Traveling through the Carolinas recently, I had a meeting with an account just outside of Columbia, SC. (By the way, I wholly recommend Tavern on 6 in Irmo, SC. I went there with my account and his staff, but I didn't feel comfortable taking pictures of the food and the restaurant since it was my first time being with them. I will say the fettuccine bolognese was outstanding.) I told my dealer that I had eaten at Midwood Smokehouse when I was in Charlotte and was planning on going back to try a brewpub when I was ending up back there the following evening. He said, "We have a Midwood Smokehouse here, too. It's OK. But if you get back to Charlotte, you really need to try Mac's Speed Shop." He explained to me that despite its name, Mac's Speed Shop had - in his estimation - the best barbecue in Charlotte. So, when I got back to Charlotte the next evening, I had a couple of brewpubs in mind that I had picked out in advance. But Mac's Speed Shop stayed on my mind. I liked Midwood Smokehouse, but if he said he liked Mac's better, well, I just had to give it a try.
Wynn Davis and Hall Johnson (I just love how family surnames become first names for males - and some females - in the south) admittedly didn't know the first thing about running a restaurant, let along a barbecue joint. But the two did know that there was a dearth of good barbecue in Charlotte in the early 2000's. They wanted to do their own barbecue place that had an automotive theme, a place where bikers could come in for good food and live music, but also a place that could host a business lunch.
They found an old building in central Charlotte that was a car wash/garage back in the 1940's. The name of the car wash/garage was Mac's Speed Shop, so it was a fitting name for Davis and Johnson's new barbecue concept. Mac's Speed Shop opened their doors in May of 2005 and it wasn't long before more Mac's Speed Shops opened around Charlotte.
Davis and Johnson later established the Mac's Hospitality Group which oversaw the growth of Mac's Speed Shop outside of the greater Charlotte area. The Mac's Hospitality Group also developed other restaurant concepts such as SouthBound, a Southern California-inspired Mexican restaurant (NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson is a partner in the SoundBound restaurants); BackStage Lounge, billed as a neighborhood speakeasy; The Studio event space; and The Music Yard, an small outdoor live music/event venue.
I ended up going to the Mac's Speed Shop in Charlotte's South End neighborhood just north of the corner of South Blvd and Ideal Way. (see map) There's a small covered parking area off to the side and I was able to snag the last available parking space when I got there.
Walking inside, I saw a front bar area that was unmanned at the time when I walked in. Large garage doors on the front of the building opened to an outdoor patio that was open during the warmer months. They did have outdoor heaters on the patio, but even though the weather was nice for December, there was no one enjoying the evening on the patio.
The main dining area with the main bar are located in the rear of the building at Mac's Speed Shop. A row of booths were opposite the long bar with high-top tables in between. The music playing in the background was pretty loud with Ten Years After on the sound system when I walked into the main dining room. Actually, the music they played during my visit was an eclectic and diverse mix of classic and contemporary rock along with some blues mixed in. I heard songs from Blackberry Smoke, Samantha Fish, and Otis Rush while I was there.
I took a seat at the bar and was helped throughout my visit by three different young ladies who were tending the bar that evening. One of them gave me a food menu to look through while another asked what I wanted to drink. I took a look at their beer menu and I saw that they had Wicked Weed beers on tap - we had visited Wicked Weed when my wife and I were in Asheville, NC a few years ago. I ordered up a pint of the Wicked Weed Perni-Haze, a very good hazy IPA.
The top of the menu featured Mac's Speed Shop's appetizers and it was a decidedly southern mix of offerings. Hush puppies were the first thing on the appetizer menu followed by nachos with a choice of either pulled pork or pulled chicken. Other southern-style appetizers included egg rolls stuffed with pulled pork, cole slaw and mac & cheese; deep-fried pimento cheese; pork rinds, and deviled eggs with bacon and pickled jalapeƱos. They also had hickory-smoked wings as part of the appetizer menu.
There were a number of sandwiches on the menu including a smoked brisket dip, a smoked turkey club sandwich, and a chopped brisket wrap. They had about a half-dozen burgers on the menu including a bacon jam bison burger. And they had southern barbecue twist to Mexican favorites including a smoked brisket taco and a smoked chicken quesadilla. The blackened shrimp tacos sounded really good, but I was there for the barbecue that evening.
And since Mac's Speed Shop is primarily a barbecue place, smoked meat platters took up most of the main entree menu. Brisket, pulled pork, St. Louis-style pork ribs, turkey, chicken and sausage were all smoked in-house, and there was also a cedar-plank smoked salmon and corn meal-coated shrimp available as well. I really wanted to get a sampler platter, but their only option featured a sampler of a choice of 4 meats. That sounded like a lot of food. Maybe if someone else was going to eat with me, I would have gotten it.
In the end, I decided to get the burnt ends appetizer and the pulled pork platter. I got a choice between a number of sides such as marinated red cole slaw, regular cole slaw, chili (?!), fried okra, and mac & cheese. I got tater tots and barbecue beans with the meal. Housemade pickles with pickled onions can on the side along with a couple half slices of grilled Texas toast.
They had 3 different types of barbecue sauce available at Mac's Speed Shop - a Western Carolina sweet and tangy sauce, an Eastern Carolina vinegar sauce, and a South Carolina mustard sauce. I've never cared for a mustard barbecue sauce and I'm sort of half-and-half on barbecue sauces with a vinegar base. Some I've had are very good, some are sort of "meh!" Mac's Speed Shop's vinegar sauce was sort of in the middle between "meh" and "OK". It was all right with the pulled pork. But the sweet and tangy sauce was very good. I wished that they would have had something like the sweet tangy sauce with a little more spiciness added in. Especially for the baked beans.
The burnt ends had the sweet barbecue sauce on them already. They also came with a side of the housemate pickles. The burnt ends were tender, easy-to-cut with a fork and very delicious.
The pulled pork was also tender and very juicy. The mixture of the vinegar-based and the sweet barbecue sauce with the pulled pork were a good combination of flavors. Barbecue pork is the main type of barbecued meat in the Carolinas and the places I've tried the pulled pork have all been very good.
As I said, the baked beans could have used a little more of a zip to the taste, and the tater tots were good. They even had Cholula so I could give the tots a little bit more of a spicy shot.
I have to say that I was glad to have passed on going to a brewpub and went to Mac's Speed Shop on the recommendation of one of my accounts. The pulled pork and the burnt ends were both very good, they had a great selection of craft beers to choose from, the ambiance was sort of fun and funky, and the three bartenders who tag-teamed on waiting on me that evening were friendly, outgoing and very helpful. The barbecue places I've been to in North Carolina have been very good and Mac's Speed Shop was no exception.
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