New BBQ restaurant slated for Leland

“This is our cooker, the Mercedes of cookers,” David McCall says of the giant steel box in the middle of the budding dining room at Duke’s Old South BBQ in Leland.

McCall speaks with the authority of a seasoned pitmaster, but Duke’s is the architect’s first foray into the food business.

McCall and his wife, Bo McCall, decided to fire up the smoker when the recession cut into David McCall’s architectural profits.

“Barack Obama kept saying how now is the time to reinvent ourselves …” McCall said with a grin.

Duke’s shares a name with but is not affiliated with South Carolina’s Duke barbecue restaurants, in operation since the 1800s. Pork will be cooked in that steel box, a smoker oven that uses some wood, and then pulled and chopped before landing on a buffet alongside potato hash, baked beans and other fixings.

The buffet will cost about $10 per person, McCall said.

Duke’s is scheduled to open in six to eight weeks, McCall said. Find it in the former Fishy Seafood Restaurant, 318 Village Road Northeast.