Jaccob Slavin Won a Stanley Cup and an Olympic Gold. Now the Hurricanes Star Is Betting on Barbecue.
Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Jaccob Slavin, fresh off a Stanley Cup and an Olympic gold, is making his first move off the ice: Prime STQ, a barbecue-and-steakhouse he is building near Durham with Christopher Prieto, one of the most decorated pitmasters in the country.
Jaccob Slavin spent this year collecting the two hardest trophies his sport has to offer. In February the Carolina Hurricanes defenseman won an Olympic gold medal with Team USA in Milan, and in June he lifted the Stanley Cup, becoming only the second American ever to win both in a single season. His next project does not involve a rink at all. Slavin is going into the barbecue business, and he has picked a serious partner to do it with.
On September 2 the pitmaster Christopher Prieto and Slavin announced they are teaming up on Prime STQ, a barbecue-and-steakhouse set to anchor the new Horseshoe development at Hub RTP, the downtown district rising inside North Carolina's Research Triangle Park. For Prieto, a decorated competition cook whose Knightdale restaurant has drawn national acclaim, it is the next step in a long climb. For Slavin, it is a first venture off the ice, and a bet that the two of them can build something that outlasts a hockey career.
Two Champions, One Table
Slavin is not a casual celebrity name lending a signature to a menu. He is one of the most respected defensive defensemen in hockey and a fixture on Carolina's blue line for a decade, and this spring he finally broke through. The United States beat Canada 2-1 in overtime for gold at the 2026 Winter Games, and months later the Hurricanes closed out the Vegas Golden Knights to win the franchise's first Stanley Cup in twenty years. That double put Slavin alongside Ken Morrow of the 1980 Miracle on Ice team as the only Americans to hold both in the same year.
For the Triangle, that makes him something rarer than a famous athlete. He is a hometown hero fresh off the best season of his life, at the exact moment his team ended a two-decade title drought. When a figure like that puts his name and his money behind a restaurant, the restaurant stops being a rumor and starts being an event.
He is also, by his own account, a North Carolinian now. Slavin and his family live in the Triangle year-round rather than leaving once the season ends. "My family and I love this community," he said in the announcement. "It's why we choose to stay here year-round. It truly feels like home." Prime STQ is his way of putting something lasting behind that.
The timing is deliberate. Slavin is still in the middle of his playing career rather than easing out of it, and by his own account Prime STQ is his first venture into the restaurant world. Rather than chase a national name to slap on a menu, he has bet on a local operator he can stand next to, in a town he has already decided to call home. That is a different kind of celebrity restaurant, the kind where the famous partner is also a regular.
The Pitmaster
Christopher Prieto has spent more than two decades earning the credibility Slavin is buying into. Known across barbecue circles as the Barbecue Nerd, Prieto opened Prime Barbecue in Knightdale in 2020 after years on the competition circuit, where he led a winning team through Kansas City Barbeque Society events and cooked on national television, from Food Network's BBQ Pitmasters and BBQ Brawl to Chopped. He is also the author of Southern Living's Ultimate Book of BBQ, and he still teaches sold-out classes at his own pit under the banner of the Ultimate School of BBQ.
The recognition followed fast. Southern Living named Prime Barbecue one of the South's top 50 barbecue joints, the News and Observer called it the best in the Triangle, and Texas Monthly ranked it number two in the country among Texas-style joints outside the Lone Star State, about the highest compliment the genre can pay a cook working outside Texas. In 2025 the James Beard Foundation named Prieto a semifinalist for Best Chef in the Southeast. A food truck behind the restaurant, Primo Latin Cuisine, folds in the flavors of his Puerto Rican upbringing.
What earns that praise is Texas-style barbecue cooked with an engineer's precision. Prieto smokes over oak and pecan, chops his brisket and pork to order, and runs the place Tuesday through Saturday until the meat sells out, the old market rhythm that rewards anyone who shows up early. The payoff is a following that treats a Knightdale strip-mall pit as a destination worth the drive, and that following is exactly the asset Prime STQ is built to carry into a bigger room.
His mantra, printed and repeated often, is "stay humble and stay hungry." It reads less like branding than like the record of a cook who started competing at 21 and spent the next twenty years chasing the next thing. Prime STQ is that next thing.
What Prime STQ Will Be
Prime STQ is bigger and more ambitious than a second location. The name spells out the idea: ST for steakhouse, Q for barbecue, two traditions under one roof. The restaurant will fill an 8,000-square-foot stand-alone building anchoring Horseshoe at Hub RTP, at 1151 Hitchings Way in Durham, with indoor and outdoor seating for 250 and a private dining room that looks into the pit room where the smoking happens.
The plan splits the day in two. At lunch, guests get the counter service Prime Barbecue built its name on, chopped-to-order smoked meats and scratch-made sides. At night the room turns into a proper steakhouse, with tableside service and an elevated menu of smoked and grilled entrees. Prieto has tapped Creekstone Farms for a custom cut of beef aged in-house, served with a chimichurri that nods to his roots, and a custom wood-fired grill from J and R Manufacturing in Mesquite, Texas, that burns his own blend of oak, pecan, and mesquite. A separate room will handle to-go orders for the office crowd, and, as at Prime Barbecue, a dedicated table in the pit room will honor veterans and first responders.
Barbecue Moves Into the Boardroom District
The address is part of the pitch. Hub RTP is being built as the first true downtown for Research Triangle Park, the largest research park in the country, a place that for decades had labs and office towers but nowhere to gather. Prieto, who spent nine years working at a research company in the Park before barbecue took over his life, understands the audience. Prime STQ is designed for business diners as much as for families, an anchor tenant meant to give the Triangle's professional core a barbecue destination it never had.
None of it is open yet. The partners say Prime STQ is targeting a spring 2027 debut, which gives the build time to match the ambition. When it does open, it will test a simple wager: that a pitmaster at the top of his craft and an athlete at the top of his can turn two of the most American things going, barbecue and a good steak, into a room people drive across the Triangle to reach.
Two Peaks, One Pit Room
Athlete-backed restaurants are common enough that most barely register. This one is different because of who is doing the cooking. Slavin brings the pull of a hometown hero fresh off the best year of his career, but the food will carry Prieto's name and Prieto's record, and that record is the reason the concept was worth an athlete's money in the first place. Two men at the peak of their fields, one pit room, and a corner of North Carolina that is about to smell like oak smoke. Spring 2027 cannot come fast enough.
Sources
- Carolina Hurricanes' Jaccob Slavin partners with Prime BBQ to open new RTP restaurant (CBS17 / WNCN, Sep. 2, 2026)
- Prime Barbecue's Christopher Prieto announces Prime STQ for Horseshoe at Hub RTP (Research Triangle Park, concept details)
- Prime Barbecue pitmaster Christopher Prieto has barbecue down to a science (WRAL, 2025 James Beard semifinalist)
- Christopher Prieto (Wikipedia, competition and television history)
Images courtesy the Carolina Hurricanes, Prime Barbecue, and Research Triangle Park.