Piedmont Pit Stops: Lexington Barbecue Festival celebrates 40th anniversary

In the kitchen of the Barbecue Center, heavy hickory-laden smoke is wafting in through an iron firebox. Owner Cecil Conrad opens the door to reveal a dozen pork shoulders cooking low and slow. 

“The coal sit about three and a half, four feet below the shoulders," he says. "We can't get them too too close, because they'll sear the shoulders, and we don't want that.”

Conrad says on a typical day, they smoke around 15 shoulders for eight hours. That means they start around 5 a.m. to have the food ready by the lunch rush. It’s a tradition that Conrad grew up with — his father opened this restaurant in the 1950s. 

“I certainly spent a lot of time up here," he says. "I still have customers who remember me when I was here in a stroller, and, my mom carrying me around.”

The way they prepare the meat hasn’t changed much from when Conrad was a kid. The hickory smoked pork is still topped with their signature ketchup and vinegar-based dip. 

“It's just the right ingredients and the right combination," he says. "Because if we're off a little bit, we have enough regular customers and enough people who are considered barbecue aficionados that they know if we've done something wrong, or they know if we've changed something."

Conrad and his staff will have big crowds to please come this weekend, as the Lexington Barbecue Festival celebrates its 40th anniversary. Besides Christmas, it’s their busiest event of the year and they prepare for it days in advance. 

The first festival in 1984 attracted 30,000 attendees. This year, more than 200,000 are expected to attend to sample barbecue from the big three restaurants in Lexington: Stamey’s, Speedy’s, and the Barbecue Center. The event is free to attend, and opens Saturday at 8:30 a.m.