Greensboro sits in the Piedmont, close enough to Lexington that the western North Carolina barbecue style — pork shoulder, chopped or sliced, with a tomato-and-vinegar dip and red slaw — is the local default.
The city’s own cooking runs to Southern plate lunches, biscuits and country cooking, with a long tradition of unpretentious lunch counters. Greensboro’s role in the 1960 sit-ins means one of those counters is now a museum.
Downtown and the area around the universities hold the newer restaurants, and the city has developed a good independent brewery scene. It is a quieter, cheaper alternative to Raleigh and Charlotte with much of the same regional cooking.