Tar Heel Traveler Eats: Food Journeys across North Carolina

by Scott Mason

Overview

Scott Mason is the Tar Heel Traveler and he loves to eat hot dogs, cheeseburgers, barbecue, biscuits, and ice cream served in crumbling cinder-block buildings and ramshackle dives along the back roads of North Carolina. As a full-time feature reporter for WRAL-TV in Raleigh since 2007, Scott has discovered that North Carolina is filled with many amusing characters and out-of-the-way places, all of which are part of his Tar Heel Traveler television segment that airs Monday through Thursday on WRAL’s 5:30 pm newscast. The most popular stories are always about the hole-in-the-wall hot dog dives, cheeseburger joints, barbecue places, and ice cream parlors he has visited. He has featured dozens of such places on TV and now on paper he expands each story. Each chapter of Tar Heel Traveler Eats focuses on a particular restaurant as seen through the eyes the reporter who stumbles upon these classic dives. He peppers each chapter with dialogue and descriptive detail that includes the often inspiring stories of how these places began. These stories are not only about the nothin’-fancy kind of places that are close to people’s hearts, but also about the culture, tradition, and heritage of North Carolina. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781493006380
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	11/07/2014
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	519,552
Product dimensions:	7.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Scott Mason has been a television reporter for over twenty-five years and for WRAL’s Tar Heel Traveler since 2007. His more than 100 journalism awards include fourteen regional Emmys and three National Edward R. Murrow awards. He has twice been named North Carolina Television Reporter of the Year, in 2004 and 2005. He is also the author of  the book, Tar Heel Traveler.

Table of Contents

Introduction: "Coffee, Honey?" (The First Cup) vii

Bill's Hot Dogs 1

Bill's Postscript 6

Hap's Grill 7

Dick's Hotdog Stand 11

Shorty's Famous Hot Dogs 19

Jim's Ole Time Hot Dogs 25

Jim's Ole Time Hot Dogs Postscript 30

Bud's Grill 31

Walter's Grill (and the Museum, the Plane, and the Gun) 37

Central Cafe 46

Paul's Place 49

Capt'n Franks 55

Cloos' (Part One) 61

City Lunch Cafe 63

Jones Lunch (and the Road Runners and Elmer Fudd) 67

Fate 76

The Roast Grill 79

Johnson's Hamburgers 83

Carolina Stockyards 90

Ode to Barbecue 96

Bill's Barbecue 102

Parker's 106

B's Barbecue 110

Pik N Pig 116

Wilber's Barbecue (and the Missing Bomb) 122

Clyde Cooper's Barbecue 131

Condiment Man 138

Merritt's Store & Grill 139

Flo's Kitchen 144

Britt's Donuts (and the Venus Flytrap) 149

Sherry's Bakery (and the Split Britches) 155

Yum Yum 161

Bessie 167

Sunni Sky's 171

Dolly's Dairy Bar 177

Cloos' (Part Two) 184

Sacred Places (The Final Cup) 190

Afterword (One Last Sip) 194

Appendix: Where to Visit the Eateries 199

Index 205

About the Author 210