Tar Heel Q

Tar Heel Q is less than 10 minutes from my home, so needless to say I’ve been eating here for many years. Even as a child I have memories of breakfast and dinner here. The food has always been great for years. Whether you get a BBQ tray or a chopped sandwich, it’s an excellent example of what Lexington style BBQ should be.
The waitresses are always friendly and make you feel right at home. The décor is simple and non distracting. Many prints from local artist Dempsey Essick can be found on the walls. The service is always, whether you are dining in or getting a to-​go order.

SALMONELLA ALERT! This place should not be allowed to serve their disgusting salmonella infected food to the public. Be warned they do not understand food safety or sanitation and have put many people from my party in the hospital.

Great BBQ. The daily specials of chicken, ham, etc. are to die for! I haven’t tried any other BBQ in the area, but we come back here again and again. They wait staff is great, but they don’t seem familiar with with strangers coming in who don’t understand BBQ or their menu.
This is in the middle of nowhere, but the Thousand Trails RV park is only a mile away,

Good North Carolina pork butt BBQ. Vinegar based dip (sauce) and «red» (dip) slaw our «white» (mayo) slaw. Excellent hush puppies. Smoked chicken on Saturday. Recommended.

Great value in typical country Carolina BBQ café, that also offer a wide range of other choices including burgers, sandwiches, etc. Sign says «pit smoked daily» and smoke was pouring out of the chimneys at dinner time … result being I made U-​turn and was able to enjoy a nice Carolina rough chopped pork dinner with red slaw, fries, and hushpuppies. Pork was excellent, saunce was a great complement. Fries were standard crinkle style, red slaw was a nice change (they offer white slaw too) and the hushpuppies were average at best.
Service was GREAT! I swear each time I would take a sip of my drink the waitress would back topping it off. I didn’t indulge, but they have Cheerwine on tap. The food didn’t come right out, a very good thing in my opinion as that would suggest it was freshly chopped, something I later confirmed while checking out as I saw the cook rough chop some just for one plate.
Topped it all off with a slice of sweet potato pie, to go!
BONUS: People watching as a wide range of families, couples, and takeouts came and went while I sat there enjoying the summer evening, looking out the window, and a country highway (64) in North Carolina.

Friendly as can be! Worst BBQ in North Carolina. Poor location unless you are a camper at nearby park. Had breakfast here once and service was FAST but nothing overly great about their breakfast. Hard to mess up eggs and bacon :)

My favorite BBQ restaurant! Hushpuppies are GREAT! All sides, especially coleslaw, are tasty! Warm sauce adds wonderful flavor to the lean pork!!! Yummy!

We stayed in the area for a week and ate there twice, supper the first evening and breakfast when we left. We found both experiences top notch.
For supper I had the chopped tray with red slaw, my wife had a chopped sandwich. She liked her sandwich a lot. I had BBQ pork several more times in and around Lexington (BBQ capitol of NC, i.e. the world) that week and I liked this the best. I didn’t get to all the top joints, but some and this seemed like the place I could get the great flavor of the pork best without putting on sauce, though their sauce was good.
For breakfast I had a standard sausage and eggs plate with a biscuit. The biscuit was good, the eggs were fine, the sausage was very good, which helps explain my wife’s reaction. She’s kind of a biscuits and gravy fan. Prior to this her favorite place, now closed, was in Bloomington, Indiana. She thought this was on a par with that which speaks very highly of this.
We’d happily go back.

Classic Eastern NC (vinegar-​based) BBQ. generous portions, excellent sides and fast, friendly service. They also have other menu items on certain nights such as chicken pot pie. No complaints. We’ll be back.

Average ‘Q. B-​. Large mince. Needs more smoke flavor. Remote.

Disappointed to give this place only 3 stars. This last visit was actually a 2 but the other time I stopped by was a solid 4.
That first (4 star) stop — so amazing. I’d driven right on by a dozen times, usually having already eaten somewhere else closer in to Lexington. But a few months ago, I grabbed a sandwich here after also stopping at Lexington Barbecue and having a sandwich there. (Take one for the team and suffer through to ensure a solid comparison, right? I’ll make the sacrifice.) Nice and hot. Super crisp slaw. Perfectly smoky pork. Just enough dip mixed in to make it Lexington style without obscuring the smokeporkiness. In fact, there was some other wonderfulness mixed in — crunchy but melting in your mouth. Like pork-​rind-​creamy so I don’t think it was just the outside brown. Perhaps they had tossed in some crispy skin.
That first stop was good enough that the next time I was driving through Lexington, back towards I-​40, I happily skipped the other Lexington options for Tarheel Q. Man, was that a mistake.
The second (2 star) stop. Pork didn’t even have a slight hint of smoke. In fact, it had a cooked-​in-​a-​crockpot roasted pork taste and a water-​logged sogginess. Mushy. Some outside brown that was just brown and dry, adding absolutely nothing. Barbecue (red) slaw taste/​texture suggested it too had been sitting around a while before making it to my plate.
Had I been traveling toward Lexington instead of away, I’d have paid my bill and left a tip, abandoning my sad soggy tray and headed to Lexington Barbecue or Barbecue Center.
Not sure what happened. Or how both meals were even from the same place. But there you have it. Apparently, it’s a gamble. May be the best lexington-​style you’ve ever had. Or it might make you wish you’d stopped somewhere else.

This little place continues to be worth the drive — especially on the weekends when they offer up great BBQ Chicken. This is not the typical barbecued chicken, baked and slathered in a sweet, tomato based sauce — rather, it is cooked over wood, in half a chicken portion, and sauced with a nice vinegar based barbecue sauce, much like the barbecue. It is very tender, moist, nearly falling off the bone — and the sauce seals the deal. Now, that Whitley’s is gone, it may be the best of breed.
On this trip I tried the Chopped BBQ Tray with «Outside Brown» included — outstanding. The brown bits give the pork a nice touch of crunch in the texture which is a nice contrast to the incredibly tender inside meat, and some nice flavor change in the taste happens to.
The Hushpuppies are very good, nice little crunchy logs, and the Chili Dog is nice, once a little mustard is dabbed off. This is a very good Lexington style BBQ joint — this is one of those times when you could add half a star to the rating — but I’ll remember it anyway.

First I am going to start out that Jason and TJ (the current owners not sure for how long) have a good place the food is good the price is cheap service is good its not a fancy place you eat on paper plates styrofoam cups you do have metal forks /​spoons but who cares right? The portions are large. The place is busy with mostly locals I always said thats a good sign! I plan on going back middle of next week for the ribs. But… there are a few things from eating there that I noticed. Please everyone I do not want a war here and I am not telling anyone how to run their place this is my opnion you try it out for your self and see what you think! I had the chicken Q that was not the blue plate for yesterday it was fried chicken we will talk about that later the chicken was half a chicken it came with sides red slaw fries and your choice of rolls or hush puppies so I took the puppies. The wife had sliced pork fries slaw an rolls? Now my chicken had a good taste but the white meat was very very dry of course the dark meat was ok fries where the crinkle frozen ones and the puppies where the frozen heavy batter ones… The wife had sliced pork that was not as dry but, still pretty dry she had slaw also fries and she got rolls (we where going to split the puppies) we got a hambuger bun for the rolls on the way out she saw they had pie and got a piece of apple it was the forzen type that you buy at the store when we left I saw the door to the pit I told the wife I will be right back, I went to the door and saw the pit master feeding the fire with Hickory and oak it was so hot I thought I had grown horns on my head if you know what I mean! He showed me the pit and I asked a few questions about cooking I asked him how they did the ribs (they only have them once a week) he said they boil them about 75% to make them tender then grill them off to me Q should be low and slow and if your in a hurry you can still make it pretty good that may have been the problem with the pork and chicken not sure? I am going to try again for the ribs hoping that short period of time in the smoker will give them flavor
Now this place is busy all locals they open a 6 am they have alot of breakfast normals and burgers and other sandwiches this place is in a rural area you have to travel a while to find any other food .And that may be why they have non Q items you can make alot more money off of eggs than ribs
Try it out for your self