Co-founder of Destination BBQ and author of Going Whole Hog, writing about South Carolina barbecue since 2012
I’m James A. Roller. I publish as James Roller, though most people call me Jim. I’m the co-founder and publisher of Destination BBQ and the author of Going Whole Hog: Mustard, Vinegar, Hash, and Smoke: Celebrating SC BBQ History, Traditions, and Flavors.
My wife, Heather, and I started Destination BBQ in the summer of 2012 after our family decided to spend part of the summer visiting barbecue restaurants around the Lowcountry. The original idea was simple: keep a record of where we went, what we ate, and what we thought.
One trip led to another, and that family blog gradually became something much larger. I began building restaurant guides, documenting South Carolina barbecue traditions, collecting recipes, covering festivals and events, and answering the practical cooking questions readers brought to the site.
That is still how I think about Destination BBQ today. Start with a question a real person has, do the work needed to answer it, and explain the answer clearly.
What I Do at Destination BBQ
I write and edit most of the site’s content, maintain our statewide restaurant map and listings, research South Carolina barbecue history and traditions, develop recipes and cooking guides, and build calculators and planning tools.
Most of that work falls into four overlapping areas:
- Restaurants and road trips: I help readers find South Carolina barbecue restaurants through our SC BBQ Locator Map, restaurant profiles, and road-trip guides.
- Recipes and traditions: I write about South Carolina sauces, sides, cooking methods, family recipes, and the regional traditions that have grown around barbecue.
- Practical cooking guidance: I create plainspoken guides that help home cooks plan quantities, manage cooking times, understand temperature, and work through the variables that make barbecue unpredictable.
- Tools and reference material: I develop calculators, charts, planners, and glossary entries that give readers something useful to work with rather than another broad answer that leaves them guessing.
I also administer the I Love SC BBQ Facebook group, where people from around the state share restaurant finds, barbecue questions, event information, and plenty of opinions about what belongs on the plate.
It all comes back to the same goal we have had from the beginning: help people find great South Carolina barbecue and help South Carolina barbecue find great people.
How I Approach the Work
Before turning my attention full-time to Destination BBQ, I spent much of my career teaching English and journalism. That background still shapes the way I work. I try to start with the question, explain unfamiliar terms, show where the information comes from, and never pretend an estimate is a guarantee.
When I write about a restaurant, I use firsthand visits when possible and support those observations with information from owners, official websites, public records, social accounts, and other reliable sources. Restaurant details change constantly, so reader corrections are also an important part of keeping the site useful.
For recipes and cooking guides, I draw from hands-on cooking, established food-safety guidance, reputable barbecue research, family and volunteer testing, and feedback from readers. When timing, yield, weather, equipment, or personal preference can change the answer, I try to say that plainly.
Accuracy matters, but so does usefulness. A page can be technically correct and still leave a reader unsure what to do next. My goal is to provide enough context for you to make a good decision in your own kitchen, at your smoker, or on the road.
I update pages as new information becomes available and maintain a public record of significant changes on our Corrections and Updates page.
Going Whole Hog
I wrote Going Whole Hog to preserve and share recipes, stories, and food traditions connected to South Carolina barbecue.
The book grew out of years spent visiting restaurants, talking with people in the barbecue community, researching old and new recipes, and trying to understand why the food served alongside barbecue matters nearly as much as the meat itself.
Writing it deepened my appreciation for the families, churches, restaurants, civic groups, and communities that have carried these traditions forward. It also reinforced something I had already learned through the site: there is no single story of South Carolina barbecue. The differences are part of what makes it worth documenting.
You can learn more about Going Whole Hog, including what is inside and where to find it.
The Family Behind Destination BBQ
Destination BBQ began as a family project, and it remains one. Heather has been part of the journey from the first restaurant visit, and our children, Christian, Chelsea, and Camden, helped give the original summer tour its purpose.
The black-and-white photo of Heather and me that you see around the site has served as the Destination BBQ logo from the beginning. It still fits. The site may have grown well beyond that first family trip, but it has never been a faceless publication.
You can read more about the Roller family, the growth of the site, and the original 2012 post on the About Destination BBQ page.
A Few Places to Start
If you are new to Destination BBQ, these are a few good places to begin:
- Use the SC BBQ Locator Map to find barbecue restaurants across South Carolina.
- Browse our collection of South Carolina barbecue recipes.
- See upcoming festivals, competitions, and cook-offs on the South Carolina barbecue events calendar.
- Read the story of how Destination BBQ began.
Contact James
For media, book, interview, or other professional inquiries, email me at jim@destination-bbq.com.
You can also connect with me on LinkedIn.
