Rodney Scott is an American chef and whole-hog barbecue pitmaster from Hemingway, South Carolina.
In 1972, Scott's family relocated to the Pee Dee area of South Carolina, where the family ran several businesses including a gas station, a variety store, a farm, and a barbecue restaurant. At around eleven, Scott first started barbecuing at his parents' business, Scott's Variety Store + Bar-B-Q in Hemingway, South Carolina, where at first the family would smoke a whole hog each week, expanding as demand increased until they were smoking seven or eight hogs a day. At 17 he was working for the family business full time.
In 2009 the family business was profiled by Southern food historian John T. Edge.In 2011 he took over the family barbecuing business. A sometime customer, Nick Pihakis, told him he was undercharging for his food. In 2016 he and his father quarreled and he left the family business to partner with Pihakis.
Scott opened Rodney Scott's BBQ in Charleston in 2017 and in Birmingham in 2019. As of March, 2021, a third location was set to open in Atlanta.
In 2018 Scott was named Best Chef:Southeast by the James Beard Foundation, only the second pitmaster to win a James Beard chef award. He was featured on Chef's Table in 2020. The Washington Post called him a barbecue celebrity. In 2020 he was nominated to the Barbecue Hall of Fame.
In 2021 Rodney appears as a Judge in the second season of BBQ Brawl: Flay v Symon.
