By admin 
Texas and Georgia lead the recently published list of Southern Living’s best new barbecue restaurants, but, lo and behold, the No. 1 place is in South Carolina.
Read more Will it snow in SC this winter? Here’s what to expect, according to the latest forecast
It’s Elliott’s BBQ Lounge in Florence, which also made Southern Living’s Top 50 BBQs just a few months after it opened in 2025.
The restaurant, which they like to call bar-bee-Que, is the work of Elliott Moss, a Florence native who earned James Beard nominations at restaurants in Asheville: the Admiral in 2013 and Buxton Hall BBQ in 2017.
His first restaurant job was at Chick-Fil-A. He has ties to Columbia as well, as the first chef at The Whig. He moved to Philadelphia, then Asheville, where he worked for 20 years.
Moss uses pecan to smoke whole hogs in a pit beside the dining room. It’s certainly hands-on for him. There’s a picture on his website of him with a dressed whole hog slung over his shoulder.
“Pasture-raised whole hog, cooked Pee Dee burn barrel-style, headlines the impressive lineup of locally-rooted dishes,” Southern Living said.
Elliott’s is part of Seminar Brewing, one of the Pee Dee’s earliest commercial breweries, founded by a group of university professors and their friends in 2014.
“In addition to the superlative whole hog barbecue, those pits produce sweet-glazed baby back ribs, thick pork steaks, and delicate smoked salmon,” Southern Living said. “There’s plenty of Seminar beer on tap at the full bar, of course, along with creative cocktails and boozy slushies, too.”
Read more These are the 3 best free fall events to try in SC, new survey says
Also on the list is No. 15 Bordertown BBQ in Beaufort.
“With a cow-skull logo and a thousand-gallon offset smoker, this Beaufort, South Carolina, newcomer leans toward Central Texas with a little Tex-Mex flair thrown in,” Southern Living said. “Brisket and pork ribs are featured alongside barbacoa, pepper-encrusted smoked chicken thighs, and a rotating sausage of the day.”
The restaurant features Texas whiskeys and local favorites, their website says.
“Everything we serve has a story behind it. The space reflects that too — rustic, a little bit rebellious, and full of character.”
Southern Living said the themes they found during their inventory of new BBQ restaurants included some in unexpected places like South Florida and the North Carolina mountains.
“We’re also seeing new wrinkles in the way different regional styles are blurring. Texas-style barbecue has been in ascendance for over a decade, but until recently it was sort of a binary proposition: either a restaurant went all-in for Texas, playing it up with Lone Star flags and cowboy décor, or stuck to the style of its own region,” Southern Living barbecue editor and Charleston resident Robert F. Moss said. “These days, offset smokers have become standard equipment at new restaurants in Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas. Slow-smoked brisket and house-made sausage links have gone native, appearing side-by-side with chopped pork, mustard or vinegar sauces, and regional specialties like red slaw, Brunswick stew, and hash and rice.”
He said barbecue is risky and possibly riskier today due to the craft barbecue boom, the rising cost of meat, rent, and labor.
“As I conducted the fieldwork to compile this year’s list, I found myself striking off one candidate after another because they had closed their doors after just a year of operation,” he said.
Read more This bustling Columbia area will get a new infrared fitness studio. Here’s when
Then he found out Easton Barbecue in Hollywood, South Carolina, had closed.
“It would have landed in the #4 spot if it hadn’t,” he said.
The others on his list are:
2. Two Goose Market & Barbecue, Austin, Texas
3. Gene’s, Atlanta, Georgia
4. Churchrow Tejas BBQ, Austin, Texas
5. Smokemade Meats + Eats, Orlando, Florida
6. Apocalypse BBQ Miami, Florida
7. Kafi BBQ Irving, Texas
8. Parish Barbecue, Austin, Texas
9. Ben’s Backdraft Barbecue, Waynesville, North Carolina
10. Broad Street BBQ, Atlanta, Georgia
11. Smoke & Barrels, Evans, Georgia
12. The Honey Hog, Morganton, North Carolina
13. Drinking Pig BBQ, Miami, Florida
14. Bradley’s BBQ, Augusta, Georgia
16. Sacred Ground Barbecue, Flora, Mississippi