I took a recent trip to the Carolinas and flew into Charlotte. I got in around 10:30 a.m. and before I got my bag and rental car, I needed to do some office work. After about 20 minutes of computer time, I thought that I'd get something to eat before I left Charlotte and headed up to Winston-Salem. I quickly looked up barbecue places near the Charlotte airport and found a place that looked pretty promising - Midwood Smokehouse. Once I got my bag and got situated in my rental car, I poked in the address for Midwood Smokehouse and took off toward the place.
When my wife and I were in Charlotte about six years ago, we ended up going to an Italian restaurant Mama Ricotta's. (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on Mama Ricotta's.) It turned out that Mama Ricotta's was under the umbrella of the FS Food Group and its owner and founder Frank Scibelli. Scibelli had worked as a consultant in Charlotte after getting his degree in business from Wake Forest, but armed with old family recipes he opened Mama Ricotta's in 1992.
The success of Mama Ricotta's propelled Scibelli to work on other restaurant concepts including Paco's Tacos, Calle Sol, and Little Mama's classic Italian restaurant. But the one thing that Frank Scibelli felt was missing from the Charlotte food scene was good old-school barbecue.
15 years ago, Charlotte was known more as a soul food/southern diner type of town. Fast food restaurants and a fried chicken place that closed at 6 p.m. were the most popular places to eat in Charlotte. To find good barbecue, you had to look pretty hard to find it. The barbecue shacks that served great - and cheap - barbecue that you could find in the rural areas of North and South Carolina, you just couldn't find in Charlotte. Real estate was - and is - at a premium in Charlotte and you needed some space to have a barbecue joint.
That didn't deter Frank Scibelli in his quest to bring good barbecue to Charlotte. After he found success with Mama Ricotta's, he decided there wasn't a good Mexican restaurant in the area. So, he opened a Mexican cantina. Then he found that there weren't any good burger places in Charlotte. So, he opened a great burger joint. When he thought the city lacked a good Tex-Mex restaurant, he went out and opened one up. It was a foregone conclusion in his mind that he would open a barbecue joint since Charlotte didn't really have great barbecue at the time.
Before he started Mama Ricotta's, Scibelli was a business consultant and some of his trips would take him deep in the heart of Texas. He frequented Otto's, a barbecue/burger joint in Houston that had been open since 1951. He visited a number of barbecue joints across the state talking with some of the pit masters about their techniques. Scibelli decided that he would do Texas barbecue with a Carolina twist.
The Carolina twist had to do with the sauces he would offer. One region of North Carolina was famous for their sweet and spicy vinegar-style sauce. Another region has a sweet tomato-based sauce, while other regions go for a mustard-based sauce. Scibelli found a pit master and all he needed was a building.
He found a building in the Plaza Midwood neighborhood just south and east of downtown that was perfect for is barbecue joint. Taking the name of the neighborhood, Scibelli opened Midwood Smokehouse in 2011.
Of course, it was a hit right off the back. Two more Charlotte locations came some time down the road and another was opened in Huntersville just north of Charlotte. Scibelli opened Midwood Smokehouse locations in Raleigh, NC and Charleston, SC. And just last year, a Midwood Smokehouse opened at Charlotte International Airport.
I put the address for the Midwood Smokehouse location off Park Road at Brandywine Road in the Park Road Shopping Center. (see map) When I pulled into the shopping complex, my GPS showed that I had taken a right turn too early and I had to maneuver around the parking lot to get back onto Park Road and take what was nothing more than an alleyway behind the main building. In a small strip of businesses behind the hardware store in the complex, I found the Midwood Smokehouse at that location. It was coming up to the noon hour and the place was filling up fast.
Inside the door, I was greeted by a man with a thick southern accent who was at the stand by the door. He asked if I was there for some gathering that they were hosting over the noon hour, but I said that I was just there for lunch. The bar was next to the host stand and I settled in over there. There were booths and tables behind me in the upper part of the dining area with a the kitchen open through a serving window to my right.
Toward the back of the restaurant on a lower level was another room that was a bit larger than the upper section of Midwood Smokehouse. This is where the lunchtime gathering was taking place. The decor of the restaurant was sort of "Americana-Rib Shack", but it wasn't a dump. Still, it was down-home enough to have rolls of paper towels instead of napkins on the tables.
I had to use the restroom before I got started and when I walked into the men's room I was somewhat taken aback by the cheesecake posters of 1970's pin-up icons that included Farrah Fawcett, Loni Anderson and Carrie Fisher. Not that I was offended, far from it. But I certainly didn't expect to see photos of late-70's teenage boy fantasies in ANY men's bathroom. I chuckled thinking that there may have been times that a teenaged boy went to use the restroom at Midwood Smokehouse only to linger a bit longer than usual.
At the bar, I was greeted by a lady who was working behind the counter during lunch. She gave me a menu and I took a look at what they had for beer selections. I do love a good beer with barbecue. I ended up getting a the Juicy Jay hazy IPA from the Legion Brewing Company with 4 locations in the Charlotte area.
For a barbecue joint, Midwood Smokehouse had an expansive menu featuring a number of appetizers, salads, sandwiches and barbecue plates. And some of their appetizers were pretty interesting - smoked meatballs made with USDA prime brisket, Pimento cheese fries, corn bread baked in a black iron skillet, and guacamole that is made table side. Sandwiches included a brisket sandwich, a pulled pork sandwich, and a Pimento cheese burger. They also had Tex-Mex tacos including brisket tacos with a pineapple pico de gallo and a marinated pulled pork al pastor tacos.
But I was there for barbecue and they had the main types of meat you'd find at a barbecue joint - pork, beef and chicken. They also had a seared salmon filet seasoned with an achiote spice, and Yucatan pork ribs all with the achiote spice rub.
And they also had combo plates, the thing I like most about visiting a barbecue place for the first time. The problem was that they were big. Well, they had a "Well-Fed" combo and a "Pig-Out" combo that included your choice of 4 different types of meat and two sides which included baked beans, cole slaw, bacon-wrapped jalapeños, mac & cheese, and crinkle-cut fries. That was going to be too much for me.
I did see, however, that I could get any one of the barbecue plates and add on ribs, burnt ends or jalapeño cheese-smoked sausage. I ended up getting the pulled pork plate - the small size - with the burnt end add-on. I got a choice of a side with the plate (the large plate gives you a choice of two sides) and I got the baked beans. Along with the pork, burnt ends and baked beans, a side of hushpuppies came with the meal along with a house-made dill pickle slaw with pickled red onions.
For sauces, they had Midwood's original vinegar/sweet sauce, but they also had a somewhat spicy Eastern Carolina vinegar sauce that went very well with the pulled pork. In addition to those two sauces, they had a Carolina mustard sauce (I don't like mustard-based barbecue sauce) and a spicy habanero sauce (that I was reluctant to try).
The pulled pork was very good - tender, juicy, full of flavor even without the barbecue sauce. And the burnt ends were equally as good - the USDA prime beef was succulent and could easily be cut with a fork. And I really liked the dill pickle slaw they had on the side. The baked beans were fine - I zipped them up with a combination of the spicy vinegar-based sauce and the vinegar/sweet sauce - but the hushpuppies were just sort of "meh!" I'm not a big hushpuppy fan and these didn't do anything to make me think differently.
It could be said that Frank Scibelli started a barbecue renaissance in Charlotte when he opened the first Midwood Smokehouse about 13 years ago. And my experience at this Midwood Smokehouse was very good. The barbecue was tasty, they had a great selection of craft beers to choose from (and a full bar of mixed cocktails) and the service was very good. The restaurant was clean and comfortable, and the it was sort of a funny surprise to see the posters of 1970's sex-kittens in the men's restroom. I like going to barbecue places in North Carolina and Midwood Smokehouse was a good find on this trip.
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