GREENSBORO, N.C. — Stamey’s Barbecue is a nationally-recognized treasure that calls the Triad area home. 

According to the Stamey family, it all began with Warner Stamey in 1930. He started Stamey’s Barbecue in Lexington, North Carolina, and created their time-honored tradition of cooking whole pork shoulders over hickory coals.

General Manager Craver Stamey said his great-grandfather played a critical role in popularizing the Lexington-style barbecue we know and love today. 

“In eastern North Carolina, they were hog farmers, so they cooked whole hogs. Whereas in Lexington, they had a lot of butcher shops in the area throwing whole shoulders away, or selling them for extremely cheap,” Craver Stamey said. “The reason my great-grandfather and others started cooking whole shoulders… ‘cause it was an affordable piece of meat, and of course they cooked it with wood because in the thirties, that was how you cooked stuff.”

Craver Stamey is a fourth-generation Stamey in the family business. He remembers working in the drive-thru of his family’s Greensboro restaurants as a teenager, and learning how to cook barbecue when he was in college.  

“We don’t need a thermometer, a temperature gauge or anything… We just stick it in the meat and we feel the inside. If you do this all day every day you get good at it and you know what to feel for,” Craver Stamey said. 

He explained that the first Greensboro Stamey’s location sprung up in the early 1950s. He said some people are switching to gas, electricity and smokers, but the commitment to tradition helps Stamey’s stand out to this day. In 2020, Warner Stamey was honored by the American Royal Hall of Fame for his impact. 

“People in the history books credit my great-grandfather, Warner Stamey, with being the first one actually to pair hushpuppies and barbecue,” Craver Stamey said. 

Today, Stamey’s serves classic barbecue at two locations in Greensboro. Craver Stamey said they have many loyal customers, some of whom have patronized the restaurant since before he was born. One of those longtime customers is Phil W. Smith, a regular who enjoys coming to Stamey’s for his weekly pork sandwich, french fries and tea. 

“I’ve been coming here all my life, ever since I was 15 years old. I’m 78 years old. They’ve got as good of barbecue as anybody anywhere,” Smith said. 

Stamey's Barbecue is located on Battleground Avenue and West Gate City Boulevard in Greensboro.