Betty Rose's Little Brisket — Restaurant in Abilene

After a day trip to Abilene State Park we were headed home and needed to eat. Everyone wanted BBQ. We found this place in Abilene. The facility was clean and cool from the heat outside and comfortable. The staff was Great, friendly and helpful. The food was good but I cant say great.

But let me go deeper before anyone gets mad. The BBQ is good but its not my preferred style of dry rub seasonings BBQ.

They use a dry rub style with lots of black pepper more commonly seen in central Texas. Thats the ONLY thing I didn't like. Getting past the black pepper though it was done to perfection as far as properly cooked. Not dry , not chewy, not rubbery, etc. The pork ribs were fall off the bone tender and juicy. The brisket also tender and juicy. The smoked turkey was perfect which is some of the harder meat to get bbq smoked without it going dry.

However, way, way, way, too much black pepper coating on the meat. Especially the pork ribs. I had a hard time tasting the meat and smoked flavor that I like from BBQ. All foods need seasonings but only just enough to enhance the natural flavor of the foods but no more. The purpose of seasonings is to enhance the natural flavors of the food. Not to hide the foods natural flavors like black pepper does. The problem is that all I could taste was black pepper for at least an hour after eating and along with that was the burning of the mouth and throat for an hour. In fact I had to spit out the ribs because of it. Thankfully I had a chance to taste all the rest of the food before the ribs. After the ribs I couldn't enjoy the rest of the plate. I couldn't get the pepper taste out of my mouth.

Now again to point out the fact that other than the seasonings the meats were cooked to perfection.

Texas dry rub style BBQ is one of the most popular styles of BBQ in the state. A lot of other states like wet type or sauce covered type to hide the fact that they don't know how to cook Good juicy fall off the bone tender BBQ. :)

But this over peppered style of bbq is a central Texas thing. Not all of Texas style dry rub BBQ is done like this. Thankfully! But the excess black pepper thing it has been migrating outward from central portion of the state the last few years. Which is Not necessarily a good thing. So Betty Rose's bbq is on the right track in their cooking methods but they need to cut back on the excessive seasonings. Let us taste the meat.

I understand that they are trying to create the perfect bbq crust. But it can be done without a heavy coating of pepper.

We west Texans like to let the natural meat flavors and smoke do the talking to our tasebuds. Not excess seasonings. Betty Roses has got the cooking method down pat. Tender, juicy, fall off the bone tender perfection. But I'm sorry - not the seasonings.

Also the sides were good. I had the pinto beans and seasoned spuds. But again the beans had too way too much black pepper for my liking.

Let the customer add excess salt and pepper to the food after its on the table. Let them ruin it with the seasonings and sauces later. Yall have the method of cooking of great BBQ down. The juicyness and tenderness are the hardest parts of Good BBQ to master. Which yall have done. But please work on the seasonings. Let the meats speak for themselves with their own flavors.

Now to find a cup of milk to kill the capsaicin burn...

We are in town for work and this was close to our hotel so we thought we'd give it a shot. Pulled in the parking lot at 6:45pm and we were the only customers there... Should have been our clue I suppose. The restaurant is nice inside and appeared clean. The waitress was friendly and helped us promptly but it appears her boyfriend sits in the restaurant when he's off work and requires most of her time/attention. She was attentive to us, but he seemed annoyed if we needed anything or talked to her. We ate in the restaurant and the entire time we were there they never got another customer.

Both got the 3 meat plates with 2 sides but we each added an additional side to try some stuff out.

Meat -Brisket was very tender but had ZERO smoke or seasoning tast... almost like it was cooked in an oven or crockpot. -Ribs were dry and had only a pepper rub. -Jalapeño sausage was okay. -Turkey and ham we basically a thick slice deli version with no smoke flavor at all.

Sides -Potato Salad had a decent flavor but the consistency of mashed potatoes with a few little lumps. -Seasoned Spuds were quarted potatoes that were roasted. Not bad, not great. -Coleslaw was pretty good. -Pinto beans were good. -Jalapeño cream corn was basically canned cream corn with butter, salt, pepper and diced jalapeño. Not bad, but not great. -Cornbread was dry and lacked flavor.

Sweat tea was good. 2 people ate for $60 including tip, I think the ticket was $42ish.

It wasn't awful by any means but wasn't something that we'd return to eat. The lack of smoke/seasoning was wild considering they claim to be in Texas top 50 bbq places... Only way I'm buying that is if the whole state only has 60 bbq joints...

Hopefully they can improve the quality/techniques to reach a larger audience because having 2 customers in 1 hour during dinner time on a weekday is pretty...

I have a recollection of some time passed, recalling when one of the locations was at Judge Ely, that location was awesome. I had a death in my small immediate family and requested an order for 15 people, received a tub of brisket, a partial with sausage, potato salad, bread and cobbler, back then it turned out to be a little more of $100.00. I understand the time frame years later, epidemic, moving to a new building I figured a bit more even for a 6 adult order was $144 and change, but this time 4 container plates, I thought maybe cutting corners and there would be 2 lbs brisket, some sausage, and potato salad, bread all sperated in different containers, but of course no cobbler did not order and didn't expect it for a total of $126+, I sent my significant other and we were expecting it was an order to feed 6 adults, everything was packed, so without opening it was put in oven, as we were both arriving home as well as the invited friends. To our surprise when containers were opened there was 6 slim fat streak slices of brisket, 8 approximately 2 inch pieces of sausage six small orders of potato salad in 4 ounce container, same of coleslaw, no bread. Before the order was paid, order was confirmed for 6 adult meals, an unkind female at the register said "yes and a little more" with a smirk as was told. Just think about this I do not know if it was employees were upset they had to work, bad day, or even because I was different ethnicity, I just don't know what I do know They do not have to worry about having me as customer I would rather go to Sharon's 100...