a person · NCPete Jones

Walter B. 'Pete' Jones (died 2006) opened the Skylight Inn in Ayden, Pitt County, in the summer of 1947 — at seventeen by his family's count, eighteen by Wikipedia's — and cooked whole hogs over wood coals there for nearly sixty years. He learned the trade at his uncle Emmitt Dennis's City Cafe, counted his barbecue back to a Dennis ancestor's wagon, and put a copy of the U.S. Capitol dome on his roof after National Geographic called the place the barbecue capital of the world. The James Beard Foundation made the restaurant an America's Classic in 2003.

Pete Jones told Bob Garner that he sat in school as far back as the fifth or sixth grade and daydreamed about having his own barbecue place. He got it at seventeen: he built the Skylight while working for his uncle Emmitt Dennis at the City Cafe, where he cooked whole hog, and opened on July 8, 1947. He gave the place beer and a jukebox to set it apart from Ayden's other barbecue stands, thought about adding a dance hall, and ran late with rowdy crowds until the town's 7 pm curfew ended the late nights. The cooking did not change: whole hogs, heads on, over coals burned down from oak and hickory in fireplaces beside the pits, chopped with the crisp skin through the meat. He could not read or write, Kathleen Purvis records in Garden & Gun. In 1979 a National Geographic article called the restaurant the barbecue capital of the world; the dome went up in 1984, silver-painted wood, so that people could find the place — 'A place like this don't need any sign,' he told Garner. By the restaurant's own account he cooked at a congressional event attended by President Reagan and Vice President Bush in 1982, and in 2003 the James Beard Foundation named the Skylight an America's Classic. His line on fuel — 'If it's not cooked with wood, it's not barbecue' — is the one the Campaign for Real Barbecue prints on its wood page. He died in February 2006; his son Bruce, his nephew Jeff and his grandson Sam kept the pits.

Dead. Pete Jones died in February 2006 by the restaurant's account; Wikipedia gives the year, and Bob Garner's 2012 profile prints 2005. The Skylight Inn is run by his son Bruce, his nephew Jeff and his grandson Sam Jones.