"The Fun Tribe”® aka The North Carolina Barbecue Society (NCBS)
When I set about to write the book THE BEST TAR HEEL BARBECUE MANTEO TO MURPHY, my goal was to go to all of the 100 counties in NC and try to find the best BBQ in every county in the state. I did this. I put in over 4000 hours in field work, writing and getting this book to market. My field work produced four surprises. One, I found less than 30 places in the state still cooking the old fashioned way -- meat cooked slowly over live coals. Two, I found only 6 black owned and operated BBQ pits. Three, I found only 3 female owned and operated BBQ pits. Four, I found NC did not have a BBQ society. We should have had one over 350 years ago.

I could not fix One, Two and Three. So I focused on curing the 350 year oversight of no BBQ society. In mid 2006 I founded The North Carolina Barbecue Society, Inc. With the help of some very talented people, we got the website up in February 2007. In a few months I was 9 hours trial lawyer and 6 hours BBQ man, every day. I had been immensely blessed in my law practice and had already practiced more than 40 years. Fifteen hour days and traveling most weekends got old pretty fast. So on September 7th 2007, I closed my law office to devote full time to the NCBS pro bono. I work more hours per week now than I did when I practiced law. If you love what you are doing, it isn’t work, it's a passion.


NCBS has 12 staff workers and 10 cooking school instructors, all of whom work pro bono. This enables us to run our office, produce our cooking schools and offer about $50,000 in scholarships each year to disabled Warriors and their mentors; 1st Responders and their guests and culinary school students and their instructors. We have produced three cooking schools a year for the past 8 years. Attendees come from all over the country and out of country to attend our schools. We have been invited by US military bases and US Embassies in a number of countries to produce our events. Last year we were invited by the US Embassy in the Dominican Republic to produce a NC pig pick’n for the Embassy and 1,000 guests and celebrate Independence Day. I was told that the party that night was the best party in the history of the Caribbean. Click here to see the party and the wonderful week in Santo Domingo.

NCBS is a 501 (C)(3) non-profit public charity. Our goal is to teach attendees at our cooking schools how to cook authentic NC BBQ in the best possible way that sets NC BBQ apart from all others. We helped make NC the BBQ Capitol of the World. Read more about it on the NCBS Honors Page.

NCBS also produces a slick high-end 32 page monthly magazine NCBS Pig Tales, that is the cutting edge in what’s going on in the world of BBQ, pigs, BBQ equipment, etc... and each edition has great seasonal recipes and cooking tips from the Pit Masters and Chefs. Read some of our back issues of Pig Tales® Magazine

NCBS produced, maintains and monitors The NCBS Historic Barbecue Trail. This Trail honors the good folks that still cook the old fashioned way... low and slow with the meat dripping directly onto live coals. There are currently 22 Historic Pits on the Trail. In the 11 years the Trail has been in place, Pits have been removed for non-compliance or closure and Pits have been added after they reached the 15 years in business threshold. The Trail is not carved in stone. It changes as needed.

NCBS will continue to promote and showcase black Pit Masters in the world of NC BBQ and recognize the hard working women (owners or not) that continue to help produce the BEST BBQ ON THE PLANET.

Jim Early
Founder & CEO