Owner of Picnic barbecue joint gives smoky and savory taste of what’s to come at Wyatt’s
Can you believe it’s only been four months since we were talking about 2020 as the year of the barbecue renaissance in the Triangle? Yeah, me neither.
But it’s true. As recently as early March, we were salivating at the prospect of as many as a dozen new barbecue joints in the area, including ventures by renowned pitmasters Ed Mitchell and Sam Jones. You could practically smell the wood smoke, wafting all the way from Big Belly Que in Chapel Hill to Prime Barbecue in Knightdale — and farther still, if you include the reopening of the legendary Wilber’s in Goldsboro.
The pandemic splashed cold water on those embers of promise — at least for some of these projects — but it didn’t entirely quench the flames. Pitmasters are responding to the challenge in a variety of ways, some offering takeout only, and others delaying the opening of their restaurants.
Wyatt Dickson is doing both. Dickson owns Picnic in Durham with Ryan Butler, whose Green Button Farm supplies the pasture-raise hogs that Dickson cooks the traditional way over hardwood coals. He’s offering contact-free takeout, and delivery within a 5-mile radius of the restaurant. He recently opened the patio for dine-in customers from 11 to 8:30 p.m., but he plans to keep the dining room closed until “everybody’s ready to come back out, and I feel like that’ll be a while.”
Dickson had also announced plans to open a second joint called Wyatt’s this fall in Raleigh, but has pushed back the opening date to some time next year.
In the meantime, he’s offering Raleigh a tantalizing taste of what’s to come in the form of a weekly contact-free takeout from a table set up in front of the future site of Wyatt’s. Call in your order by Wednesday at 3 p.m., and pick it up Thursday between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m.
At Wyatt’s, the barbecue is heat and serve (reheating instructions are available on request), so I was recently able to order enough food in a single trip to make several meals. Across the board, the results lived up the high expectations I had based on my experiences at Picnic.
N.C. whole hog barbecue, whose coarse pulled shreds call to mind an old-fashioned pig picking, comes with a generous container of Dickson’s signature Pig Whistle sauce — a fusion of Eastern- and Western-style sauces that’s so popular you can buy it by the bottle. Go easy on the sauce, though, at least until you’ve had a few bites of the pork in all its succulent, subtly smoky glory.
Ribs come pre-sauced, and they’re so juicy and tender that, as far as I’m concerned, they don’t need any additional sauce. But a tangy tomato-based sauce is included in ample portion to slather to your heart’s content. Brisket is first-rate, too, and commendably moist for a cut that’s notoriously difficult to cook without drying out. Maybe just a schmear of the smoky-sweet, cumin-spiked sauce that comes with the brisket.
The haul is accompanied by pints of potato salad, slaw, and baked beans jacked up with shreds of smoky meat, and followed by a shareable banana pudding buried under an avalanche of whipped cream. We had a barbecue feast for two, with enough left over for dinner the next night.
And a whole smoked chicken made two more meals: half with a salad one night, and the other half torn into shreds and tossed with black beans, corn and tomatoes for a Southwestern salad the next.
So, four meals from one takeout order — a new personal best. Proud as I am of the accomplishment, though, most of the credit goes to Wyatt Dickson and his crew.
Picnic
1647 Cole Mill Road, Durham
919-908-9128 or picnicdurham.com
Wyatt’s Barbecue
2425 Crabtree Blvd., Raleigh
919-908-9128 or Facebook
Call to pre-order Wednesday by 3 p.m., pick up Thursday 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Takeout Tales
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This story was originally published June 26, 2020 at 10:00 AM with the headline "Owner of Picnic barbecue joint gives smoky and savory taste of what’s to come at Wyatt’s."