One of North Carolina’s oldest BBQ restaurants has closed. Is it goodbye forever?

One of North Carolina’s oldest barbecue restaurants has closed, but its owners hope it’s not goodbye forever.

Bunn’s Barbecue has fed generations out of a century-old Texaco service station in downtown Windsor. Founded by B.B. Weathers in 1938 and sold to Wilbur and Grace Russell in 1969, Bunn’s announced this week it had closed.

For decades, Bunn’s has been run by brothers Randy and Russ Russell, now in their 60s, who have largely operated the restaurant since the death of their father Wilbur in 1987 and the retirement of their mother Grace.

At this point, the Russells have owned Bunn’s longer than its founder. Randy Russell said it felt like their time with the restaurant had come to an end.

“Our family’s been there 54 years, it’s the right time for us to step back,” Randy Russell said in a phone interview. “There’s never a good time to close, but it’s the right time.”

Closed, but maybe not forever

In talking about the closing of Bunn’s, Randy Russell spoke about the historic restaurant not as something now in the past, but rather an institution that had paused. In the handful of days since Bunn’s closed, Russell said he’s been inundated by well-wishers and interested parties considering keeping the restaurant alive. He puts his faith in that.

“Something will happen in the near future, I believe that,” Russell said. “Bunn’s has been here a long time, 85 years. There’s not too many people around the area that can remember when Bunn’s wasn’t there. I don’t see it closed forever.”

Bunn’s cornbread barbecue sandwich

Opened in 1938, the same year as Clyde Cooper’s in Raleigh, the closing of Bunn’s continues a difficult trend in North Carolina barbecue. While a new generation invigorates and renews old traditions, some of the state’s most historic restaurants are being lost.

Bunn’s is notable for unique style of barbecue in eastern North Carolina. In this land of whole hog, Randy Russell told the Southern Foodways Alliance in 2011 that Bunn’s has been smoking shoulders since the 1970s, giving the restaurant more control and less waste.

Bunn’s also makes a distinctive slaw, omitting the mayonnaise and opting only for vinegar and shredded cabbage, giving it more of a pickle flavor than a creamy note.

“That slaw recipe dates back to the man himself, Bunn Weathers, who founded it in 1938,” Russell said. “We kept everything the same. The sauce, the slaw recipe, the baked cornbread.”

Since the 1970s, Bunn’s has been famous for a cornbread sandwich, a creation once named by Garden and Gun Magazine as one of the top sandwiches in the South. Russell said it was the invention of a customer.

“The cornbread sandwich is something different, something special,” Russell said. “A customer in the early 1970s asked for just a little barbecue between two pieces of cornbread. Then a lot of people have made our cornbread sandwich famous.”

Famous eastern NC barbecue

Fame can rely on many factors in North Caroline barbecue.

Situated on the way to one of America’s most famous beaches, Bunn’s has seen its sphere of fandom grow beyond the residents of Eastern North Carolina. Russell said that for the restaurant’s 75th anniversary, his brother put a card near the register, drawing enough notes and signatures to fill five poster boards, front and back, inked by regulars and friends and diners from as far as away as the Philippines and Russia.

Russell said Bunn’s heyday was likely in the 1970s and 1980s. When he went to college he was known as “Randy Bunn,” partly because people assumed it was his last name and partly because he was usually toting back Bunn’s barbecue.

In recent decades, Russell said business slowed along with the Bertie County population, a series of hurricanes and major storms brought water from the Cashie River into the restaurant. And most recently, the COVID pandemic was one last final struggle.

“We’ve been doing it a long time, some people might think it’s a sudden decision,” Russell said. “Every once in a while you’ve got to take a break. We’ve been through 10 floods from 1999 to 2016. Most people don’t know how many we’ve been through.”

Bunn’s was ‘the definition of barbecue’

Bunn’s was the first barbecue restaurant a young Adam Hughes, the owner of Edenton’s Old Colony Smokehouse, ever ate in.

“To me growing up, Bunn’s was the definition of barbecue,” said Hughes, who was the winner of a special North Carolina pitmaster edition of Food Network’s chopped. “My granddad was a tobacco farmer and I was eager to go with him to the tobacco market in Windsor, because I knew we’d go to Bunn’s and get a sandwich afterwards.”

Hughes said the barbecue from Bunn’s stood out for its simplicity, that the pork was very lightly seasoned, paired with a pickly bite of the slaw. He called the Brunswick stew as good as any version he’s had anywhere.

“It was delicate, not overwhelming or overpowering with its seasoning, just enough smoke,” Hughes said. “It never got the accolades I think it should have....It’s such a pillar in the community.”