A highly regarded West Columbia restaurant has been named the top barbecue joint in the South by Southern Living magazine.
City Limits Barbeque, located at 1119 Methodist Park Road, was No. 1 on Southern Living’s Top 50 BBQ Joints in the South list for 2025, which was published Wednesday morning. The list was compiled by author and Southern Living contributing barbecue editor Robert F. Moss. This marked the first time Southern Living has released a Top 50 BBQ Joints in the South list since 2023. In all, 11 South Carolina barbecue spots made the Southern Living list for 2025, which is up from the eight SC places that made the magazine’s list back in 2023.
In his entry about City Limits at the top of this year’s list, Moss lauds the West Columbia spot for the way it blends the traditions of both Texas-style brisket and Carolina-style pulled pork. He also notes that the attention to detail from City Limits owner and pitmaster Robbie Robinson is what helped push the restaurant to the top of the heap. “All told, City Limits is an exercise in obsessive passion and the meticulous pursuit of quality,” Moss wrote. “There’s no need for pitmasters to grind and smoke their own brisket hot dogs or slow roast marrow bones for dipping jus. That over-the-top intensity, though, is what takes City Limits from good to great and makes it my pick as the very best joint in the South.”
This isn’t the first time City Limits has won national plaudits. Robinson and the restaurant have twice been finalists for prestigious James Beard Foundation Awards, considered the highest honors in the food world. The New York Times also tabbed City Limits as one of the 50 best restaurants in America for 2024, calling it “the place students of regional smoked meat dream of.”
Meanwhile, another West Columbia barbecue spot also landed on Southern Living’s top 50 on Wednesday. Hite’s Bar-B-Que, located at 240 Dreher Road, was No. 22 on the list. “Since 1957 the Hites have been cooking whole hogs, ribs, and chickens on open pits in the big screened-in pit house out back, and as the massive pile of split oak and hickory outback attests, they’re doing it on all wood-fired pits,” Moss wrote.
Other South Carolina barbecue entrants on Southern Living’s 2025 top 50 list include Charleston’s Lewis Barbecue (No. 7), Hemingway’s Scott’s Bar-B-Que (No. 12), Charleston’s Palmira Barbecue (No. 16), Manning’s McCabe’s Bar-B-Q (No. 33), Charleston’s Home Team BBQ (No. 34 — it also has a Columbia location), Florence’s Elliott’s BBQ Lounge (No. 36), Mt. Pleasant’s Melvins BBQ (No. 39), Charleston’s Rodney Scott’s Whole Hog BBQ (No. 41) and Charleston’s King BBQ (No. 44).
–thestate.com
