a place · SCRodney Scott's Whole Hog BBQ

A whole-hog restaurant at 1011 King Street on the Charleston peninsula, opened in February 2017 by Rodney Scott of Hemingway and the restaurateur Nick Pihakis in a former fried-chicken house, with seats for about 128, a drive-through and delivery. It cooked whole hogs over hardwood coals and served the pulled pork with a hot vinegar sauce beside spare ribs, fried catfish, a rib-eye sandwich and banana pudding. Sister restaurants followed in Birmingham in 2019 and in Atlanta and a second Alabama town in 2021. Every location closed in May 2026 amid lawsuits and liens against Pihakis's restaurant group, and the King Street doors have stayed shut since.

Rodney Scott was born in Philadelphia in 1971 and raised at his parents' store and pits in Hemingway, where he cooked his first hog at eleven. A customer, Nick Pihakis of the Jim 'N Nick's chain, told him he was undercharging; after the Hemingway cookhouse burned in November 2013 it was Pihakis's Fatback Collective that staged the Bar-B-Que in Exile dinners to rebuild it. The two opened Rodney Scott's Whole Hog BBQ in February 2017 in the old Chick's Fry House on upper King Street. In May 2018 the James Beard Foundation gave Scott its chef award for the Southeast, the second pitmaster to win one; the Chef's Table: BBQ episode about him in 2020 set sales records three days running, with hour-long lines; Food & Wine put the restaurant among the forty most important of the past forty years. Birmingham opened in 2019, Atlanta and a fourth Alabama site in 2021, and a cookbook with Lolis Eric Elie came out the same year. On May 3, 2026 the King Street restaurant closed at 5 p.m. 'until further notice', in general manager Sam Ayala's words, days after a meat supplier sued Pihakis Restaurant Group for $394,238.74 and a landlord filed more than $12 million in liens; every Rodney Scott's closed with it. In June Scott cooked a pop-up at Munkle Brewing under the name Pitmaster Scott and said reopening in Charleston was his first priority.

Whole hogs cooked over hardwood charcoal, pulled, and seasoned with a spice rub that includes MSG — Scott calls it a 'flavor maker' — and a hot vinegar sauce. Past the hog: spare ribs, fried catfish, a rib-eye steak sandwich, banana pudding. The room seated about 128, with a drive-through window and delivery.

Closed. The King Street restaurant shut at 5 p.m. on May 3, 2026 'until further notice' and had not reopened when this record was written on September 15, 2026; the Birmingham, Atlanta and other Alabama locations closed the same week. Rodney Scott has said he means to reopen in Charleston. Address of record: 1011 King Street.