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BBQ to return to Blowing Rock; Work to rebuild Bistro Roca continues
The former Woodlands BBQ/Peddlin’ Pig location on U.S. 321 will come back to life as a barbecue restaurant later this month. (Photo: Google Street View)
by Tony Mecia
The owners of Bistro Roca plan to open a new barbecue restaurant later this month on U.S. 321 at the former site of Woodlands BBQ and the Peddlin’ Pig.
Jen Wolfe, Bistro Roca’s general manager, told The Mountain Ledger on Saturday that just days after Bistro Roca burned down in January, the owners learned that the lease for the building at 8304 Valley Blvd. was available.
“We had a lot of employees from Bistro Roca that haven’t gotten employment after the fire, so we thought, ‘We’ve got a building available to us. Let's go ahead and do something, and we already have the staff,’” she said. “We're just going to see what we can do and get the barbecue back, because it's been gone for a while.”
The Peddlin’ Pig shut down more than a year ago. It had bought Woodlands BBQ in 2021, which had been open for more than 40 years.
The new restaurant, to be called “Feral BBQ,” signed a short-term lease, she said. The name is intended to conjure an image of being rebellious and wild. A logo for the restaurant shows an aggressive-looking boar or pig standing on a rock formation with mountains in the background.
Bistro Roca’s owners, Cindy and Cobb Milner, also operate several well-known restaurant/hotels in Blowing Rock: Hellbender Bed & Beverage, the Gideon Ridge Inn and Westglow Luxury Resort & Spa.
The restaurant is shooting for a June 25 opening, but that’s subject to construction and inspections.
Seth Parker, the executive chef and pitmaster, told The Mountain Ledger that the idea is to provide “family-friendly, traditional Carolina barbecue” that’s “affordable for the community.” It will also have fried chicken wings, smoked turkey, baby back ribs, hush puppies and fries. In the future, it might also have live music.
Employees served barbecue samples at an event at Hellbender Bed & Beverage on Saturday. (Photo: Tony Mecia/The Mountain Ledger)
Wolfe and Parker discussed plans for the new restaurant at an event at Hellbender on Saturday afternoon designed to keep the Bistro Roca spirit alive. They served beer and samples of barbecue, baked beans and slaw.
Meanwhile, site work continues at Bistro Roca, which is planning to rebuild and reopen in the summer of 2027. More details on the vision for that in this week’s regular edition of The Mountain Ledger, which comes out on Thursday morning.
Tony Mecia is the founder of The Mountain Ledger and The Charlotte Ledger. He is a lifelong journalist who is a former reporter and editor with The Charlotte Observer.
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