Interstate 40 in western North Carolina/ Provided photo by NCDOT
By Hanna Raskin
By Hanna Raskin
If you’re traveling west to east on Interstate 40 in North Carolina–which is the common summertime direction–this is where your journey begins.To purchase a print edition of this map, visitgoodprintedthings.com.
Interstate 40 rolls on to Tennessee, but Ben’s Backdraft Barbecue is so far west that its output tastes like Texas. The 2025 successor to a food truck launched by former firefighter Ben Hooper, Ben’s Backdraft deliberately burns apple and oak wood in the smoker which once anchored Asheville’s Buxton Hall Barbecue. The resultant meat lineup includes pork, chicken, and brisket distinguished by exceptional texture and peppery bark: it’s a forcefully smoky reminder that the cut hails from the same creature as expense-check steaks.
Locally known as The Pioneer—or The Pine Ear, as it’s rendered on a wooden sign that dates to when mountaineers wisely cashed in on tourists’ fascination with backwoods culture—Sherrill’s is a 70-year-old roadside diner where servers pour coffee with a stay-all-day attitude. Should you take them up on the offer, you’ll likely start at sausage-darkened sawmill gravy over biscuits, and wind up at homemade fruit cobbler. But the essential stopover is a bowlful of Appalachian soup beans, simmered in potlikker and paired with cornbread.
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