These are the 4 best barbecue joints in the Triangle from our Top 50 list

The News & Observer named its Top 50 Triangle restaurants for the first time in years, and barbecue earned a strong showing with four spots on the list. From a Michelin-rated food trailer in Cary to a whole-hog institution in Downtown Raleigh, here are the ‘cue joints that made the cut.

FULL STORY: The N&O’s Top 50 Restaurants of 2026: The Triangle’s best places to eat

Here are key takeaways:

• Dampf Good BBQ (Cary): The Dampf brothers promise a brick and mortar is on the way one day, but no one seems to mind standing in line at this perennial pop-up — the only Michelin-rated food trailer in North Carolina. You don’t need walls when the brisket is the real Texas-style deal, unctuous and heavenly, or when the sausage game is the most creative in the Triangle. Maybe they’ll have a front door one day, but we don’t care.

6800 Good Hope Church Road, Cary | dampfgoodbbq.com | $ - $ $ $

• Lawrence (Cary): Barbecue is a serious matter in North Carolina, but at Lawrence, it’s always serious fun. Nowhere else in the new-school barbecue world will you find the pairing of smoke and sea, with Jake Wood serving up fire-kissed roasted oysters and crab claw lollipops with herby chimichurri. But the barbecue bonafides are real, particularly with pork, where the smoked shoulders are among the Triangle’s very best, with notes of fruity sweetness. And maybe one day, Wood will win a Nobel Prize for beef fat caramel chicken wings, a dish that fulfills every promise of modern barbecue.

150 E. Cedar St., Cary | lawrencebarbecue.com | $ $ - $ $ $

• Prime BBQ (Knightdale): North Carolina’s proud barbecue tradition has taken an uncomfortable backseat to the nation’s buzzy obsession with Texas, swooning over brisket, dinosaur-sized beef ribs and sausage. Prime BBQ in Knightdale is a full-throated rebuttal for an entire state’s barbecue grievances. At Prime, owner and James Beard semifinalist Christopher Prieto serves tender, smoky brisket, glistening with fat and a black pepper bark, widely lauded pastrami, giant ribs and snappy sausages. But he also pushes the conversation forward, serving whole hog, North Carolina’s most cherished contribution to barbecue, but with tangy mojo sauce and rice and beans, honoring his own Puerto Rican roots. America’s barbecue scene is better for it.

403 Knightdale Station Run, Knightdale | prime-bbq.com | $ - $ $ $

• Sam Jones BBQ (Raleigh): If you’re able, you should take a drive out to Eastern North Carolina and eat at Skylight Inn, one of the state’s finest barbecue temples. If you have the same hankering for North Carolina-style whole-hog barbecue and only your lunch hour to spare, you should go to Sam Jones BBQ in Downtown Raleigh. As barbecue bloodlines go, Jones is royalty in North Carolina, a third-generation pitmaster who serves the same hand-chopped whole hog that his grandfather made famous, where the pork skin gets blasted with the coals, crisped up and mixed in for the most satisfying crunch in barbecue. But Sam Jones BBQ goes beyond that, serving smoky dry-rubbed chicken, new school sides like mac and cheese and barbecue baked potatoes and, sneakily, one of Raleigh’s best bourbon selections.

502 W. Lenoir St., Raleigh | samjonesbbq.com | $ - $ $

The summary above was compiled with the help of AI tools and edited by journalists. The full story in the link at top was reported, written and edited entirely by journalists.

This story was originally published April 24, 2026 at 1:00 PM.

Drew Jackson

The News & Observer

919-829-4707

Drew Jackson writes about restaurants and dining for The News & Observer and The Herald-Sun, covering the food scene in the Triangle and North Carolina.