The Triangle-based pitmaster and barbecue personality combines science, hospitality and heart in his cooking and restaurants
by Catherine Currin | photography by Forrest Mason

Rain or shine, from Tuesday to Saturday, there’s a line wrapped around the building at Prime Barbecue in Knightdale. Folks show up as early as 8 a.m., even though the doors don’t open until 11 a.m., because the restaurant’s only open until the last slice of brisket is served.

It’s no surprise to owner and pitmaster Christopher Prieto. “I wanted to create a barbecue mecca — a big destination restaurant where everyone could come and experience the different techniques and traditions behind barbecue,” he says.

Prieto’s skill for destination-worthy food is fueled by a unique combination of influences. He was born in Bryan, Texas, where his father worked as a scientist and his mother, who grew up in Puerto Rico, cooked every meal from scratch. “My whole childhood, I really didn’t eat processed foods, and everything was better when it was made by my mom,” he says. It was in Texas where Prieto first caught the barbecue bug in the ‘90s, learning to perfect regional specialties like brisket and smoked sausage.

Prieto, 42, soon learned that, like his mom’s cooking, barbecue is a labor of love — and a practice that can be honed. “My dad taught me a lot about cooking with science and understanding the why behind what I’m doing,” he says. As Prieto developed his craft, he kept meticulous journals: testing recipes, tracking the temperatures within his equipment, noting step-by-step instructions for different types and cuts of meat. When he was in his late teens, his father’s work relocated the family to Franklinton, North Carolina, and Prieto was introduced to a whole new style of the craft, which offered a new challenge to master.

By age 21, Prieto was on the barbecue competition circuit, cooking at festivals and events across the county. He was one of the youngest pitmasters at the time. “My mom would show up and wash dishes and my dad was my first sous chef. He would sit there and help me bring out my notes and we would create a pattern and a cooking procedure,” says Prieto. “We were very exact and very obsessed with becoming the best.”

That research paid off; Prieto started winning competitions. Among various television appearances — including Food Network’s Chopped and BBQ Brawl with Bobby Flay and Michael Symon — he earned an appearance on Destination America’s BBQ Pitmasters series in 2014. That led to a 2015 book deal with Southern Living to produce its “Ultimate Book of Barbecue: The Complete Year-Round Guide to Grilling and Smoking,” which is still being reprinted today.

While Prieto was cooking barbecue as a side gig, he worked in hospitality with OSI Restaurant Partners, which owns Outback Steakhouse and Carrabba’s Italian Grill. There, he learned the ins and outs of operating a restaurant. “In hospitality, I was obsessed with people more than food,” Prieto says. “I knew I wanted to open a barbecue restaurant, but at the same time, I just wanted to be in the restaurant business.”

Later, he went back to business school and worked at RTP-based life sciences company Quintiles (now IQVIA) as he kept up his barbecue practice under the business name Prime. “When I wasn’t working, I was catering,” he says. “During lunch breaks, I would have my coolers and I would go and pick up all the meats at the meat market.”

While building up his catering business with Prime, Prieto also taught cooking classes with the Wounded Warrior Project, where he met Justin Raupp, a North Carolina-based Army veteran.
After a couple of classes with Prieto, Raupp caught the same barbecue bug. “I signed up for brisket class. I’ve always enjoyed cooking, but after that class I thought, I need to be able to cook this at home,” Raupp says. He bought a cheap smoker and cooked on it every weekend. “I burned stuff, lost sleep, all of that fun stuff, and I kept going to class,” he says.

The two became friends, and Raupp signed on to help Prieto however he could. “He literally washed dishes outside, contest after contest,” says Prieto. “He worked his way up into our trailer just like he did in the military. He became my right-hand guy.”

Prieto had long hoped to open Prime as a restaurant, and in 2017, the city of Knightdale approached him to open a concept as it developed the new Knightdale Station Park. “That’s what I was being called to do,” he says. “I had the vision for Prime Barbecue in college — the drawing I made of this exact building footprint is framed in my office.” He brought Raupp on as general manager and they worked on a plan. “It literally took us a week to design the space,” says Prieto. “Then we presented it to the town and they approved it.”

The build took almost two years as they navigated permits and approvals for a wood-fired restaurant. The vision included a bright and airy space inside with a clear navigation to the counter to order food; outside, a covered patio and open-air lawn provided plenty of space for picnic tables.

The goal was to open Prime in March 2020, but due to the pandemic, they pivoted to a takeout-only opening in May. “It was not ideal, but it forced us to learn a lot,” says Prieto. The silver lining: “We started to understand the operations of what was important. Since we weren’t welcoming guests in a full capacity, the focus shifted to cooking, trimming and seasoning everything every day,” he says. By the time the pandemic eased, they’d streamlined their operations — and the menu.

Unlike many North Carolina barbecue joints, Prime isn’t about tomato versus vinegar or beef versus pork. “Barbecue is the technique, plain and simple: cooking with wood and coals,” Prieto says. At Prime, you’ll find a little bit of Texas barbecue — like melt-in-your-mouth brisket — but also classic North Carolina whole-hog barbecue. There’s Prieto’s spin on Puerto Rican rice and beans, inspired by the way his mom made it. There’s a juicy smoked turkey, pork ribs, a smoked sausage with a kick and burnt ends (only on Wednesdays and Fridays).

There’s the Texas Twinkie, a jumbo jalapeno popper wrapped in bacon, filled with pork and gouda pimento cheese, and a Sweet Potato Salad, a spin on the classic made with our abundant local crop. It takes more than 24 hours to make his decadent creamed corn, and Prieto can wax poetic about the care and time each dish takes, down to the sides — like his sweet and hot Big Boss Beans, made with pork fat and topped with chopped brisket.

“It’s too simple to say Prime is North Carolina or Texas barbecue. I lived in Texas nearly 20 years of my life, and I’ve lived in North Carolina for 15. That’s why we cook in so many different styles, so many different ways,” says Prieto. “You’re cooking all day long, prepping for hours, for the moment someone takes their first bite.”

Once guests get up to the counter, it’s a chance to learn about the food and connect with the team. “You go up to a board, you get it crafted right in front of you. I feel that’s the most intimate way barbecue’s been done for the longest time,” says Prieto. He’s there most days to welcome his guests, and don’t be surprised to see his family — maybe even one of his five children — helping bus tables. “We’re in the business of people, we just happen to cook good barbecue,” he says.

Over the past few years, Prieto and Prime Barbecue have gained a cult following, along with numerous accolades — in 2025 alone, Prieto was named a James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef Southeast and Prime Barbecue received Michelin’s Bib Gourmand recognition. Prieto also has a new refined barbecue-steakhouse concept, STQ, on the horizon to open in Research Triangle Park in the coming year.
“We’re at the point where all the things we prayed for, all the things we worked hard for, are now here,” says Prieto. “But that’s not where you end — that’s where you start.”

This article originally appeared in the March 2026 issue of WALTER magazine.