A new list of the South’s top 50 BBQ joints is out. See which Midlands restaurants made it

The Midlands has long been known for its affinity for barbecue. Now the area can claim some of the top spots for barbecue in the entire South.

On Monday, Southern Living magazine published The South’s Top 50 Barbecue Joints, which ranks the best places from across the region, from the Carolinas, Georgia and Tennessee all the way out to Texas. The list was compiled by Southern Living’s contributing barbecue editor Robert Moss, who has penned a number of books, including “Barbecue: The History of an American Institution.”

This marks the first time since 2019 that Southern Living has published The South’s Top 50 Barbecue Joints.

While the latest Southern Living top 50 includes a broad spectrum of barbecue styles and restaurants in various locations across numerous states, a few joints in the Midlands snagged spots on the list.

Clocking in at No. 44 is Big T Bar-B-Q at 2520 Congaree Road in Gadsden, not far from Congaree National Park. Moss lauds the methods Big T uses in cooking its pork, noting “they do it the old-school way, too, reducing logs to coals in a warped metal burn box, carrying them by shovel into the pit room, and scattering them beneath pork shoulders cooking on open metal pits.”

He goes on to note Big T’s hash “has wonderful dark, earthy notes plus a boost from a dose of the same golden-hued mustard sauce that dresses the pork.” There also is a Big T’s location on Garners Ferry Road in Columbia.

Meanwhile, longtime West Columbia institution Hite’s Bar-B-Que landed at No. 36 on the Southern Living list. Located at 240 Dreher Road, Hite’s has been smoking pork and chicken for more than 60 years.

“Since 1957, they’ve been cooking whole hogs, ribs, and chickens on open pits in the big screened-in pit house,” Moss wrote. “As the cords of split oak and hickory stacked in the back attest, they’re cooking on all wood, and you can taste it in every smoky bite.”

If you are looking to get some barbecue from Hite’s, you need to hop on it in a fairly limited timeframe: They are only open on Fridays and Saturdays.

And there was another entry on the Southern Living top 50 with tendrils in the Midlands: Home Team BBQ was No. 38 on the list. Moss specifically singled out the location on Williman Street in downtown Charleston, but Home Team has a number of spots in South Carolina, including one at 700 Harden St. in Columbia’s Five Points. Moss notes the company “has grown into a South Carolina barbecue empire.”

Outside of the Midlands, several other South Carolina barbecue spots made the Southern Living top 50 list. Those included Rodney Scott’s Whole Hog Barbecue in Charleston (No. 25), McCabe’s Bar-B-Q in Manning (No. 22), Palmira BBQ in Charleston (No. 19) and Lewis Barbecue in Charleston (No. 10).

And the No. 1 spot on the Southern Living top 50 went to Scott’s Bar-B-Que in tiny Hemingway. “There are plenty of restaurants with fancier decor, broader menus, and more high-tech cooking methods, but there’s simply no barbecue bite that can compare to Scott’s Pee Dee-style whole hog,” Moss wrote.