[upbeat music] - Next on North Carolina Weekend, join us as we take day trips in and around Greenville.

We'll go on a Brew and Cue tour, soar above Beaufort and we'll visit Simply Natural Creamery in Ayden.

Coming up next.

- Funding for North Carolina Weekend is provided in part by Visit NC dedicated to highlighting our state's natural scenic beauty unique history, and diverse cultural attractions.

From the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains across the Piedmont to 300 miles of barrier Island beaches.

You're invited to experience all the adventure and charm our state has to offer.

[upbeat music] - Hi, everyone.

Welcome to North Carolina Weekend.

I'm Deborah Holt Noel.

And this week we are in Greenville home to East Carolina University and a fast-growing small city on the coastal plain that's really a great place to enjoy public art, breweries, restaurants and parks.

In fact, one of the things that this area is famous for is its barbecue traditions.

So couple that with a tour of some of the new breweries and you have a really fun Brew and Cue trail.

- Historically, wood-fired whole-hog barbecue is what's defined Eastern North Carolina.

- If you come to Pitt County or Eastern North Carolina you have to have barbecue.

And that's just the main staple.

- The brewing scene in Greenville in Pitt County is fairly new.

It's fun to see the growth of beer in Greenville and what it's meant to the social scene.

- As Pitt County leaders surveyed their culinary state of affairs, they noticed the popularity of something old and something new.

A mix of barbecue and brew and cooked up a plan to tie it all together.

- The Pitt County Brew and Cue trail is a way to connect all of our legendary barbecue restaurants, as well as our craft brewery.

Three of which are new in the last two years.

There are six barbecue restaurants on the trail.

There's Skylight Inn, Bum's Restaurant, Parker's Barbecue, Sam Jones Barbecue, Moore's All-Time Barbecue.

And then there is also B's Barbecue.

There are four craft breweries, the Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery in Farmville.

And then there are three in uptown Greenville, there's Trollingwood Taproom and Brewery, Uptown Brewing Company, and then Pitt Street Brewing Company.

Some people do it really quickly and then others stretch it out over an extended period of time, just based on you know, time and what their stomach can, you know, allow for.

- You have to visit all the stops like the trail and once you've completed it, everywhere you go you get your passpork stamp.

- Yup.

That's passpork with a K. It includes a map and information about each stop on the trail and a place to get a stamp, proof of a completed visit.

- You show up, you try some of the cuisine, some some items on the menu, they stamp your passpork.

You decide where you're going next.

- The trail is a wonderful thing.

We have a lot of people that come from everywhere, talking about the trail.

When people come in and ask for the passporks, they're really excited.

- It's a good time when they come in and they're looking for a stamp for their passpork then we know that they've been around.

They're interested in what we have, and they're going to have some stories that they're going to share.

- When you're finished, you come back to the visitor center in uptown Greenville and you get your final stamp and then you can get a t-shirt or a pint glass to say you did it.

- There's definitely a feeling of accomplishment that comes with completing the passpork.

After you go to your first three or four, you think, oh boy I'm really making my way through this.

And then you look down and you realize I've still got six or seven places to go.

Ah, so, it was really a sense of accomplishment to get all the way through it at the end and look back at all those stamps and say, wow I've been to every one of these locations.

- Barbecue and beers, a perfect pairing for, particularly with the vinegar base sauce that we use in, in Pitt county and Malden, the beer just makes a great marriage - Barbecue and beer goes together.

And there's so many beer especially your craft beers that compliment smoked meat.

- There's a lot of history, a lot of main staple on the trail.

It is good to know that we're all in good company.

- It's not about one particular star to show, it's about the whole community the whole region of Eastern North Carolina.

We got involved with the passpork program because we felt like it would boost our community.

And that's just what we do.

We want the boast of our hometown.

- Pick up your passpork to the Pitt County Brew and Cue trail at the Greenville visitor's center at 417 Cotanche Street or go to visitgreenvillenc.com, for the entire list of participating restaurants and breweries.

This part of Dickinson Avenue is part of Greenville's art districts.

Really cool place to explore.

And just about 30 minutes from here is North Carolina's earliest community.

That's right.

The town of Bath was incorporated way back in 1705.

Now Bath is still a small town but there's a new coffee shop and art emporium there that are quickly becoming the hub of the community.

- On weekends, this old general store on Bath's main street is home to music, art, coffee, and conversation.

Today musician, Chuck Phillips, is performing original songs and popular cover tunes for local residents and visitors.

- Did you meet our new artist?

- I did.

- Margaret Dixon is serving up coffee, while people listen to music, talk and peruse the wide variety of local arts and crafts along the walls.

- Feels good to be in here and then the events that we have here just brings the community together.

And it's really just a fun place to be.

- The store was built in 1905.

It carried auto parts, clothing, food, hardware, you name it.

Like general stores in many rural communities, it was also a gathering place.

- Almost everybody knew Swindell's, meet you in Swindell's.

- The last owner Jack Swindell closed it in 1984.

The building fell into disrepair A community effort to save it led to the Swindell family donating the building to Preservation, North Carolina.

It sold the building to Durham architect, Ken Friedlein.

- It was full clay, full of all the goods that were here in 1984, when Mr. Jack Swindell closed and just shut down.

- Friedlein and his brother donated those goods to the state and took on a five-year renovation of the building.

- Basically the space that you're in was down to the dirt floor.

We took everything out.

- The Friedleins, rebuilt the floor, put in new wiring, plumbing and an HVAC system.

- But the building is sort of, as it was in terms of how it feels spatial, how we use it.

- The Friedleins created condos upstairs and an office and art studio in back.

But the main floor that housed the store remained empty for years.

Dixon and her husband noticed it in 2014 while visiting Bath on weekends before they moved here full time.

- And we would walk by here and you know this is such a lovely building and the downstairs had been empty for a long time.

And I thought, gosh, that could be something, not anything I can afford, you know, but it just, it's a shame.

It just sits there so quiet and empty and dark.

- So Dixon asked Friedlein if she could lease a small space inside to sell coffee and plants.

- I'd never met Ken before and he'd never met me.

And he said, yes.

And I said, oh my God.

So that's how it started.

Just over in that little corner was self-serve coffee and it just grew from there all by itself.

- And pretty soon Margaret had people coming pretty regularly on Saturdays and Sundays, sometimes Fridays to enjoy the morning and the day and the space.

- It's become a place for local artists and craftspeople to showcase their work, paintings, pottery, woodcarvings, glass art and more.

Dixon partnered with the regional arts council, Arts of the Pamlico to bring in art demonstrations and musicians and she's brought in local baked goods to go with their coffee.

- For so long it sat idle and it was such a great space.

And it has grown to something that's just tremendous.

I think the locals love it.

And the, and the tourists love it.

And it is really just a comfortable place to be and everybody feels welcome here.

- There are still signs of the old times, there are curved marks in the bricks at the front of the store where a gentleman would stand while family shopped and sharpen their pin knives on the, on the red clay bricks - Today, the old Swindell store is a gathering place once again.

- A lot of people talk about the store and have memories of it, but now they have new experiences of it.

- It is that social connection that people still hunger for.

There's only one rule.

- It's a neutral zone.

We don't talk politics or religion.

Keep it pretty simple about, you know, talking, sharing what, who you are, what you want to share talking about your life, your family.

Just having a nice conversation.

- Coffee Arts at Swindell store is located at 103 South Main Street in Bath.

And it's open 9-2 on Saturdays and 10-2 on Sundays.

This is River Park North, a 324-acre nature park where you can find camping, fishing, boating, and more.

They even have a science and nature center with a huge, fresh water aquarium.

Continuing our day trips from Greenville let's head Southeast to Beaufort, where Kitty Hawk Kites offers a bird's eye view of the coast.

- All right, here we go.

I believe we can fly.

I believe we can touch the sky.

- To share the freedom of flight, you know, it's remarkable to be able to do that with someone, you know, that's not something we've always been able to do, even in the past, like 50 years, you know it's grown to where we've been able to do something like this.

- At the beginning when the plane was still tethered to the hang glider, and that's when I kind of got used to the noise and just the whole motion of it.

And then they detached and it was silent.

And that's when it got very realistic because I knew we weren't attached anymore and got a little scared cause we started to float around and do like little turns and pockets of air brought us up and down, but it was very peaceful, quiet.

Got to see Beaufort and the light house and the wild horses.

- If you've ever been a kid out on the beach flying your kite thinking, man, how cool would that be if I was actually able to attach myself to the kite, this is that, but we get to go up in the sky and play around you know?

Get to get to see clouds next to you.

- So you think about boiling water, how it starts heating up and those bubbles form close to the bottom of the pan first, right?

And then as it heats up more and more, the bubbles start rising where every day when the sun comes up, it starts heating up the air and little pockets of hot air start forming.

And as the day heats up more and more those pockets of hot air start rising and eventually form what we see as the clouds.

- It's life-changing for some people.

I mean, we've had people land, they're crying and bawling.

Not because they just did something scary it's because they just had this life altering experience that you know, changed their whole outlook on life and they didn't think they could do it.

And they, they did it.

It's really cool to see that.

- Welcome back to Earth.

All right, here we go with Kevin about to go and play around in the sky.

Just like a bird would.

Any words for the camera before we get up there and have some fun?

- No let's get going.

- All right, you heard the man let's get off this planet.

- When you're flying in a plane or something like that, it's nice, slow turns and this thing turns on a dime.

You just get to see things.

It's a different perspective of seeing the entire area.

We saw some wild horses today over on one of the islands and it's great perspective.

Just the closest thing you can get to being a bird.

That's the only kind of aircraft in the world that you can fly where you use your own body weight to control what happens.

So it's weight shift maneuvering.

So that's kind of a cool aspect about hangliders already.

- And if you want to put a hand up here and a hand on the other side there, and I'll kind of talk you through flying it while we're flying over here.

So right now we're in a neutral flying position.

If we want to speed up we're going to pull our weight forward towards the nose, so pull the bar back to you.

You'll feel the wind picking up.

- Yup.

- Nice, ease back out, nice and slow.

That's how you slow down to there.

If we wanted to go right, we just shift your weight over to your right.

So kind of pull the bar back toward your right shoulder.

Take your weight over there a little more.

There you go.

So now you can see the wild horses down there right there at that pond in the center.

- Leonardo da Vinci said it best.

You know, for once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned Skyward for there you have been and there you will long to return.

I've had so many different reactions from people.

I've had people that got down on the ground.

They couldn't walk because they didn't know like their legs were kind of shuttering beneath them.

- It's going to feel like you got off a boat for your very first time.

- My hang-gliding flight was pretty terrifying in the beginning.

- So primarily I want you to hold onto those handles for the takeoff and the landing okay?

Once we get a few hundred feet away from the ground you can relax your arms, hold them out like a bird.

We got Trish here with us today.

About to go up and fly around the air, see the crystal coast.

Any words for the camera before we go up there and play around?

- I don't really have anything.

- Speechless.

- And then once I got up there it was really amazing.

It was not what I had expected.

It is very exciting, but not terrifying.

- I've had people cry.

I've had like just amazing experiences for people.

I've never had anybody that didn't enjoy it.

- Kitty Hawk Kites is at 412 Front Street in Beaufort and to find out more about booking an adventure visit their website at kittyhawk.com.

You know, you don't have to go all the way to the coast to find delicious seafood.

In fact, just a stone's throw from Greenville and about 80 miles inland from the North Carolina beaches you'll find local, fresh oysters and crab at a newly opened restaurant in Winterville.

We sent Bob Garner to Main & Mill Oyster Bar and Tavern.

- Main & Mill occupies a vintage corner location in Winterville's compact downtown area.

Sit at the bar, choose a high top in the tavern area, or settle in the dining room and enjoy some of the creations of executive chef Eric Pooley.

- We have an oyster bar, We have steam bar here.

We like to do fresh seafood a lot of hand-cut chops, hand-cut steaks.

Just trying to bring some fresh seafood and fresh plates with Southern flare to it, to Winterville.

- In perusing the appetizer list, my eyes went straight to what they call belly and brussels.

Crispy cuts of pork belly and roasted brussel sprouts drizzled with a tangy balsamic glaze and served over Parmesan grits.

All kinds of nice blend of textures there.

Crunch, roasty, little char, creamy with the grits.

Oh yeah, that really works.

And now that I've gotten started I simply have to have some of this down east duck.

This has a mustard glaze there.

It's mid-rare duck breasts over duck fat fries and roasted cauliflower.

Oh, do I feel privileged to be able to dig into that.

At that point, it was time for one of my favorite seafoods, All that looks fantastic.

That's linguine, that's scallops and it's a chipotle sauce to go with it.

Oh, oh, oh, got a little heat too.

I love it.

Let's stay with the shellfish mode shrimp and grits.

You know shrimp and grits is one of those things.

Sure, everybody has it, but everybody loves shrimp and grits and everybody has their own take on it as I have found.

I love the bacon bits, the parmesan grits here, it's called kind of a low country gravy.

Wow.

Let me just tell you I'll sample anyone's shrimp and grits, as often as I get the chance.

There's a nice big plump, firm shrimp.

That's fantastic.

At an oyster bar, of course I was going to eat some oysters.

Beginning with Oyster's Rockefeller.

Boiled on the half shell after being topped with fresh spinach, butter, and plenty of cheese.

The texture is just right on that.

That's a classic that just never gets too old.

And then I went over to the bar so they could chuck me some steamed oysters.

I'm going to kind of keep it simple just a little flavorful, but not too hot sauce here.

Perfect.

Steamy.

By the way, the restaurant has created a menu of bar appetizers for the new Naughty Dog Brewing company right next door.

Main & Mill is laid back and comfortable with great execution of its varied menu.

Two thumbs up!

- Main and Mill Oyster Bar and Tavern is at 204 West Main Street in Winterville and they're open for dinner Tuesday through Saturday from 4:00 to 10:00 PM.

For more information, give them a call at [252] 227-4399 or visit them online at mainandmilltavern.com.

Who doesn't love ice cream?

I certainly do and here at Simply Natural Creamery, the ice cream tastes fresh because it really is.

Just 10 miles outside of Greenville, the Jersey cows of Simply Natural Creamery roam freely and it's a great place to take the kids for a farm tour or get an ice cream cone.

- We are pretty much known for our ice cream.

We have 40 different flavors.

We have excellent milk also, but I think if you go anywhere within a 50 mile radius of here and, you know, Mitch and Safely Natural Creamery people would say, come by and try the ice cream.

- My name is Leo Maui and I'm the owner of Simply Natural Creamery.

I did not come from a farming family, but I came from a farming community.

You know, my family didn't farm, but I had, you know I had interaction with farmers, you know on a day-to-day basis.

And that's kind of the career path that I wanted to take.

We started with a couple of cows in the backyard.

And as the kids grew, we kind of felt like that we wanted to expand and also be able to have our own product where we can market.

So at that point in time, we decided to actually put the milking parlor in.

And then a few years after that, we actually put the process in plenty So we started from a couple of cows in the backyard to milking 160 cows and processing 8,000 gallons of milk a week.

We get a lot of school groups out here, young kids.

And when they leave here, you know they can tell you what a Jersey cow looks like.

They can tell you how many gallons of water a calf drinks a day, how many pounds of feed that a cow eats a day.

How many gallons of milk a Jersey cow gives.

- Put your hand underneath it.

You got it?

Is it heavy?

No.

So I just asked him, is this heavy?

And they said, no, so it's not heavy to our cow.

So it's not hurting our cow.

- It feels good to me that some of those kids would never know that, you know, if they didn't have somewhere to come to that could show them and tell them that knowledge.

I mean, I guess dairying is something that, you know is not cut out for everybody.

There is a lot of work there and there's a lot of time that you have to put in.

We actually work with those cows seven days a week, 365 days a year.

You have a closeness with your herd of cows, you know that you really just don't have with a row crop.

You know, you just learn to love it.

And you just can't.

I mean, you just can't get it out of your blood.

- Simply Natural Creamery has three locations.

In Greenville, their ice cream shop is at 317 East Arlington Boulevard.

And in Morehead City, they're at 4950 Arendell Street.

Their farm is at 1265 Carson Edwards road in Ayden and it's open daily.

For more information go to their website at simplynaturalcreamery.com.

Isn't this piece amazing.

We're at Sycamore Hill Gateway Plaza and the stained glass represents a historic Black church that stood here for generations.

Greenville is embracing its future, but it hasn't forgotten about its past either.

We'd like to thank the folks in Greenville for hosting us.

This is really a great place to visit.

And if you've missed anything in today's program just remember, you can always watch us again on pbsnc.org.

Have a great weekend everybody.

- Funding for North Carolina Weekend is provided in part by Visit NC, dedicated to highlighting our state's natural scenic beauty, unique history, and diverse cultural attractions.

From the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains, across the Piedmont to 300 miles of barrier Island beaches.

You're invited to experience all the adventure and charm our state has to offer.