Beyond brisket: West Columbia’s City Limits Barbeque finds Carolina pork nirvana
Editor's Note: Welcome to What’s Good Here?, a new occasional series where The State talks with Midlands restaurateurs, chefs and others in the culinary world about items that are particularly noteworthy on their menus. It’s a look at the dishes in the Columbia area keep diners come back again and again.
You’d be forgiven if Texas-style brisket was the first thing that comes to mind when you think of West Columbia’s City Limits Barbeque.
For a decade now — first as a food truck beginning in 2016 and continuing with City Limits’ brick-and-mortar location on Methodist Park Road that opened in 2023 — owner and pitmaster Robbie Robinson has built a sterling, smoky reputation as a purveyor of brisket. He talks lovingly of it, the way many people may speak of a cherished family member.
“Briskets are like snowflakes, each one’s different,” Robinson said in a recent conversation with The State. He even has a personalized South Carolina license plate on his truck that reads “BRISKET,” and the delicacy was doubtlessly at least a part of the reason Robinson and City Limits have twice been finalists for prestigious James Beard Foundation Awards.
But Robinson is quick to note Texas-style brisket isn’t the only popular dish at City Limits. The restaurant — which is only open on Saturdays and Sundays — has also become well-known for its hand-crafted sides and decadent desserts, such as apple cobbler.
And the pitmaster has been increasingly enamored with perfecting City Limits’ Carolina-style pork barbecue.
“What I think we’ve progressed to is what we originally wanted, which is to have awesome Texas barbecue and world-class Carolina barbecue,” Robinson said.
Bellies and shoulders
There was a period of experimentation through the years, Robinson noted, in getting City Limits’ pulled pork just the way he wanted it.
A big part of that, of course, was charting a course on how the pork is cooked. His initial proclivity, years ago, was a more Texas-tinged method. But eventually he came around to another way.
“I knew to get where I wanted to go, I was going to have to stop cooking pork Texas-style, which is indirect heat, and start cooking pork with direct heat,” Robinson said. “That’s where that flavor that we are used to here in the Carolinas really comes from.”
In advance of a typical Saturday service, Robinson said City Limits cooks pork shoulders and pork bellies over coals in its smokers at the Methodist Park Road restaurant, which has been affectionately nicknamed “Smoky Hollow.” The shoulders cook for eight to 10 hours, Robinson said, while the bellies cook for four to five hours.
As for seasoning, it’s quite simple, the pitmaster noted. All he adds is salt.
After the cooking is done, meat from the pork shoulders and pork bellies are mixed, and then portioned into half-pound or one-pound containers, which makes service smoother and more consistent for each order.
“I figured out a way to incorporate pork belly with pork shoulder, salt only, cooking it directly over coals,” Robinson said. “I quickly figured out the ratio of shoulder to belly, and created the product that did not need any sauce to go with it.”
While Robinson said the Carolina pork stands on its own and can be eaten without sauce, he was quick to point out City Limits has a number of sauces customers can add after the fact, if they wish. (This reporter adds a bit of yellow sauce to his Carolina pork sandwich at City Limits.)
Robinson’s dedication and seeming obsession with barbecue processes has not been lost on renowned critics. In 2025, Southern Living magazine named City Limits the best barbecue joint in the South, with author and Southern Living contributing barbecue editor Robert Moss writing that the West Columbia restaurant “is an exercise in obsessive passion and meticulous devotion to quality.”
Going green (beans)
Of course, if you are getting some Carolina pulled pork, most people like a side (or two) to go with it, and City Limits has a number of them. Regular highlights on the City Limits roster include hash and rice, Hoppin’ John, charro beans, and honey butter cornbread, among others.
But Robinson noted that one particular side has gained a following and is typically a top seller: green beans.
“Those have slowly become the super favorite,” Robinson said, with a low chuckle.
The green beans were specifically highlighted by Moss when he wrote his 2025 Southern Living entry tabbing City Limits as that year’s top Southern barbecue joint.
“The green beans are cooked directly beneath the pork bellies on the pit, so the rendering juices drip down over them, imparting a kiss of sweet smokiness,” Moss wrote.
Indeed, that does simply encapsulate the process. Robinson said he uses fresh snap beans. They then take pans of those beans and put them in the smoker, directly over the coals, and right up under the rack where the pork bellies are cooking. The fat from the cooking pork bellies drips down into the pans of green beans. Robinson said “people’s eyes light up” when they hear about the process.
“I joke with the people in line that they are green, but they ain’t healthy, y’all,” Robinson said of the beans. “But they are good.”
Because the green beans are essentially cooked in-tandem with the pork bellies, Robinson said it limits how many pans of beans they can make. Being a super popular side, it’s not uncommon for City Limits to run out of green beans before the end of a service. On one recent Saturday, they were out of the beans by 12:30.
“There is a finite amount of green beans that we can cook any given weekend, because there is a finite amount of pork bellies we are producing each weekend,” Robinson said. “We’ve only got a small window of time to cook these green beans, then we don’t have any more pork bellies to cook them underneath.
“They are really good, but they are a handful to make.”
