Last updated: February 15, 2023

In the Weeds

by Travis Mullis

I’m always on the hunt for a good barbecue joint. So when it was announced that Mooresville landmark Lancaster’s BBQ would expand into North Mecklenburg, I was thrilled. When I found it just where it would be opening, my excitement grew even more. My mother Debbie grew up on Pembroke Road not far from Beatties Ford Drive in North Mecklenburg. The area was known as Long Creek back then and was, as hard as it may be to believe from the vantage point of 2023, rural and remote. It was a small, tight-knit community of mainly farmers, although my Grandfather Ewell worked down in Charlotte at Pound and Moore. Long Creek Elementary, where my mom went to school, was only a few stone’s throws away from her home, so she walked to school each day. Conveniently located on her way to school, at the intersection of Beatties Ford and Carver Avenue, was Puckett’s Store. 

Puckett’s was your typical Southern general store with some groceries, a butcher shop, and much to the delight of my mother, a freezer full of “co’colas” and a wide selection of candies. Each day on her way home from school, she would stop in at Puckett’s, pick up a bottle of soda and a handful of Atomic Fireballs or another candy, and head home to enjoy them. My mom did this with such frequency that the store’s owner, Mr. Puckett, who was good friends with my grandfather, had to call him on multiple occasions to settle the bills my mom was running up on his line of credit. Every time I eat at Lancaster’s, I can’t help but think of my mom and her platinum blonde tomboy haircut dashing through the aisles of Puckett’s, merrily grabbing her snacks, telling Mr. Puckett to charge it to E.P. Somers, and running on home.

Where this location differs from the original Mooresville one is in the smaller size of the restaurant and its lack of the stock cars and NASCAR memorabilia that have come to define the flagship location. Where it stays the same is its commitment to offering a wide variety of classic Southern dishes in a setting that is warm, inviting, and exactly the type of place that Long Creek needed. In replacing the old, Lancaster’s has done a good job of living up to the legacy of Puckett’s and become a neighborhood gem in its own right. 

The best measure of great North Carolina barbecue is whether it needs sauce. If you find yourself having to resort to liberal applications of Eastern or Western style sauces to your pork, you’ve got yourself a plate of subpar barbecue. That’s not the case at Lancaster’s. Their pork shoulder might be heightened by the application of a couple lashings of vinegar sauce, but one could happily pack away a whole plate of the stuff without a drop of sauce. Their brisket doesn’t live up to the high standards of the pulled pork, but the dish’s surge in popularity necessitates its inclusion on any barbecue restaurant’s menu, even if North Carolinians are less than thrilled that it has come to epitomize classic barbecue in the eyes of many Americans. 

Barbecue isn’t the only thing that Lancaster’s does well. Their burgers, fried seafood, and hamburger steak plate are all personal favorites. They still have Brunswick stew on their menu too, a dish emblematic of Southern foodways that seems to be fading from the collective culinary memory of the South. One of my go-to lunches at Lancaster’s is to get a bowl of the Brunswick stew and happily sop up the leftover liquid at the bottom of the bowl with a basket of their hushpuppies, which are light, slightly sweet, and some of the best in the county. 

The place tends to fill up quickly on a Friday evening when the locals are looking to unwind after a work week, packing the small bar that takes up the left side of the restaurant. It’s a joy to watch the bartenders ply their trade making old-fashioneds, mojitos, gin and tonics, and martinis at the speed of a NASCAR pit crew. It’s a real neighborhood place that locals young and old have made their own, and you get a good cross section of the ever-changing demographics of North Mecklenburg. Things in Charlotte have been changing for decades and will continue to do so for decades to come. You can lament that fact and get angry about it; I know I’ve done both. Or, you can accept its inevitability and look for the good in all that change. Much to its credit, Lancaster’s took over a space that was once a beloved neighborhood store and made it into something equally important: a beloved neighborhood restaurant.