text: Consistently the best \"purist\" BBQ in CLT. Meat is cooked over **real** wood in a pit I would be proud to have in my home (yes, I am a BBQ freak). Wife is instructed to have these guys cater my wake.\n\nMost/all the BBQ posers these days cook with gas or electricity. It ain't the same folks. Before you go into a BBQ restaurant, drive around back. Woodpile? If not, keep driving. Is the wood neatly stacked? If so, be suspicious because a fellow smoking meat at 4AM isn't typically neat with his pile. Does the restaurant only seem to smoke during dinner hours? We've got a chain joint near us which cooks electrically, but has a smoke-emitting stack- kinda like a smoke-sign. I refuse to set foot in the place on principal.\n\nHickory House does pork, beef, and chicken. The beef and chicken may be good (can't say), but this **is** North Carolina, folks. The only BBQ worth having in NC is pork. Never order french onion soup at a chinese place, I say. Go to Texas if you want beef.\n\nAs others have said, this place is a nondescript, brick, rectangle in an area of North Tryon which has seen better days. Ever heard of the Hidden Valley Kings? Lock your car and hide your valuables. Speaking from personal experience, here.\n\nThis is one of those buildings I wish could talk. The restaurant obviously started out as a road-house of sorts back when this part of the world was out in \"the woods\". I bet it has a ghost or two roaming around. Looks like the kind of place your parents' doctor/lawyer/accountant met his receptionist for \"overtime\" work back in the 60's.\n\nPersonally, I am partial to their chopped BBQ sammich, brunswick stew, and hush puppies. \n\nIf you're lucky/blessed/living right, your sammich will have some crunchy \"outside\" in it. You can get the sammich with or without slaw- your choice. I alternate.\n\nBrunswick stew is worth driving across town for (I do).\n\nThe hushpuppies are not health food, but they are addictive. We start out with an order as an appetizer. Don't know where they come from, but they will contribute to my early demise, I'm sure.\n\nIf you're like me and despise MBA-driven, vinyl restaurants, Hickory House ought to be on your short list. This is the place I hold up as the finest example in CLT of the way BBQ is supposed to be done. Even if the food wasn't 5-star, it is worth a trip just so you can tell your kids about it someday. There are fewer and fewer of these places left every day and we'll all be poorer when they're gone.