Cookout Locations in North Carolina

Cookout North Carolina Menu

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About Cookout in North Carolina

Cook Out opened its first restaurant in Greensboro in 1989 and North Carolina has stayed the heart of the chain ever since. The 144 locations here account for well over a third of every Cook Out in the country, spread across 99 cities from the mountains to the coast. The I-85 corridor between Charlotte and Durham carries the heaviest concentration, and the I-40 run through Winston-Salem, Greensboro and Raleigh picks up most of the rest.

College towns explain a lot of the placement. Restaurants sit near NC State in Raleigh, Duke and North Carolina Central in Durham, UNC Greensboro, and Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, which is why the 3 AM closing time matters more here than anywhere. Smaller cities like Hickory, Gastonia, Concord and Wilmington each carry their own, and a good number of Carolina towns have had one long enough that locals give directions by it.

Dining at Cookout in North Carolina

The menu runs the same at every North Carolina restaurant. A tray with a main, two sides and a large drink starts at $2.99, a Plain Hamburger is $1.19 and a hot dog $0.99. The BBQ Sandwich at $2.69 carries chopped pork closer to the state's own tradition than most fast food attempts, and all 36 milkshake flavors start at $2.79. Cheerwine, the cherry soda bottled in Salisbury since 1917, turns up here as a float at $1.39.

Hours are the other reason people pick Cook Out over what else is open. Nearly every North Carolina restaurant opens at 10:30 AM and serves the full menu until 3 AM, with Friday and Saturday running to 4 AM. There is no breakfast and no cut down late night board, so a tray ordered at 2 AM is the same tray ordered at noon. Each city page on this site carries the full seven day schedule for its own restaurants.

Group orders work better here than the format suggests. Because a tray is already a complete meal, ordering ten trays feeds ten people without anyone having to assemble anything, and the cost lands well under most catering quotes. Cook Out runs no formal catering program, so large orders are arranged with the restaurant directly. Phone numbers for all 144 North Carolina locations sit on their city pages.