The Ultimate BBQ Road Trip Slideshow

Style: Eastern North Carolina

Founded by Ralph Parker, Graham Parker, and Henry Parker Brewer in 1946, Parker's Barbecue serves more than 150 smoked pigs and 8,000 fried chickens to 20,000 customers each week, according to Southern Foodways Alliance (SFA). Not much has changed about Parker's Barbecue since its opening. Longtime employees Kevin Lamm and Donald Williams now own the restaurant and the staff still wears white paper hats and aprons in the dining room. The only items that have been added to the original menu are string beans, hushpuppies, and fish.

Meat from the whole hogs is served with house vinegar-based sauce and a mustard-dressed slaw. The fried chicken is also worth a try. "It's just chopped, vinegar-based barbecue. And yeah, come try you some. When it's good — when it's moist, you can tell," Lamm told SFA. Parker's closes for one week each year, the week of Father's Day.

Style: Eastern North Carolina

The Pit opened almost five years ago in the warehouse district of downtown Raleigh. Greg Hatem, who is from Halifax County in eastern North Carolina and grew up cooking pigs each fall, came up with the idea to establish a serious restaurant to honor his state's best-known food, partnering with celebrated local pitmaster Ed Mitchell and including a full bar with cocktails, beer, and wine — an amenity rarely found at barbecue joints.

Mitchell left last year to open his own place, but The Pit remains a great Raleigh favorite for its signature eastern North Carolina-style chopped whole-hog barbecue. The hogs are raised free-range in North Carolina farms which meet the standards of the Animal Welfare Institute, and they're cooked the way it's been done for nearly 150 years in the region, for about 12 hours, with plenty of smoke from hickory and oak. The meat is removed from the carcasses, and everything is blended together — shoulders, legs, ribs, and belly meat with a bit of cracklins added. Then the pork is seasoned with The Pit's special vinegar-based sauce, which gives it a hot, tangy flavor that's just a little bit sweet. "When they're done," said Samantha Hatem, who handles media relations for her husband's Empire Eats restaurant group, "the meat is so tender, you can cut it with a butter knife. It tastes great with a nice smoky flavor even without the sauce, but when you add the sauce? That's perfect barbecue,"

Signature dishes include the chopped barbecue plate for $11.99, which includes two of more than a dozen side dishes, many of which change seasonally. One of the most popular is coleslaw.

Recipe: The Pit's North Carolina Chopped Pork

Recipe: The Pit's Coleslaw

Recipe: The Pit's Barbecue Sauce

Style: Lexington-Style

Chip Stamey of Stamey's carries on the tradition set forth by his grandfather, C. Warner Stamey, who studied and worked under Lexington pit-cooking pioneers Jess Swicegood and Sid Weaver in the 1920s. Warner eventually bought out his mentor Swicegood and renamed the operation, relocating it to Greensboro in 1953.

Stamey's continues to fry up hushpuppies, the traditional barbecue side in North Carolina, and serve pork shoulders slow-cooked over hickory coals and doused with "dip." Patrons can order their 'cue sliced or chopped. Plates are served with rolls, hushpuppies, or the signature ketchup-based slaw with red pepper, black pepper, sugar, and cabbage.

Style: South Carolina

Maurice's BBQ Piggy Park has been an institution in the South — and founder Maurice Bessinger has been a polarizing figure — since 1953. Bessinger learned how to barbecue from his father, Joseph Bessinger, who owned a barbecue business in Holly Hill, S.C. After his father's death, Maurice carried on the tradition with his own establishment. He also found time to head up the National Association for the Preservation of White People, and had to be forced by the Supreme Court to integrate his dining room.

Bessinger's sons, daughter, and grandchildren now run Piggy Park, which currently boasts some 11 locations around the Palmetto State, and Bessinger senior has retired and, he once said, changed his prejudicial beliefs after becoming a born-again Christian.

Meanwhile, Piggy Park's pigs, which are sourced from the restaurant's own organic free-range farm, are pit-cooked over hickory coals for 24 hours — the chain spends $100,000 a year on wood — then basted with the restaurant's own mustard-based Southern Golden BBQ Sauce. (There are also original hickory, spicy, and honey sauce varieties as well as a trio of vinegar pepper sauces — original, hot chipotle, and habanero.)

Style: Traditional Southern BBQ and Carolina Chopped Pork

Before there was Monroe's, there was RSVP Caterers, whose repertoire included barbecue. The barbecue was so popular that the proprietors, Keith Monroe Waller and Kimberly Waller, decided in 2007 to open a restaurant devoted to it. All the Monroe's Smokehouse meats are slow-smoked with a dry rub, with sauce added at the customers' discretion. "Monroe's is at the top of the list for this style of BBQ because we take no shortcuts," said Keith Waller. Monroe's Smokehouse's signature meats are pulled pork, Carolina pork, beef brisket, and smoked wings, and the signature side dish is the collard greens, which are made with Carolina Sauce.

Style: Unspecified

Each Friday, the family-run Paul's BBQ smokes hogs in a pit behind the family house and transfers them to the restaurant, which used to be the small town's general store. The menu is barbecue pork, sold sliced or stuffed between two pieces of white bread, with beans and coleslaw on the side, and Paul's is open only on Saturdays, from 9.30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Come early, especially during football season.

Style: Unspecified

Opened in 1947, Dean's Barbecue is located in a small house with concrete floors and wooden tables. Diners can also opt to eat at outdoor picnic tables located beneath pecan trees. Open Wednesday through Saturday, the family-run restaurant roasts pigs in an outdoor pit over hickory and oak wood and serves only chopped or pulled pork with a sweet and tangy vinegar-based sauce.

Style: North Alabama

Bob Gibson worked for the L & N Railroad and hosted barbecues in his backyard on the weekends. He sold his barbecue from a few places until 1952, when he opened Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q on Sixth Avenue in Decatur. Gibson's grandson, Don McLemore, took over in 1972. When the restaurant burned down in 1988, the family rebuilt it next door, salvaging the original neon sign, according to SFA. "We like what we do, and we're very particular about our people that work here, how they process the meat and cook the meat and, again, how they treat people, and I think that's the secret to our success," McLemore told SFA.

The restaurant's signature smoked pork and chicken are roasted over a brick pit. The chicken is served with Gibson's famous vinegar-based white sauce and the pork has a vinegar-based tomato sauce — though some diners insist on using the white sauce on the pork and ribs. Sides include a barbecue-stuffed baked potato. Save room for a slice of coconut cream Heaven High meringue pie, chocolate Heaven High meringue pie, or the lemon icebox pie.

Style: Unspecified

George Archibald worked in a steel mill and his wife, Betty, worked at a paper mill for years before opening Archibald's Bar-B-Q in their hometown of Northport in 1962. George Archibald Jr., and his sister, Paulette Washington, now run the business. The siblings serve ribs the same way their parents did: cooked over hickory with vinegar-based sauce and served in butcher paper with white bread. The secret sauce is so popular people have been known to come by with jars to take some home in.

"I've been in the barbecue business all my life," said George Archibald Jr.to SFAof the secret to the restaurant's success. "This is just a small little place. I just build a fire and keep the fire low and cook it slow."

Style: Unspecified

It was here at this old-school barbecue joint that Andrew Zimmern of Bizarre Foods feasted on raccoon and possum, but the more traditional pork is also featured on Leatha's Bar-B-Que Inn's menu. The ramshackle spot has been in business for more than 70-years, smoking tender ribs and baking homemade pecan pies.

Style: Unspecified

The Church of Holy Smoke began as a fundraiser for the New Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Huntsville. The idea for the restaurant began when Annie May Ward cooked barbecue outside the church while the pastor and her husband worked to build the church. According to the Southern Foodways Alliance, people driving by would stop and ask if they could buy the barbecue and, at the insistence of the pastor and her husband, Ward began by selling sandwiches, according to SFA.

As word spread, the church built a restaurant for Ward, with proceeds going to running the church. When Ward had a stroke in 2003, parishioners Horace and May Archie began helping out at the restaurant, and in 2004, they took over. Mr. Archie mans the pit and Mrs. Archie cooks the sides and serves diners. Meat is smoked over red and white oak wood with a little hickory, pecan, and mesquite mixed in toward the end of the cooking process to add flavor to the brisket. The restaurant is open Wednesdays to Saturdays only; on busy days, customers are sometimes seated in the church's cafeteria.

Style: German-Style Barbecue

Kreuz Market was founded by Charles Kreuz (pronounced "krites" in these parts) in 1900, originally a meat market and a grocery store, according to SFA. Like most markets at the time, it pit-barbecued the better cuts of meat and made sausage out of the lesser cuts. Customers bought barbecue and sausage and garnishes like bread, crackers, pickles, onions, tomatoes, and cheese from the grocery store, and ate it straight off butcher paper. The business was passed on to Kreuz's sons, who ran it until 1948. That year, Edgar A. "Smitty" Schmidt bought the place, phased out the groceries, but continued to serve the same barbecue and sausage. Cabbage knives were chained to the tables so that customers could cut their meat (but not take home the cutlery). Schmidt's son, Rick Schmidt, bought the business, and when he and his sister Nina went their separate ways, he moved, along with the Kreuz name, to a cavernous new 560-seat location nearby, opening in 1999. Nina kept the old location (see next slide). Today, Kreuz boasts eight 16-foot pits for barbecuing meat (it cooks for four to six hours, a short period by industry standards) and for grilling approximately 15,000 rings of sausage each week. The original menu has expanded to include baked beans, German potato salad, sauerkraut, and dipped ice cream.

Style: Unspecified

At 88-years-old, pitmaster Vencil Mares is still serving what some connoisseurs consider the best brisket in the Texas Hill Country, along with turkey, sausage links, and other meats. Mares learned his craft at nearby Southside Market in Elgin, before buying the Taylor Café in 1949, according to the SFA. Mares seasons his brisket two days ahead and roasts it in a pit with post oak wood for five to six hours. The brisket is served with a sauce based on ketchup, with lemon juice, onion, celery, brown sugar, butter, and Louisiana hot sauce added. Taylor Café, which is more than a century old, has not changed much since its opening. Telltale signs include an aging jukebox, old-fashioned cash register, and mismatched bar stools.

Style: Unspecified

Don't let its unlikely location in a gas station put you off from dining at Oklahoma Joe's Barbecue. Jeff Stehney named the restaurant for the first smoker he purchased, back in 1991 — an Oklahoma Joe's 24" model. Stehney and a handful of friends, who dubbed themselves the Slaughterhouse Five, started entering barbecue competitions with the smoker, and won eight grand championship awards. He then went into partnership with Oklahoma Joe's Smoker Company founder Joe Don Davidson, opening his first restaurant in Stillwater, Okla., site of Davidson's company headquarters, in 1996. Eight months later, he opened in Kansas City. Three locations now serve chicken and pork plates and sandwiches including the house specialty, a pulled pork sandwich.

Style: Kansas City

Blues and barbecue are on the menu at BB's Lawnside, which slow roasts and smokes its sausage, chicken, beef, and pork in a 60-year-old pit. Husband-and-wife team Lindsay and Jo Shannon left their jobs in sales and advertising to open BB's Lawnside in 1990. The menu includes Lindsay's Kansas City-style barbecue and Jo's Louisiana gumbo, red beans and rice, and jambalaya — all accompanied by live blues  most nights.

Style: Unspecified

Located in a former gas station, this small, hole-in-the wall barbecue joint on Main Street is known for its ribs and brisket, and its warm baked potato salad. Order at the counter, where BBQ Station's meat is cut to order, before you sit in the nostalgic dining room or take some for the road.

Style: Unspecified

Located about halfway between Little Rock and Memphis, Craig Brothers was started by brothers Lawrence Craig, a former cook on a Mississippi River boat, and Leslie Craig in 1947. Today, Lawrence's son Robert overseas the restaurant's operation. Uncured ham, ribs, pork, pork sausage, and chicken are cooked over hickory smoke in an outdoor pit. Order the sliced pork sandwich, slathered in a brownish-orange sauce involving apples and bell peppers, mild, medium, or hot, with green apple slaw on top.

Style: Unspecified

Abe's Bar-B-Q has been offering Mississippians and their guests "swine dining" since 1924. Its current location, at the fabled crossroads of highways 49 and 61 (where blues pioneer Robert Johnson supposedly sold his soul to the devil in return for prowess on the guitar), hosts musicians like ZZ Top, Paul Simon, and Conway Twitty, road-trippers, and locals alike, all in search of Abe's barbecued pork and beef, ribs, and bundles of hot tamales (a Mississippi tradition) served with crackers and slaw.

Style: Memphis

Payne's was opened in a converted gas station by Horton Payne and his mother, Emily, in 1972, but after his death at the age of 35, in 1984, his wife, Flora, took over. Today, she and the Paynes' son Ron turn the pork shoulders over hickory coals in a recessed pit set into the wall behind the counter. A mild sauce simmers all afternoon on the stove and hot sauce is dispensed from an old liquid soap bottle. The specialty here is pork shoulder sandwich topped with neon-green mustard-based coleslaw. "I pray over this food," said Flora Payne in an interview with SFA. "Bless it."

Style: Memphis

Mike Mills, known as "The Legend," started barbecuing using his grandmother Mama Landess' sauce and his father's expertise at the pit. He barbecued throughout his early life at family events and for friends' celebrations and in parking lots before opening the first 17th Street Bar & Grill in 1985. Since that first restaurant, three more have opened in Southern Illinois and two in Las Vegas, under the name Memphis Championship Barbecue.

The Memphis-style barbecue served by Mills is dry rubbed with savory "Magic Dust" combined with a swizzle of sauce and smoked over applewood. "17th Street BBQ is the best example of Memphis-style barbecue because of the flavor profile and the care and love that goes into each rack of ribs," said Mills' daughter, Amy Mills, to The Daily Meal.

17th Street is famous for its baby back ribs and tangy pit beans. Mills' ribs have won numerous awards, including a record-setting four World Champion and three Grand World Champion trophies at Memphis in May and Grand Champion overall at the Jack Daniel's World Championship Invitational Barbecue Cooking Contest. The beans are an unusual mixture of five different types of beans and special spices.  

Style: Unspecified

Open-pit hickory-smoked pork, chicken, beef, and lamb are the mainstays that have kept locals coming back year after year to this no-frills establishment. The signature side dishes at Bar-B-Que Shack are hot slaw, a spicy slaw with a red dressing, and burgoo, a Civil War-era stew from Kentucky made with pulled pork, carrots, and beans.