There are few things more distinctly North Carolinian than the thin blue smoke curling off a pig pit on a cool September morning, and few places more distinctly North Carolinian than the Village of Pinehurst, where sand-scaped golf courses have drawn duffers and champions alike for more than a century. It took a pandemic-born leap of faith to bring the two together, but that leap has now become one of the state's most anticipated food weekends.
The Pinehurst Barbecue Festival returns for its sixth edition over Labor Day weekend, September 4-6, 2026, with three full days of gourmet dinners, grilling clinics, bourbon tastings, and the signature Pitmaster Invitational that sends seven of North Carolina's most accomplished pitmasters into the streets of the village to feed thousands. What began as an outside-the-box idea from two event producers in 2021 has evolved into what many now consider the finest showcase of Tar Heel 'cue anywhere.
The story begins, appropriately, with a gamble. Dave Droschak and Peter Stilwell, the co-founders of Tarheel Festivals, LLC, had been looking to expand the event portfolio that already included the successful Festival D'Avion at the Moore County Airport. Barbecue seemed the natural fit. "Barbecue is part of North Carolina's DNA," Stilwell said when the plans were announced in December 2020. "We are excited to introduce this new festival event in the Pinehurst community and showcase the best of North Carolina Barbecue and the legendary Pitmasters who prepare it."
Then COVID-19 struck. The organizers had already committed to a debut in 2021, and for many event producers that would have been the end of it. But as Droschak later recalled, the very format that made the festival possible also made it viable. "It all seems crazy now that we started planning the inaugural Pinehurst Barbecue Festival and then COVID-19 hit," he said. "Since it was an outside festival, we were able to pull off the first one in 2021, and it has been quite a journey building an event that we wanted to be unique, yet still celebrate barbecue in North Carolina."
The inaugural edition was built around a figure who immediately lent the festival heavyweight credibility: Ed Mitchell of Wilson, known worldwide simply as "The Pitmaster." Mitchell, who had famously beaten Bobby Flay on Food Network's "Battle of the Barbecues" and served as the founding pitmaster for New York's Big Apple Block Party, was tapped to handpick the first slate of elite pitmasters. He chose specialists across whole hog, brisket, ribs, poultry, and specialty meats and embraced the Pinehurst location with characteristic enthusiasm. "I have been cooking North Carolina barbecue my entire life," he said. "The Village of Pinehurst and Pinehurst Resort are perfect locations for this unique event."
What Mitchell understood, and what the festival has dramatized each year since, is that North Carolina barbecue is not a monolith but a spectrum of fiercely defended regional styles. Eastern North Carolina leans on whole-hog, pulled and sauced with thin vinegar and pepper, while the western Piedmont favors pork shoulder with a ketchup-and-tomato kick. To put those styles side by side, along with brisket, ribs, and a growing range of seafood and specialty meats, is to present the full culinary identity of a state whose soul has long been tied to smoke and fire.
Over the years one pitmaster in particular has risen to define the festival's contemporary era: Christopher Prieto of Prime Barbecue in Knightdale. Droschak recounts meeting Prieto through a mutual client who insisted the young pitmaster was the next big mover in the barbecue world, a prediction that proved uncannily accurate. "Christopher's engaging personality and willingness to chat barbecue with all has been a true win for the Pinehurst Barbecue Festival," Droschak says. Prieto has led the festival's Q-School grilling class, where ticket holders get a front-row seat to his techniques, and his name adorns the Sunday invitational that anchors the weekend. In 2026 the grilling class shifts to another star, Master Blend Family Farms' Ron Simmons, while Prieto continues to headline the invitational's lineup.
The 2026 schedule is a study in culinary pacing. Friday night's High on the Hog Gourmet Pitmaster Dinner takes over the Pinehurst Fair Barn, a structure that is itself a piece of living history. Built in 1917 as the exhibition hall for the Sandhills Fair, the Fair Barn is the oldest surviving fair exhibition hall in North Carolina, a weathered survivor of a 1932 tornado that spent decades as a horse stable before a loving restoration in the 1990s transformed it into the region's premier community venue. Hosting Matthew Register of Southern Smoke Barbecue and Lewis Donald of Sweet Lew's BBQ for an evening of curated barbecue and duty-free liquor sampling inside those historic walls is exactly the kind of pairing the festival does best.
Saturday brings two distinct experiences. The morning's Q-School Grilling Class takes flight at the Moore County Airport, where Ron Simmons will offer a crash course in all things grilling. That evening, the Carolina Hotel's Carolina Hall plays host to Bourbon & Bites, a tasting of fine whiskeys and bourbons paired with appetizers in one of the grandest rooms in the Sandhills.
The weekend builds toward Sunday, when the Village of Pinehurst itself becomes a smoke-filled amphitheater for the Christopher Prieto Pitmaster Invitational. Seven pitmasters station themselves across several village blocks, each offering their signature meat paired with a Southern side. Guests move from station to station like golfers working a course, sampling the pitmasters' signature meats and sides, while local vendors, craft beer, and live music fill the streets around them. It is, as the festival describes it, a celebration of taste and tradition, and the scale has become frankly astonishing.
By the fifth edition in 2025, that scale meant more than 3,000 patrons filling the village streets during the five-hour invitational. The economic impact has been just as substantial: a recent study commissioned by the area's Convention and Visitors Bureau revealed the festival has generated more than $5 million in economic impact for the community, a meaningful infusion for a trio of towns whose identity has long been tied to resort golf.
In a state crowded with barbecue competitions and church-supper cookoffs, the Pinehurst Barbecue Festival has carved out a singular identity as the place where the state's finest pitmasters gather to showcase their craft, with the backdrop of a village whose own history — from its harness track roots to its champion golf courses — has always been about the pursuit of excellence.
As Droschak likes to say, the goal is to keep growing while staying true to the heart of North Carolina barbecue. On the first full weekend of September, with the scent of hickory and post-oak hanging over the Village of Pinehurst, that goal looks remarkably well accomplished. For anyone who has ever argued about vinegar versus tomato, or simply wanted to taste what a state's pride tastes like, there may be no better place to be on Labor Day weekend.