I’ve had the pleasure of eating at Country Smokehouse three times now and each one was a delight.  Country smokehouse is located outside of Columbia on the road to Sumter and they not only do barbeque right but they even give Carolinians all four of their sauced pulled pork styles.

Country Smokehouse cooks over real wood coals and all that extra work shows in the taste and quality of their meats.  I say “meats” because they also do pork chops as well as smoked sausages.  Then they put pork sauced four different ways on the buffet so you can try each of South Carolina’s four famous sauces.  And while my usual favorite is a mustard sauce, at Country Smokehouse my favorite is their vinegar and pepper since it is hard to find good vinegar and pepper barbeque through the Carolina midlands.

Country Smokehouse is a throwback to the old days of opening only on Thursday through Sunday back to the time when it took days to properly cook real barbeque.  But their Thursday through Sunday schedule isn’t their only tip of the hat to the good old days as they also have great fried catfish on the buffet too!   This is like those days of Fish Camps and Barbeque Houses of old that one used to find in the 1920s and 1950s in the South Carolina upcountry and all across North Carolina.  I must admit that the last time I was there I only had a little vinegar and pepper barbeque but I hit the catfish hard.

They have a great hash, just about as good as you are going to get, plus the usual buffet treats including greens and baked beans, which I actually found a bit too sweet but the rest of the items all meet muster. 

But speaking of sweets, they serve home cooked – yes, real home cooked - desserts. Their grandmother makes pound cake, coconut pie and other desserts that are included in the very reasonable price you pay so don’t pass up the chance to get some homemade pie like your granny really used to make.

They do a good take-out business since the locals have long since discovered them.  They have some great take out items such as Drunken Chicken and even whole pit-cooked hams. And if you want to have a big party and invite all of your friends and family to a real pig pickin’ they will even do a whole pit-cooked hog for you. Anybody can cook good ribs but it takes a real artist to cook whole hog.  Call and discuss it with them to get the price of a whole hog.

And another thing to call for is their skins.  Yes, just like Hite’s in West Columbia you need to call to reserve your skins order or they will be sold out if you don’t.  That should give you an idea of just how good things are at Country Smokehouse.

Don’t miss this one.