Carolina Barbecue

a person · SCRodney Scott

also: Pitmaster Scott

The one-and-only Rodney Scott (@rodneyscottbbq) making the best dish of the event: Whole Hog
The one-and-only Rodney Scott (@rodneyscottbbq) making the best dish of the event: Whole Hog — kowarski, CC BY 2.0

Rodney Scott (born November 1, 1971) is a whole-hog pitmaster from Hemingway, in the Pee Dee of South Carolina, who cooked his first pig at eleven at his parents' store, took the business over in 2011, and in February 2017 opened Rodney Scott's Whole Hog BBQ in Charleston with Nick Pihakis. In 2018 the James Beard Foundation named him Best Chef: Southeast, the second pitmaster to win a Beard chef award. His book with Lolis Eric Elie, Rodney Scott's World of BBQ, came out in 2021. Every Rodney Scott's location closed in May 2026; he cooks pop-ups as Pitmaster Scott.

The story Cited · wp-rodney-scott-pitmaster

Roosevelt and Ella Scott moved from Philadelphia to the Pee Dee in 1972 with their infant son, farmed and raised hogs near Nesmith, and opened a gas station and variety store on the Hemingway highway; the barbecue began as a weekend hog. Rodney cooked his first at eleven and was full time at seventeen, when the store cooked four to six a week. 'My whole life has been barbecue,' he told Rien Fertel for the Southern Foodways Alliance in June 2012, by which time the pits held eight to ten hogs a night. John T. Edge had profiled the store in 2009, and Nick Pihakis of the Jim 'N Nick's chain, a customer, told him he was undercharging. On November 27, 2013 the wooden cookhouse burned; Scott took his hogs on the road — the Bar-B-Que in Exile Tour, staged with Pihakis's Fatback Collective — to rebuild in metal. After a quarrel with his father in 2016 he left Hemingway, and in February 2017 he and Pihakis opened Rodney Scott's Whole Hog BBQ in a former fried-chicken house on upper King Street, Charleston. In May 2018 the James Beard Foundation gave him its Best Chef: Southeast award; the Chef's Table: BBQ episode about him in 2020 set the restaurant's sales records three days running. Birmingham followed in 2019, Atlanta and a second Alabama town in 2021, and the book with Lolis Eric Elie the same year. On May 3, 2026 the King Street restaurant closed 'until further notice' amid suits and liens against Pihakis Restaurant Group, and the other locations with it; in June he cooked at Munkle Brewing under a new name, Pitmaster Scott. Roosevelt Scott died in 2020 and Ella in 2023; the Hemingway store reopened in May 2024 under her brother Sam Wilson and Rodney's son Dominic.

Today Cited · web-abc4-rodney-scott-paird-2026

Living. His Charleston restaurant has been closed since May 3, 2026; he cooks pop-ups in Charleston as Pitmaster Scott, has said that reopening there is his first priority, and was announced in July 2026 as a headliner of the Pair'd Margaret River Region Festival in Western Australia.

Facts

rolepitmaster, founder, chef, writer
stateSC
stylesPee Dee whole-hog barbecue
regionThe Pee Dee, The Lowcountry, South Carolina
linksRodney Scott (pitmaster) — Wikipedia · Scott's Bar-B-Que — SFA oral history with Rodney Scott (2012) · Rodney Scott's BBQ — official
confidencehigh · needs verification · updated 2026-09-15

Its kin

placesScott's Bar-B-Quehis parents' store and pits at Hemingway, where he cooked his first hog at eleven and which he ran from 2011 to 2017.and of this page it says: the son who cooked his first hog here at eleven, ran the business from 2011 and left in 2017 for Charleston.placesRodney Scott's Whole Hog BBQthe Charleston restaurant that carried his name from February 2017 until it closed in May 2026.and of this page it says: its namesake and pitmaster, given the James Beard chef award for the Southeast in 2018.stylesPee Dee whole-hog barbecuethe style he took to the coast: whole hog over hardwood coals, vinegar and pepper.and of this page it says: cooked his first hog at eleven at his parents' Hemingway store and carried the style to Charleston and a James Beard award.the pitwhole hogthe cut in his restaurant's name and the one he has cooked since he was eleven.and of this page it says: the Pee Dee pitmaster whose whole hog won a James Beard chef award in 2018.saucesvinegar-and-pepper saucehis sauce: 'vinegar, pepper, some more pepper, some love', as the Hemingway record gives it.the pitburn barrelthe barrel his wood burns down in before the coals go under the hog; NPR described it in 2014.and of this page it says: the pitmaster whose barrel and pit fire NPR described in 2014.organizationsSouthern Foodways Alliancerecorded him at Hemingway on June 21, 2012, for its South Carolina project.and of this page it says: interviewed for its South Carolina project; profiled by John T. Edge in 2009.peopleRien Fertelinterviewed him for the Alliance in 2012.and of this page it says: followed from the Hemingway pits onto the national scene in his book.wordspitmasterthe word in his Wikipedia title, his 2018 award's footnote — the second pitmaster with a Beard chef award — and his 2026 pop-up name.and of this page it says: the Hemingway pitmaster who won a James Beard chef award in 2018, the second pitmaster to do so.organizationsCampaign for Real Barbecuequotes him on its wood page: 'When I see the future of barbecue I see pits, I see fire, I see wood-burning.'and of this page it says: quoted on its wood page.

Who points back

the pit · says of this pagedirect heatshovels burn-barrel coals under a belly-down hog for eight to twelve hours.words · says of this pagePee Deewho cooked at Scott's from about age eleven and took the Pee Dee hog to Charleston.

Sources

Where it came from: Cited a source we name · Harvested pulled from an open dataset · Tradition what the tradition says, hedged · Inference this project's reasoning · Field somebody stood there. This record as JSON.

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