Customer calls police over ‘pink pork’ at historic Raleigh BBQ joint

A customer at Clyde Cooper’s in Raleigh learned this week that there’s no medium rare in barbecue.

“Yesterday, we had a customer come in and order takeout, a barbecue plate and a couple sides,” said Ashley Holt, whose mother, Debbie Holt, owns Clyde Cooper’s Barbecue in Raleigh and interacted with the customer. “She left and came back and said her barbecue was undercooked because it had a lot of pink in it. We explained that’s because it’s smoked. When pork is smoked, it turns pink.”

Holt said a few minutes later a Raleigh Police officer came to the restaurant, talked to the customer outside and then entered Clyde Cooper’s, asking about the pork.

“The cop looked so confused,” Ashley Holt said. “He seemed baffled by someone calling the cops over this.”

The News & Observer on Wednesday requested more information on the officer’s visit to Cooper’s, but Raleigh Police Department as of Thursday afternoon has not provided that.

The meat cookery that goes into barbecue flips the script on what we typically think of as doneness, going for tender texture and not temperature in determining when it’s time to eat. It’s low and slow, not seared and roasted.

That means the final pork and beef temperatures usually soar above the typical upper limits of “well done,” finishing north of 200 degrees.

But smoke changes things.

A brisket or a slab of ribs will often have a rosy pink ring just under the bark where a chemical reaction has changed the color of the meat. According to the USDA, which takes cooking temperatures more seriously than anyone, that pink is common in smoked meat and poultry.

Clyde Cooper’s opened in 1938 and is one of North Carolina’s oldest barbecue restaurants. The restaurant posted about the encounter on its Facebook page, drawing more than a hundred shares and comments.

The Raleigh-Wake Emergency Communications Center confirmed that an officer was dispatched to the Clyde Cooper’s address at 327 S. Wilmington St., on Tuesday, but declined to comment on the nature of the call.

Holt said she explained the pork’s color was from the smoke. She said the officer went back outside, talked to the customer, and then left.

Tuesday night, Holt said she saw a new one-star Google review for Clyde Cooper’s, complaining of undercooked pork and claiming to have called the police on the restaurant. A photo of the plate shows mostly tan and some pink chopped barbecue, mac and cheese and sweet potatoes in a styrofoam box.

Holt said Clyde Cooper’s barbecue is typically cooked for 12 hours at 225 degrees or more, then reheated before serving.

“It can’t get much hotter,” Holt said. “It’s done and cooked and then we take it and chop it, cool it and heat it again. ... Some people don’t want to listen to reason and don’t know the process that it takes to make smoked pork. We have to laugh and move on.”

The customer’s always right

The News & Observer spoke to the Clyde Cooper’s customer by phone Thursday afternoon, and she shared the other side of the pink pork saga. The diner is a 30 year old born and bred North Carolinian, who grew up in Louisburg and whose barbecue education came from the now-closed Murphy House Barbecue and Johnny’s Barbecue, as well as the popular chain Smithfield’s Chicken & Barbecue.

She said she had a taste for barbecue on her lunch hour Tuesday, looked up reviews for the best barbecue in downtown Raleigh, and called an order in to Clyde Cooper’s. When she brought the meal back to her office, she said she was concerned about the pinkness of the pork and took the plate back to the restaurant.

“Every barbecue I’ve had is all the way done, you don’t see pink at all,” she said in a phone interview. “I asked if they could cook it some more, that I’m not eating any pink barbecue. They said it’s supposed to be pink, but I’ve never had it that way.”

The diner asked for either a refund or something else from the menu, but was refused both she said. That’s when she called 911.

“If you’re telling me you don’t do refunds or exchanges, there’s a problem,” the diner said. “It was the issue, the way the situation was handled. You have to do either a refund or an exchange. If you’re not going to do either, that’s the issue. That’s the reason I called the cops.”

In between the 911 call and the police arriving, a Clyde Cooper’s employee offered to exchange the meal for a piece of fried chicken, which the diner accepted. She said that would have likely solved the conflict.

“If she had given me a chicken plate I would have gone about my business,” the diner said, noting that a small chicken plate from Clyde Cooper’s is two pieces of chicken, not one.