a place · SCJackie Hite's Bar-B-Q

A whole-hog buffet house on East Railroad Avenue in Leesville, across the tracks from the town, that James Lee 'Jackie' Hite opened in May 1979 and ran until his death in September 2016; his family closed it in 2018. Hogs cooked whole over hickory coals, the coals made in a burn barrel — a steel drum in which the logs burn down — and the chopped meat was dressed with a mustard, vinegar and pepper sauce and set on a buffet with fried chicken, hash and rice, collards, field peas and creamed corn, paid for on the way out. Hite was also Leesville's mayor and fire chief.

Jackie Hite's father was a plumber, a fisherman and a part-time barbecue man, and the son learned the pit helping him cook for the annual Firemen's Ball. Hite went into Leesville's public life from 1966 — fire chief, water commissioner, councilman, magistrate, and three terms as mayor — and in May 1979 opened the restaurant across the railroad tracks. He cooked hogs whole over hickory as his father had, and told Rien Fertel of the Southern Foodways Alliance in June 2012, five years after open-heart surgery and with constituents asking him to run for mayor again: 'Once you been there, you can't get it out of your blood', and 'We just never done nothing but what we're doing and that's why it's so hard.' He died in September 2016 after weeks of failing health; WIS called him a Midlands barbecue legend, and the restaurant had then been open more than thirty-five years. Tradition holds — his family kept the pits going two more years and closed the doors on September 23, 2018, the anniversary of his burial, saying it was what Jackie Hite himself would have wanted.

Whole hogs over hickory coals, the wood burned down in a burn barrel and shoveled under the meat — Tradition holds — on pits of concrete block. The chopped pork got a sauce a visitor called 'like straight mustard': mustard seed and vinegar. Service was a buffet: fried chicken, hash and rice, coleslaw, collards sweet and smoky, salad, creamed corn, mac and cheese, field peas. Guests ate first and paid on the way out. The last listed hours were Wednesday and Thursday 9 to 2, Friday and Saturday 9 to 3, Sunday 9 to 2, cash or card.

Closed since 2018. The building stands at 460 East Railroad Avenue, Leesville (Batesburg-Leesville); Destination BBQ marks it permanently closed. Nothing continues under the name as of September 15, 2026, so far as this project's sources show.