Angela McLean is trying to find a buyer for Backyard Barbecue Pit before the NC Hwy 55 restaurant's run dating to 2007 ends. No final closing date has been set, but McLean said the business may not make it past this month, as first reported by the News & Observer.
Backyard launched a $50,000 GoFundMe in 2023, the same year founders Fabianne and Melvin Simmons turned the restaurant over to McLean. McLean said rising prices, staffing issues, and a customer base squeezed by everyday costs have made it harder to keep the doors open.
- The restaurant started with a same-day deal. In 2007, the Simmonses found a struggling barbecue restaurant called the A&W on NC Hwy 55 with a for sale sign in the window and bought it that day.
- Its reputation reached well past Durham. Over 17 years, Backyard built a following around traditional smoked barbecue cooked for hours over wood coals, drew national attention from *Man v. Food* and *Southern Living*, and appeared in a National Geographic story about North Carolina barbecue in 2023.
- What Fabianne Simmons valued most wasn't the publicity. She said Backyard often fed people who couldn't afford a meal and built its regular crowd around affordability and customer service.
McLean said Backyard's regulars stayed with the restaurant as she learned its recipes and cooking methods, with food made from scratch rather than reheated from packaged ingredients. If the restaurant closes, North Carolina would lose one of its few Black-owned barbecue restaurants.
McLean now has until the end of April to find someone willing to take on a labor-heavy barbecue business.