In less than two years from now, new construction will forever change this famous downtown Raleigh Q house. After construction, Clyde Cooper's Barbeque will have a new larger capacity home inside the new building.  Unfortunately, the current original 1938 Clyde Cooper's building will be torn down. They will try to save as much as is possible from the original, but if you can, you really need to see the current building interior while you still can. Today, Clyde Cooper's has old photos of Raleigh lining its walls and its interior is frozen in 1938.  For my last pre-demolition meal I chose the sliced Q tray. The tray comes with a boat of slaw, a boat of sliced and sauced tender Q (tender enough to cut with a plastic fork) hush-puppies and fried pork skins. The shrimp-shaped puppies had a great lightly fried taste. The wonderfully sweet slaw consisted of white and green cabbage with specks of carrot, spices and pickles. My sweet tea was excellent. It was full of rich brewed sweet flavor. And my Q was incredibly tender and full of excellent flavor. The pork skins were also very good. Clyde Cooper's slow-cooks only top lean pork shoulders and hams. The brown/orange vinegar and spice based sauce just makes the pork taste even better and it has a nice kick to it also. Check out Clyde Cooper's before construction starts on the new place! Enjoy.

Note: Parking on the street can sometimes be a problem, so I parked in the Progress Energy public parking garage around the corner from Cooper's. The Progress Energy Building is across the street from Cooper's and the gumball machine does still takes pennies.