For 48 years, Rock Hill man serves up holiday barbecue

If it was Friday before the July Fourth holiday - and Friday it was - then the line started out in the road and crept up the gravel driveway on India Hook Road close to the Catawba River. Nobody needed a map. Nobody needed GPS. All they needed was a nose.

Holidays mean Pete. And the smell. And the taste. Pete's Bar-B-Q, in its 48th year, every Memorial Day weekend, Labor Day weekend, and of course, July Fourth weekend. Pete Wheeles, 90 years young, and his 5 tons of barbecue pork and his homemade secret sauce and his army of holiday workers who smoke, chop, slather, cook, crate, weigh, package and collect the cash.

"Never gets old," said Pete of this three-times-a year-magic act. "My daddy was a barbecue man and my granddaddy. People who come here are family, we treat 'em like family, too."

"Gimme 2 pounds of barbecue, a pint of slaw, and a pint of beans, please," called out customer Mike Harris.

"Didja get your buns?" asked Katie Evatt, Wheeles' granddaughter and one of the army of workers who are happy to smell like smoke and meat and sauce.

"Beg yer pardon?" said a lady in line.

Evatt and the other ladies who handle the weighing and selling pointed at the racks of sandwich buns that come in by the truckload. "Your buns, your bread, get whatever bread you want for your sandwiches. We have white or wheat."

"Wouldn't ruin this great barbecue with wheat," said Harris, an old-timer who has been coming three holidays a year for 13 years.

The banter goes on and on and on. The customers come on and on and on. The meat, the 10,000 pounds of pork shoulders and hams, is all cooked, the countless racks of ribs are finishing in the smoker.

The guys in the back of the buildings - Pete started out with one little building and now has concrete block buildings big as any restaurant - cook and chop. They package the homemade beans and homemade slaw.

"Everything is done by hand," said Mike Snyder, the guy in charge for Pete who has helped out for 28 years. "That's the only way."

And that "only way" is what the people who come by the score want. Customers can buy by the pound. There's a 5-pound bucket. Some bring their own tins or tubs every year. The only thing a customer can't do is sit down and eat: Pete's is all take-out. The line of cars is so long sometimes that there are highway signs out on India Hook Road that say "congested area."

Pete calls it all a "Rock Hill tradition," and he is right.

"One guy comes from Charlotte, 41 years in a row," said Pete. "He brought a guy with him this year, the man complained and said it was too far to drive for barbecue. Then he ate some and said it was the best he ever had and he was glad he come."

In line Friday stood Guy Shelley of Rock Hill ready to drive all the way to Michigan for the July Fourth holiday.

"Not without my barbecue," Shelley said. "I'm taking 2 pounds for the trip."

Celia Wilson was heading from Rock Hill up to Bryson City, N.C., for the holiday, "but not without 5 pounds from Pete's Bar-B-Q."

Kris Hamitt walked in with her 6-month-old daughter Emily to get a bunch of barbecue for the holiday weekend. A bunch is 7 pounds - a bucket and two smaller 1-pound packages. Since Emily is only 6-months-old, surely this was her first Pete's Bar-B-Q, right?

"No, she was here when I came Memorial Day weekend for Pete's," Kris Hamitt said. "I've been in Rock Hill all my life. I'm 28. That means I've been here every one of those years."

She walked out with the baby in one arm and the barbecue in the other.

So many people came to get lunch for Friday, or holiday food for Saturday or Sunday or Monday or even later. If they want chicken they have to go somewhere else. Beef? Find another place. Tofu? Don't ask.

"I need 5 pounds of Pete's Bar-B-Q for a party in Flat Rock at the end of the month," said customer Snooks Lipe, who was at Pete's for Memorial Day but already ate all that food.

Pete greeted many, carried some outside for anybody who wanted help or some conversation, and his army of cashiers and cooks and servers worked. At 90, Pete said he's thought once or twice about hanging it up after almost 50 years of barbecue around the holidays, but never does.

The workers who make a few dollars, the customers who come for the food and the tradition, keep Pete Wheeles in business with no plan to quit.

"Nicest people in the world come through the doors," said Pete. "I'm not tired of this barbecue, and by the looks of things, the people who buy it and eat it aren't tired of ol' Pete's Bar-B-Q, either."

This story was originally published July 3, 2010 at 12:00 AM with the headline "For 48 years, Rock Hill man serves up holiday barbecue."