Rodney Scott

Co-Founder at Rodney Scott's Whole Hog BBQ

Speaker

Pitmaster Rodney Scott has been cooking whole-hog barbecue over wood coals since he was 11 years old. For the next 25 years he worked with his family in their barbecue stop in Hemingway, SC until 2017 when he opened Rodney Scott’s BBQ in the North Central neighborhood of Charleston, SC alongside friend and partner Nick Pihakis, CEO of Pihakis Restaurant Group. In the same year the restaurant was named one the 50 Best New Restaurants by Bon Appetit Magazine and in 2018, Scott was awarded the James Beard Foundation’s award for Outstanding Chef: Southeast. In 2019 Rodney Scott’s BBQ opened a second location in the Avondale neighborhood of Birmingham, AL and in the summer of 2021, a third location in Atlanta, GA bringing whole-hog, South Carolina-style barbecue, along with his famous “Rodney’s Sauce” to another part of the South. In 2024, another location opened on the fourth floor of Chief’s on Broadway, bringing whole-hog barbecue to Nashville in collaboration with Eric Church.

Rodney has been the subject of a full episode of the award-winning Netflix series, Chef’s Table and worked as a judge on Food Network’s BBQ Brawl for two seasons. His cookbook, Rodney Scott’s World of BBQ, published by Clarkson Potter was released in the spring of 2021 to great fanfare. His hard work, friendly manner and respect from his peers has offered Rodney many opportunities to travel around the world and cook alongside chefs and pitmasters in New York City, Belize, Uruguay and Australia.