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The Story of Cafe Pig A long, long time ago—more years than we want to admit—a beautiful, petite, Southern Belle, with a North Carolina accent, happened to meet a handsome, young, Yankee boy.  She batted her eyes and spoke to him in that sweet, slow Tar Heel drawl.  Before he even knew what had happened, he was smitten with this Confederate beauty.  In a matter of just a few weeks, she invited him to visit her family in North Carolina; and to partake in a—Pig Pickin’?!  Never having heard of such a thing—let alone partake in one—he politely declined.  So, she batted her eyes, once again, and told him how much she wanted him to go with the promise that he would surely have the time of his life.  By this time, he was completely under her spell and agreed to go. Upon their arrival in New Bern, North Carolina, our young Yankee was introduced to more “kinfolk” than he had ever encountered before in his entire life.  There was a brother, sisters, aunts and uncles, grannies, second, third, and fourth cousins, and so on, and so forth.  After the meet-n-greet, he was informed that is was the men’s job to cook the hog.  This consisted of building a fire—to get embers to cook with; putting the hog on “concrete” (re-bar laid on top of cement blocks); and covering the whole thing with a piece of rusty, old tin.  While the hog cooked all night, the men played hearts; drank RC Cola or Dr. Pepper WITH peanuts in it, of course; and ate Moon Pies.  Our wide-eyed Yankee had never been a part of anything like this in all his life.  Early the next morning, after a breakfast of buttermilk biscuits, country ham, and sausage (another first in his life), the hog resembled something that you could only consider eating if you closed your eyes—at least that is what our Yankee thought. Along about noon, the “pickin’” began.  Everyone came by the make-shift pit to see the pig.  They reached down and pulled off a hunk of meat to see if it was done.  When Uncle Freddie declared the hog cooked, it was thrown on a piece of wood set across two wooden saw horses.  The meat was pulled off the bones, chopped into small pieces, and mixed with vinegar, hot sauce, salt, pepper, and even a few leaves and some grass that had blown into the tub.  It was finally placed on the picnic table in the yard along with a washtub full of fresh coleslaw, bowls of butter beans, platters of fried cornbread, and Ma Hardy’s fresh coconut cake.  After seeing how the meat was cooked, chopped, sauced, and slung on the table, our Yankee boy was looking for the nearest hamburger drive-thru.  With a little prompting, he ate a forkful of meat and slaw and thought he had died and gone to heaven.  It was love at first bite!  He couldn’t get enough of this wonderful food.  After six plates of food and two big pieces of coconut cake, found himself alone, sitting under the grapevine in the backyard, with his Southern sweetie.   While still spell-bound by this truly unique experience, he caught himself asking her to marry him and feed him pork barbecue, slaw, fried cornbread, and coconut cake all the rest of his life.  She said yes; and they were soon married.  Needless to say, she never made any of this food once they were married.  So, after all these many years, they decided to open Café Pig so he could not only get pork barbecue and slaw; but so they could relive those wonderful memories of their first Pig Pickin’. As far as the name, Cafe Pig, we are asked regularly how we came up with it.  We spent many hours listing everything that came to our minds.  We had over 65 potential names.  We started eliminating them one by one until we ended up with the one that we both liked the best—Cafe Pig.  We wanted a unique name to help set us apart from other barbecue restaurants.  We are a combination of Southern cooking, Southern charm, and memorabilia from a time we fondly remember. We hope you enjoy our food and service; and learn to love pit cooked barbecue as much as we do.