WILMINGTON — An expansion of a popular barbecue restaurant and a new taco brand from Emerald Isle restaurateurs will make their way to a growing foodie district in town this month.
READ MORE: Popular NC vegan restaurant opening in Cargo District
Shepard Barbecue and Taco Papi are two of the newest container kitchens slated to open in the Cargo West food court. Owned by Elizabeth and Brandon Shepard, the husband-and-wife team have been running their Emerald Isle barbecue restaurant for five years and are adding to the portfolio upon their arrival in Wilmington.
“We hope to be serving customers in two weeks,” Elizabeth said Wednesday, but it depends on final permitting to get operations up and running.
Shepard Barbecue will open at 11 a.m. for lunch only and follow the same schedule as the Emerald Isle eatery, closing when everything is gone.
“It’s always better to come early,” Elizabeth warned. “Since people are buying up larger quantities, such as quarts of pork and racks of ribs.”
Diners often wrap around the building at their flagship eatery starting at 10 a.m. and by 2 p.m. most days everything is sold out.
Elizabeth said they decided to expand into the Port City, due to it having more of a steady foodie presence year-round. The couple explored other food-hall projects looking to launch locally but she said those felt like “a lot of smoke and mirrors.” When approached by Leslie Smith, developer of the Cargo District, more than a year ago to go into their food hall, the fit seemed natural.
“He’s a man of integrity,” Elizabeth said. “Leslie wants to work with small businesses, like us, that otherwise would not get the opportunity to really expand in an environment that is thriving.”
Cargo West is Wilmington’s first food hall — though it’s more like an outdoor food court with 12 different, mom-and-pop restaurants housed in 8-by-20-foot shipping containers, including now-opened Seoul Sushi, I Love Empanadas, Zeke’s Beans and Bowls, Sinful Cupcakes and Sunset Slush. Mike’s Vegan Grill is opening this weekend and soon after will be Astro Dogs, Copper Penny and Boom Foods.
Elizabeth said they’ve been bowled over already by the local response of Shepard’s Barbecue and Taco Papi’s impending arrival. The two restaurants will operate side by side.
“In one day, we had more people apply and out of those people hired more than we have had in five years of applications at Emerald Isle,” she said.
Originally from the Swansboro and Beaufort areas, the Shepards love the coastal family destination they call home in Emerald Isle and plan to keep the flagship eatery there. It especially does well during summer months as the tourist population balloons to 60,000, though the off-season proves to be a bit more difficult.
“It dwindles to about 3,000,” Elizabeth said.
Shepard Barbecue often truncates hours during the down season, which has proven helpful as they build out their Wilmington locations. Shepard in EI has been closed recently, but reopened this week, with Elizabeth and Brandon making the two-hour commute back and forth.
“The goal is to train everyone and then we will head back to Emerald Isle to finish out the summer,” Elizabeth said. “We do have the building in Emerald Isle for another five-and-a-half years with the option to buy, so we’re not really interested in leaving and want to continue to grow in that area, but we needed something that wasn’t as seasonal.”
Aside from a few tweaks, the Wilmington menu will be similar to the flagship: Texas brisket, ribs, sausage links, and carved turkey breast — which Brandon has called a “hidden gem,” as featured on PBS. Of course, there is also pulled pork, made from whole hogs cooking for 10 hours. It’s served in traditional Eastern-style North Carolina flavor, essentially meaning topped with vinegar sauce.
The key to good barbecue, according to the Shepards, is ensuring it’s wood-fired; Brandon uses hard oak and pecan but never gas- or electric-assist. Some of the meats can take up to 18 hours to prepare.
All sauces are homemade as well. Recently, the crew showcased a honey-guava chili pepper sauce, made with Red Clay chili crisp, at Wilmington’s food festival, Feast. The Shepards have taken their food on the road to other festivals nationwide, such as Stagecoach Country Music Festival in California and Miami’s South Beach Wine and Food Festival.
Their menu also boasts homemade sides, like mac ‘n’ cheese (and pimento mac), beans, street corn, potato salad, coleslaw and Helen’s collards — made in homage to Brandon’s grandmother’s recipe.
The latter was praised on Food Network’s “Diners, Dine-Ins and Drives” in 2022, wherein host Guy Fieri called Helen’s greens the best he ever tasted. Elizabeth said being featured on “Triple D” has resulted in a close-knit relationship with Fieri, who even had the Shepards cater his personal family reunion on the island once the cameras stopped rolling.
“After we cooked, Guy had us sit down with him at his table and spent the next four hours giving us the most amazing contacts, and genuinely wanting our business to succeed and sharing do’s and dont’s,” she said, adding it was Fieri who invited them to Stagecoach and the South Beach festivals. “He’s reached out multiple times to my husband just to stay in touch, check in and see how everything is going.”
Brandon’s love for barbecue began in youth with family and friends often gathering around the grill. He eventually became a chef and met Elizabeth at a casual-fine dining restaurant in Emerald Isle. Almost a decade ago, they were driving to Raleigh and questioned why they weren’t working for themselves, with Elizabeth having a love for front-of-the-house operations and Brandon thriving in the kitchen.
The two decided to start a food truck, Urban Street Eats, in 2016, with a focus on global street food and would travel into the tri-county region and Raleigh to peddle their eats to more masses. Two years later, they opened a juice bar and poke bowl spot, Nourish, in Emerald Isle, which also worked as the commissary kitchen for the food truck. Though Nourish did well, the couple found themselves pivoting in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
“In March of the Covid kick-off, as I like to call it, our engine blew up,” she said. “Juice bar and poke bowls are great for summer, but our dynamic of the island changed from families there for a week to families there for months and people were looking for large, bulk pick-up orders.”
The Shepards had begun plans to open Shepard Barbecue in a neighboring town but were running into hangups and bureaucratic red tape. In a last-minute switch of plans, Shepard Barbecue opened in place of Nourish on Emerald Isle and has garnered fans ever since. Elizabeth said the secret to their success has been serving approachable, affordable, quality food.
“And our community really rallied behind us,” she added, noting they were the ones who pushed for Shepard Barbecue to be featured on “Triple D.”
The Wilmington menu will pretty much mirror Emerald Isle, though with some specials rotating in and out. The crew has been playing with beef cheeks recently and often do beef ribs as well.
“It really depends on what sells the most and how much room is on the smoker,” Elizabeth said. “You have to be mindful of how much space you allot to each protein.”
Next door to Shepard Barbecue will be Taco Papi, a new venture. It will serve Oaxacan-style street tacos, also stuffed with varied smoked proteins such as beef, chicken and pork. The tortillas will be made with Oaxacan corn shipped from Mexico.
“I believe Brandon’s secret love is tacos and he’s been cooking them forever, but really focused on them in the last 10 years on our food truck,” Elizabeth said. “He loves bringing things to the next level through sauces and cooking techniques.”
When the food truck was operational, they were serving traditional tacos but also breakfast varieties, as well as adventurous handhelds like duck, fig and potatoes. The Taco Papi menu is still being worked out according to Elizabeth, but the Shepards have been hosting pop-ups for the new eatery at Concept Kitchen Co. in the Cargo District’s End of Days Distillery while undergoing construction on their new restaurants in the last year-and-a-half. So some items featured there may make an appearance as well.
Taco Papi will open for lunch and dinner.
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