The Pit Opens for Lunch

Ed Mitchell’s Pit is the newest restaurant in Raleigh’s Warehouse District.  It opened just after Thanksgiving week and has received mostly positive reviews since.  This week it added new hours to the menu, ones for the downtown lunch crowd.  The lunch menu is a variation on the dinner theme, but with a bit lower prices. 

Unfortunately, I had already eaten lunch at the downtown staple Oakwood Cafe, but the idea of glancing at the menu and having a bite or two of pit BBQ sounded like the perfect dessert.  The menu has options of sandwiches, plates or salads, with brunswick stew the only appetizer of sorts.  Many of the options on the menu are smaller portions of what is served at dinner.  The addition of sandwiches (prices from $6-8) with fries or sweet potato is great for the lunch crowd, which was about twenty-five strong at 1pm today.  The main dining room in the back was blocked off which made the restaurant a bit more intimate at lunch.  The fried chicken was a nice size portion, as were a couple of the other dishes that were spread across the table.  The best deal looked to be the Double Combo Plate which includes the choice of two meats (pork shoulder, whole hog, ribs, brisket, fried chicken or bbq chicken).  It also comes with coleslaw and a choice of another side.  For $9, it is as large as any portion you will get at Raleigh Times, Riviera or Fins for lunch, for the same price and similar quality.  Variety is key and The Pit’s lunch menu has this.  After the meal was finished, one of the cooks came from the kitchen and passed out nicely size samples of banana pudding that was made by Mitchell.  I’m not a banana pudding fan but it was fantastic and the dessert craving I had was solved.

Below are the hours of operation and lunch menu.  Now that The Pit is serving food almost nine hours a day, there is a larger possibility they will use everything but the squeal.