Longtime barbecue restaurant closes original Fayetteville store after 24 years in business

On Tuesday, one of Fayetteville’s oldest restaurants shut down after 24 years in business.

Cape Fear Bar-B-Que & Chicken announced its closure in a July 25 post to the restaurant’s Facebook page, which has since been deactivated.

Founded in 1999, the restaurant at Eastern Boulevard and Grove Street was the original store that spawned locations in Elizabethtown, Lumberton and Clinton. Now, all four are shuttered.

Eastern North Carolina pork barbecue, prepared daily from pork shoulder slow-cooked overnight for 18 hours was the Fayetteville institution’s calling card.

For owner June Massengill, barbecue was a family tradition. She grew up working in her parents’ restaurant, Smithfield BBQ, in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, before going on to start her own barbecue restaurant business.

In 2008, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama stopped by Cape Fear Bar-B-Que & Chicken. He ordered a fried chicken breast plate with collard greens, beans and chicken wings to-go before his rally at the Crown Coliseum.

The restaurant where bottles of Texas Pete Hot Sauce, ketchup and pepper vinegar sauce graced each table and the motto was “it’s like eating at home,” may have closed its doors for the final time, the outpouring of support on social media following its closing shows that its memory will live on with the customers it served for more than two decades.

Massengill did not return calls, messages and emails seeking comment on Thursday.

Food, dining and business reporter Taylor Shook can be reached at tshook@gannett.com, on Twitter, or Facebook. Want weekly food news delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the Fayetteville Foodies newsletter. 

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Cape Fear Bar-B-Que & Chicken in Fayetteville closes after 24 years