The Crazy Pig Merges Breakfast And Barbecue

“I was going to be an actor, so that’s how I got into hospitality,” Robert McCrary says with a faint Southern drawl and a Hollywood smile. Soap opera fans might recognize him from his roles on Santa Barbara and One Life to Live. He also appeared in numerous commercials and a few movies before he transitioned to the restaurant business full-time. “I spent 25 years in L.A., and I was always working at restaurants on the side,” he says. “One concept was with Guy Fieri, who became a good friend. He was in my wedding—that was before his hair was all bleached.”  

For almost 20 years, McCrary has been a local celebrity in Davidson, where his restaurant, The Egg Cafe, has served cheesy omelets and stacks of pancakes to police officers, firefighters, construction crews, and students. “Steph Curry used to come in every week when he was in school,” he says. “It’s a blue-collar kind of breakfast joint; it’s a gathering place. People get up from their tables and go across the restaurant to talk to other tables. The mayor of the town would say, “Can I have your attention? It’s so-and-so’s birthday, can everyone sing?’” 

Owner Robert McCrary

That all changed late last year, when new owners purchased the Sadler Square shopping center, where The Egg Cafe was (as well as the town’s only dry cleaners and movie theater), and gave every tenant 30 days to vacate. “None of us had a lease,” McCrary says. “After COVID—another smack in the face—the landlord let everyone go month-to-month for three or four years. The new guys could do whatever they wanted, and we didn’t have a leg to stand on.” 

It was less than two months before Christmas, and McCrary had to let 20 employees go and put the entire restaurant into storage. “My life has been thrown into a financial hurricane that will take a while to recover from,” he says. “I started 2024 with four restaurants and ended with one.”

Here’s the backstory: In 2006, after he and his wife, Eileen, decided to leave California and move to North Carolina with their two boys, McCrary opened Egg at the Lake in Mooresville, followed by The Egg Cafe in Davidson. In 2008, he added The Egg Cafe at Birkdale, which he sold two years ago. In 2020, he expanded with a barbecue joint called The Crazy Pig in Davidson (he added a second location in Elkin in 2023). In 2010, the McCrarys had two more kids, identical twin girls named Addie and Maddie. Last year, he opened—and closed—Addie and Maddie’s Country Kitchen, also in Elkin. “It got hit by Helene and was 2 feet under water,” he says. After that, he decided to close The Crazy Pig in Elkin as well and focus his energy on Davidson.

By October 2024, The Crazy Pig’s flagship post was all McCrary had left. “The town was really upset about the Egg closing,” he says. “It was the breakfast spot.” But the new landlords wanted almost triple the rent, and Davidson didn’t have any other affordable restaurant spaces where he could reopen The Egg Cafe. So McCrary thought, Let’s move it to The Crazy Pig. 

The Crazy Pig transitions from breakfast to lunch with dishes like the Barbecue Quesadilla

It took him about a week to move his equipment over and combine the two restaurants. “Now the Pig is cramped and packed full of crap,” he says. “But I’m so proud of my team and how easily we were able to adapt.” From 7 to 11 a.m., the restaurant serves breakfast; then it transitions into a barbecue joint until 8 p.m. “We’re seamlessly going from making an omelet to a barbecue plate,” he says. “We don’t miss a beat.” 

He’d like to merge the two concepts even further, so he’s rolled out a few barbecue breakfast specials to see how they land. So far, he says, the Brisket Onion Pepper Omelet, Pork and Grits, and Barbecue Quesadillas have been hits. “This is the busiest I’ve ever been,” he says. “When we have big weekends, like Davidson graduation, it pushes us to do as much as we can with the equipment I have.” 

McCrary’s customers haven’t had trouble grasping the dual concept—he’s made a new Egg Cafe sign that hangs below The Crazy Pig’s—but he hasn’t ruled out a rebrand. “I’m still not sure what I’d call it,” he says. “The Egg and the Pig? Breakfast, BBQ, Burgers, and Beer?” 

Cash flow is still tight (“otherwise, I’d get more equipment”), but McCrary has no plans to leave the restaurant business. “When you look out over the dining room and give a customer that look like, How is it?, and they give you a thumbs up—that’s what gets me,” he says. “When parents come in and say this is the only place their kids will go out to eat. It’s stuff like that. It’s like my acting days—they all know my name and see me all the time. It’s just nice to be there for my people.”