A pitmaster, South Carolina’s Rodney Scott, won a James Beard award for best chef:

 

The Atlanta History Center has just opened a new exhibit called “Barbecue Nation.” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a preview.

Later this month, that “Barbecue Nation” exhibit will include a Southern Foodways Alliance film about Austin’s own Valentina’s Tex Mex BBQ, followed by a panel of Georgia pitmasters.

Miguel Vidal of Valentina’s will travel to Waxahachie the first weekend in June for a stop at the Meat Church Barbecue School.

Nope:

 

Southside Market & Barbecue, which expanded from Elgin to Bastrop a couple years back, plans to open a spot in Hutto in 2019.

Japanese food is thriving in Austin, says the New York Times, which cites Aaron Franklin and Tyson Cole’s Loro and barbecue-inspired Kemuri Tatsu-ya as examples.

Eater Austin provided a wrap-up of the recent Austin Food & Wine Festival weekend, which included plenty of pitmasters and lots of wood cooking.

On Franklin Barbecue coming back from the fire:

 

Pollos Asados Los Norteños, forced to close by a TCEQ lawsuit last September, has reopened after installing a new exhaust system for its grill.

The San Antonio Express-News has plenty of praise for Smoke Shack BBQ in its 52 Weeks of BBQ series.

Pints in the Park in Waco will bring together some impressive barbecue talent on May 19.

Dallas Heritage Village will host the BBQ Birthright festival on Father’s Day, bringing together a few well-known Texas pitmasters and a North Carolinian.

Louie King BBQ is coming to Lower Greenville in Dallas. It will feature whole animal roasts, smoked seafood, and exotic meats. You can also be an investor.

A Houston sausage legend has passed:

 

“Tales from the Pits” podcast is putting its focus on barbecue history in a series of upcoming episodes.

Don’t call it a cornback, but J.C. Reid of the Houston Chronicle has noticed a whole lot more corn on barbecue joint menus.

The grilling versus smoking debate rages on, and the Houston Chronicle argues that the divide is purely based on the nature of the meat cuts being cooked.

Meathead pits charcoal grills against gas grills:

 

Paige Bisher, who opened Feedlot BBQ in Magnolia last year with her husband, admitted in January that she embezzled $1.2 million at her previous job in Houston. Just before sentencing in that case, she killed herself.

Scott Roberts of The Salt Lick BBQ would like to make wine and sell it at his restaurants, but current Texas liquor laws won’t allow it.

Check your sausage labels. There has been a big recall from Eddy Packing Co. in Texas.

A film about barbecue won a James Beard award:

 

Cherry Street Bar-B-Que came down across the border from Toronto and took home the title of Brisket King of New York City.

Some neighbors of a large hog farm in North Carolina have won a landmark lawsuit. A jury awarded $50 million to the group, who claimed the farm’s open-air sewage pits gave off an odor that was “noxious, sickening and overwhelming.”

The human cost of cheap meat in America is explored by Lynn Waltz, whose new book, Hog Wild, was just released.

If this is what barbecue disruption looks like…: