Yet another new Raleigh barbecue restaurant is planned, but this one has a twist
Jason Howard is side-stepping into Raleigh’s soon-to-be-booming barbecue scene.
Howard, the owner of hot dog paradise The Cardinal Bar and subterranean cocktail bar the Atlantic Lounge, will open Friendship Barbecue later this year. The restaurant will forego chopped pork and instead specialize in smoked chicken and spare ribs, filling out the menu with rotating sides, beer and wine.
“I’m not claiming to call myself a pit master,” Howard said. “We’re going to focus on chicken and ribs, quick service, served on paper plates. To me barbecue is an event, it’s not just a certain food.”
Friendship Barbecue will join the relocating Chinese restaurant Five Star in the former Auto Interiors and Tops at 303 N. West Street , just off from the heart of Glenwood Avenue. Howard expects Friendship to open this summer.
Howard is in the middle of construction on his new breakfast and lunch diner Rainbow Luncheonette and bar The Pink Boot, which he calls a modern honky tonk. Both are up the road on West Street, just past The Cardinal. Rainbow and The Pink Boot will open in February or March, Howard said.
It might seem like the last thing Raleigh needs right now is another barbecue spot, with at least a half dozen others planning to open in 2020, potentially repositioning the city as one of the South’s barbecue capitals.
But Howard has a way of setting himself apart. Just look at the Cardinal, which opened as a dive bar off of Peace Street. But with its New England-style buns griddled in mayo and hot dogs steamed with beer, a new classic was born.
“I approach everything trying to differentiate myself,” Howard said. “You’re not going to be successful doing what everyone else is doing. I add just a little twist without being too crazy.”
Howard grew up near Jordan Lake and said Friendship Barbecue takes its name from one of the communities flooded to make the lake, pointing to an ABC11 story from 2018.
He said that Friendship aims to feel more like a gathering than a restaurant, the food on paper plates, the drinks in Dixie cups.
“We want it to feel like a barbecue,” Howard said.
This story was originally published December 31, 2019 at 8:00 AM.
