When Pigs Fly South - to Millbrook

MABBETTSVILLE — Ice cream and real Southern-style barbecue seasoned with dry rub are now available on Route 44 in Mabbettsville, between Millbrook and Amenia.

When the restaurant started serving Saturday, May 1, cars started pulling over immediately. It seems likely to follow the success of When Pigs Fly South’s original location in Sharon.

The Mabbettsville location adds premium SoCo ice cream made in the Berkshires as well as hamburgers and hot dogs. There are also hand-shaved onion rings dipped in buttermilk and fried to order.

This is real barbecue, smoked for hours in a massive smoker.  As in Sharon, the kitchen and the smoker are under the watchful eye of Bennett Chin, a Culinary Institute of the Arts graduate. He has family roots stretching across the South, and grew up eating barbecue. In addition to tending the smoker and the texture of the pork, chicken and beef, he also takes pride in his barbecue sauce, which will soon be sold at retail.

Where did the restaurant’s name come from? Chin’s architect father remembered a barbecue shack on the tarmac of the Atlanta airport called The Flying Pig and it evolved from there.  

There’s plenty of outdoor seating in a bucolic setting at When Pigs Fly South, which is open from 11 a.m. to 8  p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. 

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