Triad Power Ranking: The Downtown Q Edition

3. Greensboro

We learned this week that downtown Winston-Salem is getting yet another downtown barbecue joint. It makes sense because barbecue be it Eastern or Western, is pretty much what passes for our state dish, unless you count chewing tobacco, which we don’t. But downtown Greensboro has exactly zero barbecue restaurants. Sure, some of them serve the ’cue, but none of them are barbecue restaurants. And yeah, we did have a BBQ joint for about a minute before it went dark. But as for a dedicated barbecue place, it’s just not happening. What’s up with that?

2. High Point

What passes for downtown in High Point — mostly furniture showrooms and other spaces that lay dormant for most of the year — does not have a barbecue joint. But the usable urban district of Uptowne does: Kepley’s Barbecue, a classic, family-owned pig palace that’s been dishing out the pork for decades. Even though we don’t believe that Kepley’s understands the significance of place — we found them last year getting signatures for a petition against road dieting on their own street, which would greatly increase foot traffic to their business — they still exist, which puts High Point one ahead of Greensboro.

1. Winston-Salem

Jordan Green’s piece about the new Camel City BBQ in downtown Winston-Salem (see page 11) marks just the second existing, dedicated barbecue joint in downtown Winston-Salem, enough to garner first place. But the very excellent Bib’s, which has been on Fifth Street for years, would have been enough to give First Place to Winston-Salem.