Bucky’s Barbecue is a true American success story. About ten years ago Wayne Preston’s machinery business was going under. Nearing bankruptcy, he needed $500.00 immediately to keep the lights on in his house. He didn’t know where he was going to get it. In a fit of desperation he fired up his smoker in his back yard on Roper Mountain Road near Greenville, SC and began selling barbecue. He got his $500.00 and embarked on a path that would change is life forever.
He was a welder by trade, and continued his welding business while selling pork on the side. Then, in church one Sunday morning, his preacher challenged the congregation to try something they thought was impossible and trust in the Lord to see them through. Despite Jesus’ anti-swine bias, --he was a Jew, of course, and he did cause a bunch of hapless porkers to dive lemming-like into the sea, while he simultaneously invented the verb “to demonize”--Wayne took his preacher’s sermon as a sign from God and decided go into the barbecue business whole hog (so to speak.). After a brief struggle with the zoning board, and some help by members of his church family, Bucky’s Barbecue became a reality. (He chose the name because it had a catchy sound to it.) Now Preston has three restaurants, the original on Roper Mountain Road, near where he sold his first shoulder off his back yard smoker, and a second at the Donaldson Center of US 25 South of Greenville, and one in Fountain Inn, SC.
The Bucky’s on Roper Mountain Road is usually packed at lunch time. Men in suits and ties eat and rub shoulders with guys with their names over their shirt pockets. The walls are covered with pig paraphernalia, ball caps, and patriotica. Bucky or his son, a graduate of the Economics program at Anderson College, often man the counter, where the plate comes with pork and your choice of sides, including sweet potato crunch, and my personal favorite, pleasantly spicy Cajun pintos. Plates are accompanied with that epitome of gastronomic efficiency, sliced bread. The table squirters allow a choice of Wayne's own vinegar, or tomato-based sauce plus a mustard –based condiment created by his son-in law who’s from the Shealy clan, the last name in barbecue in the South Carolina Midlands. Drinks are self service, and the ice is dipped out of a portable plastic cooler--the kind you take to the beach.
The quality of the food and simplicity of service have made Bucky’s an icon of the local lunch crowd. It seems Wayne’s prayers have been answered. Maybe Jesus was only joking about the pigs…. (Photo by Chris Lipp)
Diner rating: 4
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