- Title
- Our State
-
-
- Date
- August 2003
-
-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
-
Our State
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Quintessential ’Cue
Recently garnering the 2003 lames Heard Foundation America's
Classics award. Ayden's Skylight Inn produces a prize-winning,
wood-cooked, whole-hog barbecue that has attracted several
former presidents and many internationals.
by Bob Garner
The little town of Aydcn. tome
10 mile* *«ith of Greenville on
N.C. Iligliw jv 1 1. has
proclaimed iivelf "The CoUard Capital
of the World." but it may be even
better known At the home of the
Skylight Inn, Pete Jones' famous — if
unprepossessing — barbecue joint on
the outskirts of town.
The nationwide and even worldwide
renown of Jones' place is proof that
great location oe skilled marketing isn't
always necessary for a restaurant's
success. In this case. Jones' decision to
stay put in an out -of- the -vs a
у
town for
nearly 70 years and to carry on
tirelessly the hard, unglamorous work
involved in cooking great barbecue has
resulted in the world, more or less,
beating a path to his door. The
Skylight Inn isn’t located on any of
North Carolina's mam traffic arteries,
so most of its customers probably go a
considerable distance out of their way
to eat there. Still, the place has a glass
case filled wnh awards and pictures of
several former presidents whom Pete
has versed.
Capitol 'cue
And what's the sloes behind the plain,
one-story, bnck building being adorned
with a scaled-down replica of the dome
on the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
D.G? Well, in I9S 8. after Jones had
already been in the barbecue business
for -to years. National Geogmpbic
magazine selected his restaurant as its
choice for -barbecue Capital of the
World." and the owner decided the
unlikely looking captfol dome should be
built in recognition of the honor.
There lust actually been scores of
honors over the sears, the most recent
of which is being selected as one of only
fisc nationwide recipients of the 2003
James Beard foundation America's
Classics award. (One of the other four
restaurants is Icxington Barbecue in
Itxmgton.) Jones' customers, some of
whom have had barbecue packed up to
take to places as far away as Turkey,
come from all over the world. Yet foe
many stars, the Skylight Inn didn’t hast
so mnch as a sign outside.
What attracts the faithful to the
Sky light Inn is honest -In-goodness,
whole hog barbecue, pit cooked for
houis and hours over oak coals. Jones
has always been stubborn in
proclaiming. “If it isn't cooked with
wood. It isn't barbecue." and anyone
who has ever visited his smoky pits and
admired the reddish-gold, ensp-skinned
split pigs, sputtering and hissing over
the winking embers, bached in billows
of smoke and bursts of aromatic steam
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Our State 139
