a place · NCThe Fiction Kitchen
also: Fiction Kitchen
The barbecue here has never been near a hog, and the menu says so first.
A vegetarian and vegan restaurant in Raleigh whose menu carries a Southern-style pulled barbecue made without pork, served with the slaw and the sides a Carolina plate expects. Carolina Morrison opened it in 2012 on money raised through Kickstarter, ran it downtown for a decade, and reopened it at Gateway Plaza after a move in 2023. It is in this catalogue because it is one of the ways barbecue is cooked and eaten in North Carolina now, and because it is one of the few places in either state a published list names as LGBTQ-owned.
When they are open
Wednesday to Saturday for dinner; lunch Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
open closed not published · Cited · web-fiction-kitchen · checked 2026-09-16 · why so many close Sunday
The story Cited · web-cardinal-pine-lgbtq-nc
Morrison crowdfunded the restaurant in 2012 and built it into a fixture of the state capital over more than a decade. When the downtown lease ended early in 2023 the restaurant ran as a pop-up while the new room was fitted, and reopened at Gateway Plaza alongside two other tenants. Cardinal & Pine named it in a list of eight LGBTQ-owned North Carolina businesses, introduced as 'the LGBTQ-owned bars and restaurants that deserve your patronage in June and beyond', and pointed readers at the pulled barbecue.
Inference — a vegan pulled barbecue in Raleigh is not a pit and does not claim to be one. It sits here for the same reason a gas cooker and a bottled dip sit here: this catalogue describes what is cooked and sold under the word, and lets the reader decide what to drive to.
How it is done Inference
The barbecue is the kitchen's own preparation rather than a pit product; the plate is built the way a Carolina plate is built, with slaw and sides. Check the menu before going, as it changes.
Today Cited · web-cardinal-pine-lgbtq-nc
Open at Gateway Plaza, Raleigh. Hours are on the restaurant's own site; check before driving.
Facts
| state | NC |
|---|---|
| status | open |
| founded | 2012 |
| fuel | unknown |
| region | The North Carolina Piedmont, North Carolina |
| address | Raleigh, NC · Wake County Cited · web-cardinal-pine-lgbtq-nc |
| where | 35.7785, -78.6415 (town) · OpenStreetMap · open in maps Inference |
| links | The Fiction Kitchen · Cardinal & Pine — 8 LGBTQ-owned NC businesses |
| confidence | medium · needs verification · updated 2026-09-16 |
Near here
Crow-flies miles; the road is always longer. The finder sorts every pit in both states from where you are.
- 0.2 mi — Clyde Cooper's BBQ Raleigh ♀ Woman-owned
- 13.6 mi — Stephenson's Bar-B-Q Willow Spring 🔥 Cooks over wood 👪 Family-run
- 16.4 mi — Backyard BBQ Pit Durham ✊🏾 Black-owned 🔥 Cooks over wood 👪 Family-run
- 24.8 mi — Smithfield's Chicken 'N Bar-B-Q Smithfield
- 28.2 mi — Allen & Son Barbeque Chapel Hill 🔥 Cooks over wood 👪 Family-run ⚫ Closed
Its kin
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.