There are some places you stumble across that completely change how you think about food, and this South Carolina spot is absolutely one of them. This town has a population of just over five hundred people, tucked away in the Pee Dee region, and most travelers blow right past it without a second thought.
But the folks who know, they slow down, make the turn, and pull up to what looks like an old country store sitting quietly on the side of the road.
The smell hits you before the building even comes fully into view. Something slow and smoky and deeply satisfying is always happening here, and it has been since 1972. I pulled in on a weekday afternoon and walked into a line of locals who clearly knew something I did not.
Bring cash, bring an appetite, and clear your afternoon schedule because once you get a taste of what is happening here, you are not going to want to leave.
A Humble Building with a Whole Lot of History
From the road, Scott’s Bar-B-Que looks like it could be anything. A storage shed, maybe an old convenience store, possibly something you’d pass without a second glance on a long drive through rural South Carolina.
That plain exterior is part of the charm, honestly.
The building started its life as Scott’s Variety Store, a convenience store and gas station founded in 1972 by Ella and Roosevelt “Rosie” Scott. Over the decades, the barbecue they were cooking out back became the real reason people came through the door.
The store part faded into the background, and the smoke took over.
Following Ella Jane Scott’s passing, the restaurant reopened in May 2024 under new family stewardship, now run by her brother Sam Wilson and her grandson Dominic Scott. The legacy did not skip a beat.
There is no neon sign screaming for your attention, no flashy logo out front. Just a modest building sitting off the highway in Hemingway, holding decades of tradition inside its walls, quietly doing what it has always done best.
The smoke rises from the pit behind the building, and the smell alone has been pulling people off that highway for over fifty years now.
The Whole-Hog Tradition That Sets Scott’s Apart
Whole-hog barbecue is a dying art in many parts of the country, but at Scott’s, it is the entire point. Hogs are slow-cooked overnight on cinder block pits using a blend of hickory, oak, and pecan wood, all locally sourced.
The process takes real patience and real skill.
Rodney Scott, son of the founders, learned to cook whole hogs from his father at age eleven. That early education shaped everything about how Scott’s approaches its craft.
The pork gets pulled and roughly chopped after hours on the pit, absorbing wood smoke the entire time.
What comes out the other side is something genuinely hard to describe if you have never tasted proper wood-cooked whole-hog barbecue. The meat carries a deep smokiness that goes all the way through, not just on the surface.
You can actually taste the smoke in every single bite. It is the kind of barbecue that makes you understand why people drive an hour or more just to get here, and why the SC BBQ Association gave Scott’s their prestigious “100-Mile BBQ” distinction.
That Vinegar Sauce Deserves Its Own Conversation
South Carolina barbecue sauce is not the thick, sweet, tomato-heavy stuff you find at a grocery store. At Scott’s, the sauce is a tangy, thin vinegar and pepper blend that looks almost like salad dressing in the bottle.
Do not let that fool you for a single second.
The balance is extraordinary. There is heat, but it does not overpower.
There is tang from the vinegar, a little sweetness underneath, and a smokiness that seems impossible for a liquid to carry. Wrapping pulled pork in a piece of white bread and dunking it into that sauce is one of the simplest and most satisfying food experiences you can have in the entire state.
Scott’s sells their signature sauce by the bottle, and plenty of customers load up coolers before heading home. It travels well, and once you have had it, you will understand why people buy multiple jugs at a time.
The sauce is not just a condiment here, it is a finishing touch that ties everything together and elevates already incredible meat into something truly memorable.
What It Actually Feels Like to Order Here
Ordering at Scott’s is refreshingly straightforward. There is no complicated menu to decode, no dozen topping options, no upcharge for extra sauce.
You step up, tell them what you want, and wait while someone puts it together for you behind the counter.
The menu keeps things simple by design. Whole-hog barbecue comes by the pound, by the plate, or as a sandwich.
Chicken plates, ribeye options, baked beans, and coleslaw round things out. Pork rinds, boiled peanuts, bottled sodas, and even local watermelons show up depending on the season.
One thing worth knowing before you go: Scott’s is cash only. There is no card reader, no tap-to-pay option.
Plan ahead and hit an ATM on the way. Seating is limited to covered outdoor areas, so if the South Carolina heat is doing its thing, eating in your car is a perfectly reasonable and well-practiced move.
Most regulars have a whole system figured out. The experience feels relaxed and unhurried, which honestly matches the pace of everything else about this place.
Getting There Is Part of the Experience
Hemingway is not on the way to anywhere obvious. That is part of what makes a trip to Scott’s feel like a genuine adventure rather than just lunch.
The drive takes you through the flat, open farmland of the Pee Dee region, past fields and small towns that move at a completely different speed than city life.
Many visitors come from the Myrtle Beach area, adding a detour of about an hour and a half each way. Others drive from Columbia, Florence, or Charleston.
The consensus across the board is that the distance is not a deterrent, it is part of the ritual. Building up the anticipation on that quiet two-lane highway makes the first bite taste even better.
Scott’s is open Wednesday through Saturday, starting at 9:30 AM. Getting there early is a smart move because popular items do sell out.
Arriving at opening time on a weekday gives you the best shot at the full menu. The drive back, with a full stomach and maybe a jug of sauce riding in the back seat, feels like something worth repeating as soon as possible.
Why the Locals Keep Coming Back
A lot of restaurants get famous and then lose the thing that made them worth finding in the first place. Scott’s has managed to hold onto its soul through decades of attention, national press coverage, and visits from well-known culinary figures like Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern.
That is not an easy thing to do.
The regulars here are not tourists chasing a food trend. Many are people from surrounding towns who have been coming for years, pulling up with coolers in their trunks to stock up for the week.
The take-out business is a massive part of how Scott’s operates. People treat it like a weekly grocery run, just one where the grocery is world-class smoked pork.
There is a genuinely warm, unhurried energy at Scott’s that feels rare. Nobody is rushing you out the door.
The staff is friendly and patient. Families pull up in pickup trucks, groups of friends pile out of cars with out-of-state plates, and somehow it all feels like the same community gathering around the same table.
That kind of atmosphere cannot be manufactured. It just grows, slowly, over fifty-plus years of doing things right.
A Living Piece of South Carolina BBQ Culture
Scott’s Bar-B-Que has been written about in the New York Times, praised by Southern Living, and recognized by the SC BBQ Association as a destination worth crossing the state for. That kind of recognition usually changes a place.
Here, it just confirmed what locals already knew.
The smokehouse out back is the beating heart of the whole operation. Cinder block pits hold slowly burning wood coals that cook whole hogs through the night.
Visiting the smokehouse, which staff have been known to show guests on slower days, gives you a real sense of the scale and dedication involved. It is not a show kitchen.
It is a working, smoking, gloriously fragrant operation.
What Scott’s represents goes beyond good food. It is a direct connection to a barbecue tradition that stretches back generations in the Carolinas, one that prioritizes wood, time, and technique over shortcuts.
The fact that it exists in a town of 573 people, on a side road you could easily miss, makes it feel like a secret the South has been keeping for the best possible reasons.
Address: 2734 Hemingway Hwy #5420, Hemingway, SC 29554
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