barbecue-and-blues festival in Uptown Greenwood each July — Thursday to Saturday of the second weekend; July 9 to 11 in 2026 — hosted by the Uptown Greenwood Development Corporation.

plate sale, barbecue plate sale, church barbecue

The plate sale: a church, a volunteer fire department, a Ruritan club or a scout troop cooks pork — a whole hog or a stack of butts — and sells it by the plate on a Saturday to pay for a roof, a truck or a mission.

pig picking, pig pickin, pig pull

A party at which a whole hog is cooked for the crowd and the crowd eats it off the pig — picked by hand from the split carcass, or chopped on a block beside it.

stump meeting, campaign barbecue, rally barbecue

The free feed a candidate or a party puts on to draw a crowd: a whole hog, or these days a pile of pork butts, cooked for whoever comes, with speeches or a rope line attached.