If you like North Carolina barbecue, enjoy a good street festival, like live music, are into classic cars, and don’t mind a nice day trip, then the Lexington BBQ Festival is for you.
The Lexington BBQ Festival is one of the largest gatherings of its type in the southeast. This 28th annual festival had over 100,000 people in attendance. That’s about the same number as attended the NC State Fair on the same day.
The atmosphere reminds me of the fair. Except the setting is historic downtown Lexington, NC rather than the state fairgrounds. Nine blocks of N Main Street (and a block each way at every intersection) gets blocked off for the event. There are all kinds of crafts being sold at booths along the street, as well as every type of festival food imaginable. Yes, that includes candied apples, cotton candy, elephant ears, turkey drumsticks, foot-long hot dogs, and every imaginable fried food substance known to man. And there’s plenty of entertainment for just about any preference or taste.
There’s a lumberjack show, pig races (you have to see this!), a rock climbing wall, live music throughout the day from a variety of bands, a stunt bicycle show, and several car shows.
I really enjoy looking at classic cars, so I would make the two hour drive from Raleigh just for this. The Lexington BBQ Festival is a pretty big event, so it attracts some impressive cars for the shows. One (original!) owner of a mint condition 55 Chevy we met told me more people looked at his car this day than at all other shows throughout the year combined.
And of course, there’s the Western NC style barbecue. Which is different from Eastern NC barbecue. And way different than barbecue from any other part of the country.
What’s the difference in Eastern and Western NC barbecue you ask? Well, in both cases it’s pork. And it’s a noun, not a verb. In North carolina, barbecue is a food product, not something you do to meat.
Eastern NC barbecue uses the whole hog (white and dark meat) and has vinegar based sauce. Western NC barbecue uses only pork shoulders and has a ketchup based sauce.
From my perspective, both are really good and I’ll eat whichever is placed in front of me. The bottom line is if you make the trip to the Lexington BBQ Festival, you absolutely owe it to yourself to try this tasty local barbecue.
The 2012, 29th annual festival should take place in October next year, so if you’re new to the Raleigh area be sure to mark your calendar and check out a little local NC culture.
