by Cierra Lannon

Lewis Donald of Sweet Lew’s BBQ doesn’t call his business a restaurant. “It’s a joint or a shop,” he says.

It’s been a busy few weeks for Lewis, coming off the heels of hosting the Carolina BBQ Festival, a Top Chef watch party, and a feature in Southern Living magazine. Lewis talks about the whirlwind of recent events, his approach to barbecue, and what keeps Sweet Lew’s buzzing.

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Unpretentious Palate: You were born in Cleveland and trained at The Greenbrier, a luxury resort, before working in country clubs and resorts in Charlotte. How did that fine-dining experience shape the way you approach barbecue today?
Lewis Donald: I approached it as a cook. I’m a first generation pitmaster/barbecue restaurant owner. So, I approached the smoker, the recipes, and the service style all from a kitchen point-of-view or standpoint versus how I was told to do it for the last 30, 40 years.

UP: At what point did you realize you wanted to step away from the more formal and fancy and go all-in on barbecue?
LD: I got tired of being everything to everyone at a club. I love members, I love their families, but it’s the same 1,400 people every day, every week, every month, and every holiday. Constantly reinventing yourself became taxing and exhausting. I wanted to hone in on something professionally that was “it is what it is.” It’s smoked meats. It’s Southern-inspired sides. It’s a simple service and you have a direction and a clarity.

UP: You blend techniques from across the Carolinas. What are some specific methods or traditions you’ve adopted, and what feels uniquely your own?
LD: We do a Lexington style, and we always say style. We’re not cooking over coals like they are, but we use the same cut of meat, cook it the same way, season it the same way, and hopefully come up with the same result. That’s the goal. We do a whole hog on the weekends now. We do our chicken more Alabama style, and we like to say our ribs are more of a Memphis style. We smoke them and dry rub them. I think sausage and brisket are Texas; I wouldn’t even say Texas style. We do Texas brisket and Texas sausage. So when you look at us as a whole, we’re all over the place. I wouldn’t say there’s anything that’s uniquely mine. I’ve never had that philosophy in the culinary world. There’s really nothing that hasn’t been done. I think barbecue is barbecue.

UP: What do you think the kind of no-frills setting of Sweet Lew’s, a former service station, allows you to do differently compared to a more polished restaurant, like a resort or country club?
LD: I think it sets the vibe and the expectation. When you come in, you’re greeted. We are the only counter service barbecue joint in town, which I think is something that sets us apart. You’re watching your brisket be sliced and your pork get chopped. You’re watching your rack of ribs come out, your sides, everything. I think it makes a big difference. You want to pull up, see an old building, and you want to see smoke and wood. You want to feel like you just pulled up to a barbecue joint. We are here cooking with wood, no gas or electricity. When you pull in, you should feel that.

UP: How do you balance staying true to traditional Carolina barbecue while still evolving your style?
LD: We are coming out with a few new menu items later this month. We are trying to put a few things on there that are more group-friendly, some sharable plates, and, dare I say, a salad. You can go back and quote how many times I’ve said it. Like, “Hey dude, 15 times over the past seven and a half years he said he’ll never have a salad on his menu,” but it’s okay. It’s 2026. We’ve introduced kids’ menus, and we’ve tried to evolve in becoming more [of a] family barbecue joint. With the food, it’s all about technique, it’s about recipe and development. It takes time. We have a new method for our pork belly burnt ends that is pretty special to us. It’s something unique that I don’t think anybody else is doing, and that’s due to Clayton Sanders, our pitmaster.

The culinary training and depth of knowledge that he brings to our table, and has for the last year, is allowing us to grow. Clayton would probably say the same thing. He approached this pitmaster position as a cook, as a chef, and applied it to his disciplines, which is all just food at the end of the day.
I don’t believe barbecue is a dish. Barbecue is a cooking method, an apparatus. There’s grilling, there’s smoking — it is just a style of cooking.

UP: Is there a particular meat or dish that best represents Sweet Lew’s as a whole?
LD: I would say as a dish, it would be our South Carolina hash and rice, and that is because we’re dead set on not bullshitting. This is true hash, cooked to our best ability, in the fashion it was conceived. I think that particular dish speaks to what we are trying to build. We’re not fancy, not frou-frou, we’re barbecue to all.
If there’s a defining meat, I’d have to say the sausage. That’s not easy to do. Clayton is working on 52 sausages in 52 weeks, and he’s 19 weeks into it. Every sausage has to have a different recipe because of its different fat contents. If you’re doing chicken sausage, it’s pretty lean. If you’re doing a seafood sausage, forget about it. That’s really tough. But we’ll get there. As a horizon dish: livermush. We would love to make livermush.

UP: This was your fifth year hosting the Carolina BBQ Festival. How did this year feel compared to the earlier ones?
LD: Amazing. We’ve gotten better at the execution. Plus the support – our sponsors, Coca-Cola National, Martin’s Potato Rolls, and Alsco Linens, they’ve all been with us all five years. That’s important for two reasons. One, they help us put the festival on. But two, if they didn’t believe in us, they wouldn’t come back. It took a really special partner with Operation BBQ Relief and Stan Hays. It took conversation after conversation to say, “Hey Stan, here’s what I want to do. I want to call in some of the big guns, the little guys, the medium guys, bring them all together.” That’s what it’s about. People would kill to meet Elliott Moss, Matthew Register, Bryan Furman, and Michael Letchworth. Putting them in the arena with the ability to do that is awesome.

We pay all of our guys, we get them free food, we give them some hotel rooms. Not every business can absorb traveling, food for 1,200 portions, a couple of hotels, and bringing in staff. We set that standard, our budget goes to pitmasters then charity. There’s too many festivals out there that don’t pay. It’s a bigger conversation and could get you in a lot of trouble. Saying you’re tied to a charity and being a charitable event are two different things. We have goals for the festival: growth and change. My personal goal is change.

UP: You’ve got the “Southern Smoke meets Irish Soul” tour coming up, including stops in Dublin, Galway, and the Aran Islands – what inspired this collaboration?
LD: Chef Richard Gruica, of The Gourmet Vacation, has done a lot of trips over the years with some chefs. He and I have met and talked a few times, but I said, “Hey, look, dude, I’m barbecue. I don’t need to go to Croatia or Spain. I have nothing against it, but it doesn’t fit my brand. If you ever go to Ireland, there’s a big barbecue festival in August – let me know.” So he did.

UP: How do you translate Carolina barbecue for an international audience that may not be as familiar with it?
LD: Whole hog. That’s it. Whole hog is what we do, and everything else after that is a derivative.

UP: After being introduced to barbecue in 2003, what still excites you most about the cuisine?
LD: The camaraderie. The barbecue community. Kitchen rats and chefs are different from pitmasters and barbecue joint owners. It’s just different people, and that’s okay. I probably fit in more with barbecue than with chefs.

UP: What’s something people misunderstand about barbecue?
LD: That it’s cheap, and that somebody has to be the best. There’s more to a restaurant than food on a plate. I learned from one of my mentors, a fiery Irish guy, Peter Timmins, certified Master Chef at the Greenbriar at the time, who I apprenticed under. He used to say this, and I never understood it:
”Being a chef is more than just the food on the plate. You’re a teacher. You’re a friend. You’re a mentor. You have to then teach yourself. Because if you’re the chef, who’s teaching you?” The same is with restaurant ownership.

UP: If someone tastes your food for the first time, what’s the one thing you hope they notice?
LD: I hope they taste the meats without sauce and notice the work that goes into it.

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