a place · NCAlston Bridges Barbecue

The Shelby pork-shoulder house of the other Bridges family, on East Grover Street in Cleveland County, where Alston Bridges and his wife Mabel bought the property in 1955. Alston learned the trade from his brother-in-law Warner Stamey, managing Stamey's Log Cabin Barbecue in Lexington for two and a half years first. About fifty shoulders a day go through the kitchen; the tray is chopped or coarse-chopped pork with red slaw and hushpuppies. What is under the meat is disputed: three accounts describe electric cookers or gas, one promotional listing says wood-smoked.

Two Bridges families cook barbecue in Shelby and they are not related — a shared ancestor somewhere in the 1700s is as close as the local history will put them. Warner Stamey trained both Red Bridges and Alston Bridges in the 1940s, and Alston's apprenticeship is the documented one: he and Mabel moved to Lexington, he managed Stamey's Log Cabin Barbecue for two and a half years, and then they came to Shelby and bought 620 East Grover Street. The county history gives the year as 1955 and a visiting writer gives 1956. Alston died in 1970; his son Kent and Kent's wife Linda took it on, and the county history says Kent and Linda's children operate the business now. Our State found Alston's grandson Reid Bridges behind the counter in 2013, explaining the difference between chopped and coarse-chopped. The fuel is where the sources part. Our State wrote in 2013 that he starts the pork on electric cookers and finishes it in a pit. A visiting writer in March 2024 found the smoke missing and put it down to a move from pit to gas some years earlier. The NC Pork Council's listing calls it wood-smoked. Neither the Historic Barbecue Trail nor the Campaign for Real Barbecue lists the house, and both exclude gas and electric.

About fifty pork shoulders a day, from a short-shank cut the kitchen buys through a Gastonia distributor. Our State's account of the method has the pork starting on electric cookers and finishing in a pit. The meat is chopped or coarse-chopped to order and served with red slaw, the cabbage cut fine and dressed with the Piedmont dip, and hushpuppies. The menus read: Pigs are Beautiful.

Open at 620 East Grover Street, Shelby. Hours differ across three listings, and the restaurant's own site was posting a Labor Day closing and a September 8 return when read on September 16, 2026. Check before driving.