Bar-B-Q King - Charlotte, NC

Alright here's a spot that I never thought to stop at until someone told me that they had good bbq chicken, which I'm not normally and advocate of when other (read: better) meats are available, but this one was a bit different.  It looks pretty rough, a beat up old drive-in on the road in to downtown from the airport.

It's one of those places that you drive by and say, yeah, that place probably has some good food, but its probably not worth risking my life for.  Risk reward seemingly way out of balance on this one.  I'm happy to report I was wrong, but I still would not recommend going there at night.

So it looks like a drive-in, because it is.  No tables here, and no place to eat inside.  I went there for the first time with a guy I worked with, who was a little skeptical of it when we pulled in and into our spot.  They had a big menu to look at, but I had to try that chicken that I'd heard about.  And it didn't disappoint.  Our meal came to the car in styrofoam boxes and we immediately realized that this was a meal that we'd have to eat ON the car and not IN the car.   The picture below doesn't do justice to the sloppiness of this chicken, which is first deep fried and then dunked in a vat of hot, vinegary, western Carolina style bbq sauce before being brought out to you.  So we're not talking smoked bbq chicken here, we're talking inner city fried chicken dunked in a great sauce which makes your nose and eyes water.  So the western Carolina sauce differs from the sauces out east, and a different way from sauces down here in Texas, almost being a blend of the two.  While eastern Carolina sauces (which I love) are primarily vinegar and some kind of pepper...black, cayenne, red...and are generally clear and watery, the western Carolina sauces look a bit more like what most people think of as a bbq sauce, reddish brown due to the tomato base.  That said, these sauces go much heavier on the vinegar than the Texas sauces, which creates a really volatile and pungent sauce when it's heated up that hits every sense but the ears when you eat it.  So this chicken is absolutely incredible, and I urge anyone visiting Charlotte to make time to hit it.  While the other bbq and the sides there are good, there is absolutely no reason to talk about them here.  You get the chicken, and you won't remember anything else.

Summary:

Atmosphere:  beat up drive-in in a rough area

Food:  bbq

Dog Friendly:  only if your car is

Crowd:  mixed, carry out

When to Go:  lunch

What to Order for the First Timer:   BBQ Chicken