[piano intro] - [Deborah] Next on "North Carolina Weekend", join us from the newly opened Old North State Food Hall in Selma as we savor the flavor.

We'll sample barbecue in Asheville, steaks in Wilson, and seafood in Durham.

Coming up next.

- [Announcer] Funding for "North Carolina Weekend" is provided in part by VisitNC.

Dedicated to highlighting our state's natural scenic beauty, unique history, and diverse cultural attractions.

From the Blue Ridge and the great Smokey Mountains across the Piedmont to 300 miles of Barrier Island beaches, you're invited to experience all the adventure and charm our state has to offer.

[upbeat music] ♪ - Welcome to "North Carolina Weekend".

I'm Deborah Holt Noel, and this week we are savoring flavors all across our state from the mountains to the coast from the newly opened Old North State Food Hall in Selma.

This 15,000 square foot foodie destination offers a variety of delicious cuisines from Cuban and Indian street foods to authentic Neapolitan pizza, to quintessential American hamburgers and more.

This new food hall even has a tavern with a full bar and meeting rooms inside an old cigar humidor.

How cool is that?

Now head with us down the road a bit to Wilson and a beloved steakhouse that has just 10 tables, no substitutions, and no reservations, and that's just part of the appeal of the Beefmastor Inn.

[upbeat music] - [Customer] We're here for the beef.

- We're here for the beef on three, one, two, three.

- [All] Beef.

- And we do not take reservations, it's first come first serve.

- We enjoy tailgating at the Beefmastor.

Oftentimes they will have an available table for us and we will tell them to let people move in front of us because we want to spend longer in the parking lot.

- Well, it is not ECU tailgating, but it's the next best thing.

- It's the best tailgating in the restaurant industry, I can tell you that.

- I've seen people have a lot of fun, I've seen RVs, buses, party buses, everything outside.

- Most of the time in this day and age, we're also busy.

We don't have time to get together.

So this is our time to join and talk and then go have a great meal.

- [Chad] Our parking lot is way bigger than our restaurant, so you'll see that when you get here.

When you come in, it's a friendly atmosphere.

We have 10 tables.

We serve one thing and one thing only.

- How are you guys?

That's what we do.

So I start at eight ounces.

- There is no menu.

He comes to the table, he asks how big you want.

For us it's the big 10.

That's 10 ounces plus a few.

But it really is, there's nothing like this in the state that you'll find.

- The only thing we serve at Beefmastor Inn is ribeye steak.

Comes with a baked potato.

There's a salad bar if you like, bread, and a baked onion on request.

All it is is a sweet onion.

It's not Vidalia, people.

It is a sweet onion.

We chop it up, put in microwave dishes and cook it in the microwave for about 30 minutes and they're soft and tenor and sweet.

- I'll take a medium rare please.

- Medium rare.

- [All] Medium rare.

- We start at eight ounces.

We can cut it as large as you like.

We go eight, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20 on up.

And we get the same meat year end and year out.

We do not change the meat, but the meat price goes up or down.

We buy the same meat just from the same farm, same processing plant, same truck driver.

- Tonight is the first time.

I thought the food and the service was amazing.

I'd say it's right up there with the best.

- My husband's a big steak eater.

We've been to many places, anywhere that's boasted of a steak in North Carolina, other states, and it pales in comparison to the Beefmastor.

- You can get a salad bar that gives you anything that you want and fill up on that if you're not careful.

- We cut the salad bar up fresh every day.

We grate our cheese, we boil our eggs, we cook our bacon, we shred our cucumbers and carrots.

We do all the little things that used to be done at restaurants that people don't do now.

It's just little things like that is how we've kept it so consistent under years.

- What keeps me coming back is the good meal and the family environment.

We can come with kids, we can come alone.

It is both conducive to a romantic evening just as it is a family event.

- I grew up about 15 miles away from here and my family has eaten here often and my parents often celebrated their anniversary here and that's what we're doing here tonight.

Coming here is really special to us.

- This business is probably a part of my makeup.

It's a part of any Wilsonian's heritage when they look back, it's just a part of the quilt.

Their quilt that they have.

- I absolutely love this business.

It's definitely been a staple of my childhood and and into my young adulthood.

We come here, or at least I come here at least once a week.

It's just great food, great hospitality.

It really is.

- No fair that you live so close.

You get to come once a week.

- That's right.

- [Chad] If you got a time to come out and enjoy and have a good meal, come on, I'd love to serve you and keep the business going for another 50 years.

- The Beefmastor Inn is at 2656 Highway 301 South in Wilson and they're open every day at 4:30 PM.

But remember, they don't take reservations.

For more information, give them a call at [252] 237-7343 or find them on Facebook.

One of the features of the Old North State Food Hall that they're really proud of is their chef-driven cuisine.

Now the chef at our next destination actually recently won a James Beard Award for Best Chef in the Southeast.

Let's join Rick Sullivan in Durham with Chef Ricky Moore at the Saltbox Seafood joint.

[upbeat music] - If you find something that is meaningful to you and you believe in it so much that you can get up and do it every day, dealing with all the challenges, and the goal is not to be awarded, I think the goal is just to be able to do something that you take pride in every day.

My feelings about winning James Beard award, it's been, I don't know, it's been a really wonderful feeling to be recognized by your peers.

- [Narrator] Chef Ricky Moore has been getting daily recognition from his customers for a decade.

They order from the chalkboard, they sit at tables that are clean and tidy, and they eat nothing but seafood caught by North Carolina fishermen and women.

- [Interviewer] What did everybody order?

- Scallops.

- [Interviewer] Scallops?

- Spicy mahi.

- My choice for doing seafood is primarily from an upbringing.

I think a lot of chefs at some point in the career go back to or rely on their culinary DNA.

- [Narrator] Chef Moore has studied, trained, and worked at some of the fanciest locations in the world, but when he talks about DNA, he's talking about his roots in New Bern.

- Seafood kind of spoke to me because that's something I grew up eating and also I felt like there was an opportunity to offer specific seafood that a lot of restaurants or eateries weren't offering.

- [Narrator] 10 Years ago, he had to be an educator.

Since he's more than two hours from the beach, his customers didn't know much about seafood except the basics.

- Flounder, shrimp, oysters got that.

I know what that is.

Trout, alright.

And then I had a "try me" menu, things like sheepshead, pompano, almaco jack, spadefish, pufferfish, all these things you would never see on regular fried seafood houses' menus, you know what I mean?

Spicy mahi roll.

And so I use that menu as sort of a balance, sort of a indirect education.

Hey, you like trout, but how about you try sheepshead.

Oh, if you like this, how about you try this?

- [Narrator] These days the locals have learned to branch out.

They trust him.

And the Beard Award has brought more outsiders in.

- [Interviewer] You grew up in Rhode Island?

You're from Maine now?

- Lived in Massachusetts for a while.

And I love shellfish.

- And you approve of ours?

- I approve, absolutely.

- Come back any day.

- [Interviewer] Very good.

Enjoy.

- Thank you.

- [Narrator] So there are a few pointers that might help you on your first visit to Saltbox Seafood Joint.

For starters.

- How you come to Saltbox.

First of all, Saltbox is a first come, first serve.

We don't take reservations.

This is not that style of restaurant.

We don't take call in orders.

You have to physically come here to order.

We have two boards.

One is plates and one are the rolls.

All plates come with slaw and fried potatoes cooked with green pepper and onions.

Done.

That's it, that's the plate.

And then you choose your choice of fish, either fried or griddled.

Griddle, G-R-I-D-D-L-E-D, not G-R-I-L-L-E-D. Rolls.

Rolls are our sandwich.

It's a open face sandwich, not to be mistaken as a po'boy.

Our rolls signaturely are basically a seasoned butter that we brush on the roll inside and out.

We toast it gently, flip it over, your choice of seafood, fried or grilled.

And it's garnished on top like a lettuce tomato on top with coleslaw, just a little red on top.

That's it.

If you find something that is meaningful to you and you believe in it so much that can get up and do it every day.

And the goal is not to be awarded.

I think the goal is just to be able to do something that you take pride in every day.

- Saltbox Seafood Joint is at 2637 Durham Chapel Hill Boulevard in Durham.

And they're open Tuesday through Saturday from 11:00 AM to 8:00 PM.

To find out more, give them a call at [919] 237-3499 or go online to saltboxseafoodjoint.com.

I'm here with Nathan Landon, general manager of the Old North State Food Hall here in Selma.

Nathan, I understand this has been coming for a couple of years and now it's finally here.

Tell me, how did the idea for a food hall off the interstate come together?

- The developers here wanted to bring the agro community into this new development.

It's about 400 acres and it's gonna provide food, housing, retail, entertainment, something very new for the area.

- And exactly where are we located?

- So we're in Selma, North Carolina.

We're about 30 minutes east of Raleigh.

We're on the I95 corridor running through all the way up to Canada down to Florida.

- And what have customers been saying about it?

- They've been ecstatic.

The population out here has really grown, but yet food options haven't quite caught up.

So us bringing 10 new restaurants all at once with cuisines that weren't really available in the area, it's been very well welcomed.

- I see out here a staple like barbecue, but also Cuban food, Indian food.

Tell me about some of the chefs out here.

- Yeah, so we got very lucky in that there were already these chefs in the area with food trucks and this gave them sort of a central brick and mortar location.

And we're very pleased to have them, their cuisines, they're almost one of a kind in the area and their cuisines have been very well received.

We're selling more curry than we are barbecue right now.

- Alaksha, Nilesh, tell me how you started and how you've grown.

- Wow.

Okay.

So she started as a caterer many years ago, and then when the food truck craze happened, we started a food truck called Curry in a Hurry.

Then we got the opportunity to be in Morgan Street Food Hall, Raleigh's first food hall.

And now we're excited to be expanding here into Selma in the Old North State Food Hall.

- Alaksha, what goes into the making of Indian cuisine?

- Well, it's actually layers of flavor.

It takes a long time to make it so, when we start, we always toast the spices from scratch.

I use cold spices, so everything I use is very top-notch quality.

It takes time.

So it's a labor of love basically for me.

And I love to cook, so that's what I do.

- [Deborah] Tell me about your most popular dish.

- The most popular dish is my butter chicken.

It's a mild kundury spice chicken in a creamy tomato based gravy.

It's great starter for anyone who's never had curry before.

And it is the number one seller in this food hall, my butter chicken.

- And we want to thank Soma and the Johnson County and all the citizens here who've come to try it for the first time because we were a little bit skeptical about curry here, but we found out that people love it and they're just coming back to try it.

So if people haven't tried it, they need to come try Alaksha's butter chicken.

- [Deborah] Danny, how did you get started in the food business?

- Well, I was actually a police officer in Florida and then I transitioned over here to North Carolina and I started a food truck business with my wife about two and a half years ago.

- [Deborah] So what gives you your cooking skills and your recipe skills for Cuban cuisine?

- [Danny] Well, I'm from a Cuban background.

My parents are Cuban, so I grew up this whole menu board behind me.

It's pretty much what I grew up on.

- What's the most popular item on the menu and what's in it?

- I would have to say alagoano, which is a traditional Cuban sandwich and it's that mojo pork, pickles, Swiss cheese, mustard, honey ham, and it's on Cuban bread, buttered and toasted.

- So here we wanted to be a place for the community, something that brought a lot of new foods to the area, but also we wanted to provide a a great stop for those traveling down the interstate, welcome them into North Carolina, welcome them to our level of hospitality and really put Selma on the map.

- The Old North State food hall is at 67 JR Road in Selma and it's open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, beginning at 7:00 AM every day.

Check them out online at onsfh.com.

Just check out this macaroni and cheese from the Mac House.

I cannot wait to try that.

And if you love southern cuisine like collared greens, fried catfish, cornbread, candied yams, then look no further than Magnolia 23, where all of their food is made from scratch and with love.

Let's head to Asheboro.

- Well it all started out from tailgate at football games and people will walk by and say oh, that food smelled good and I'm a type of person who's... Well why don't you try it?

And from when they tried the first thing they said, "where is your restaurant located at?"

And I don't have a restaurant.

And they said "well you need to open one".

[bright music] I want people to know when they come to Magnolia 23, this is home, although it's my restaurant, but I want them feel like they are sitting in their home to enjoy a good meal, something down home cooked.

- We come here every Sunday morning for lunch.

- We probably come visit maybe every four or five years to visit family.

But we make it a point every time we come, we make sure we make it to the restaurant.

- Magnolia 23 is a great family setting.

The food is amazing.

I don't think you can go wrong no matter what you order.

And the environment is just perfect.

It's just perfect.

- I occasionally get something different.

Most times it's dark meat fried chicken, my go-to.

The fried chicken here is uniquely excellent, always.

- Fried chicken is known as our number one seller.

We started out with big large pans, but we got to the point where we couldn't use that anymore.

We overgrew.

We didn't have enough space to put a deep fry and I'm glad we didn't.

And we started going with the steel cast iron pan, pots now instead of pans.

And that's the way we did it down home.

So that's when we speak of down home food, we wanna cook it just like we did when we was down home.

- It's tender.

You can tell it's fresh.

And the seasoning of the chicken is very good.

- We grew up in the country and we grew up raising our own gardens and our own food and this is the closest to it that you can possibly get.

- We want home cooking and that's what we get.

We only like fresh vegetables and that type of food that he had.

- [Don] I believe that you support local and the food is fresher.

It hadn't been shipped here from any place.

It hadn't been frozen.

It's straight from the field to the restaurant, out of the restaurant, on the table.

80% of our food in the summertime come from the Sand Hill, which is 43 miles south of here.

Guys I grew up, went to school with, also come to guys right here in Randolph County that have farms.

- I grew collard greens for for Don and been growing them for him for about five years probably.

He buys them and he does the best job cooking them.

- I get my collards on Tuesday morning around about 6:00 in the morning.

I come in, start prepping my collards, Wednesday, those collards on the table ready to eat.

- It's satisfying to come up here and see all the people that's eating collards and I'm seeing it on the tables and it gives me a say, hey, I had a part of this.

- Our popular dessert here that everyone wants is fried apple pie and the salmon pudding.

Joanne and Jerry Harris make our dessert and they do a fantastic job.

They've been cooking for years and they do a real good job.

- I have been making and selling desserts for Don for about 10 years.

And I just use recipes that my mother passed down to me, which is grandma's cooking.

I use a local person that grinds my flour for my fried apple pies.

We have a local vendor that we purchase our dried apples from.

Same way for strawberry nut cake.

We always try to make sure that we are using local strawberries.

We use everything local we possibly can.

- The best way I can describe it is as the food is walking by them, my mouth is watering.

- Because it's down home cooking that you don't have to cook yourself.

- Don, he comes around every table, wants to know how everything is, how your week's been.

He's just basically like family.

- Don is just a people's person and he's just a, if you've ever met him, he's just a friend for life.

- To me knowing the customer means more than a lot to them eating my food.

Just to have conversation with him and make them feel right at home.

- Magnolia 23 is at 23 South Fayetteville Street in Asheboro and they're open for lunch and dinner Wednesday through Friday and Sunday.

Keep in mind they're closed on Saturdays.

For more information, give them a call at [336] 672-2300 or find them on Facebook.

Of course, barbecue is practically a religion here in our state and we are blessed to have lots of great barbecue restaurants from east to west.

In Asheville, there's a really popular place that combines whole hogs cooked right on site, southern sides and cocktails at the Buxton Hall Barbecue.

[upbeat music] - Buxton Hall Barbecue is a love story.

It's a love story to the way food used to be made.

It's a love story to the origin story of barbecue.

It's a love story to the community and to the South slope and the history of this building.

The building has been around since the 20s.

The South Slope where we are was where the black community of Asheville had deep roots and a huge community.

By the 50s and 60s, that community was completely wiped out.

And the only thing that's left is a few remnants of that community, including this building that used to be a skating rink.

And if you look at the floors and look at the space, you start recognizing a lot of those signs of what this used to be.

So we try to reclaim as much of the building as possible because we just felt like no part of this building should be wasted.

[upbeat music] When I first met with my then chef partner, Elliot Moss, we had a shared vision of wanting to bring whole hog barbecues done the way it was when this style of barbecue was first bought literally out of Africa when black slaves came to the south and started cooking this kind of food.

And we wanted to sort of bring it back to its origin story, but we hadn't seen that kind of barbecue this far west.

That was hugely important to both of us.

Making sure that we're sourcing from the community that's close by.

- All of our hogs come from Bendell Farms, it's about 45 minutes away in Lake Lure.

So we'll butcher the hogs down, get them into the smoker, and then cook them anywhere from 12 to 14 hours.

You never cook a whole hog for four or five people, for a small family.

It's really a community event where we're inviting people in and it's not about the barbecue, it's about the people cooking with heart, and barbecue has that soul food kind of feeling that allows you to really love what you're doing because of this, you get to bring all these people together and they get to enjoy what we're putting into this kind of art form.

- I would definitely recommend it to other people.

It's such an awesome space to be in.

As well as the hospitality here is so wonderful.

The servers are so welcoming and warming.

It's just a great place to be.

- Everything we buy, it's gotta make sense that it comes from somewhere within the community.

Our ribs come from Hickory Nut Gap, incredible farm east of here, about 30 minutes.

Our chicken comes from Joyce Farms in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

They're one of the leaders in regenerative agriculture.

And you can't be perfect all the time, but with the big pieces, it's important to really get it right.

Because at the end of the day, that's having the biggest impact on the entire food ecosystem and sort of the food complex that powers restaurants.

- So we have an incredible bar program.

The team all works pretty closely creating house cocktails, so fresh seasonal juices and syrups.

We also have the bourbon Cheerwine slushie, which is kind of the the star.

Desserts all made in house.

Incredible pastry team.

So banana pudding pie.

We have a chocolate chess pie, they make all of the breads for our lobby and then some of the breads for the sandwiches on the menu.

- Good barbecue's good barbecue no matter where you go.

Our barbecue's phenomenal.

You can taste the smoke, you can taste the pastured hog, all that's there.

But the signature dishes, interestingly, our chicken sandwich, your fried chicken sandwich has become iconic.

I looked at my partners and we said to each other, "we've gotta do something with this".

And during the pandemic we had an opportunity to open Buxton Chicken Palace, which is an homage to just the chicken sandwich that has become populous at Buxton Hall Barbecue.

So you can experience it here, but if there's a line out the door, go down to Buxton Chicken Palace and you can at least get the Buxton chicken sandwich.

- Oh, the chicken sandwich is great.

It's crispy here.

Pickles, American cheese.

This is great.

- The agricultural community that's here in this area is what drives the food scene.

And it gives us the opportunity to take something simple and humble like barbecue and to put a lot of meaning and integrity behind it by supporting those farms and supporting those people and enjoy that and be part of that community.

- Buxton Hall Barbecue is at 32 Banks Avenue in Asheville and they're open daily for lunch and dinner, beginning at 11:30 AM.

To find out more, give them a call at [828] 232-7216 or go online to buxtonhall.com.

Well that's it for tonight's show.

We've had a great time out here at the Old North State Food Hall in Selma right off I95.

It's an exciting venture for Johnston County and a great place to catch a meal if you are traveling.

And if you've missed anything in today's show, remember you could always watch us again online at pbsnc.org.

Have a great North Carolina weekend everyone.

[upbeat music] ♪ - [Announcer] Funding for "North Carolina Weekend" is provided in part by VisitNC.

Dedicated to highlighting our state's natural scenic beauty, unique history, and diverse cultural attractions.

From the Blue Ridge and the Great Smokey Mountains across the Piedmont to 300 miles of Barrier Island beaches, you're invited to experience all the adventure and charm our state has to offer.

[gentle music]