From Charlotte Magazine March 2003
By Niche Nosh

R.O.”s slaw and Iguana Tom’s Salsa are the yin and the yang of Charlotte-area specialty food products. On the on hand, we have R.O.’s slaw, which is a Gaston County family-owned restaurant produces at the rate of 700 to 2,000 gallons a week from a 10,000 square-foot facility. Soon, a $100,000 rig will travel the festival circuit, dishing out helpings of the famous foodstuff. 

R.O.’s Slaw is a signature item at R.O.’s Barbecue, an old-fashioned joint opened in Gastonia by Robert Ozy Black and his wife Pearl, in 1946. Pearl developed the slaw, and to this day only the family members know the recipe.

Last year, folks at R.O.’s decided it was time to expand, but they didn’t want to open another restaurant. “We felt like we had a product and could go national,” says the Black’s grandson, Mark Hoffman, who now runs the company along with his sister and brother-in-law. They know the recipe, along with Ruth Black Hoffman, eight-two, and Loyde Black, eighty. Loyde still comes to work everyday.

The “slaw” works as a sauce, dip, or just on its own. Hoffman recently got a call from a New York chef, who uses it as a shrimp sauce.

The first jar shipped last June. Currently, 225 locations carry the slaw, including Harris Teeter. Saveur magazine recently named in one of America’s top 100 specialty foods.