Whole Hog Café — Restaurant in Albuquerque

In a word…meh. Ok not to be mean this place did not do some things right. Specifically, the potato salad was great, good texture and taste and quality ingredients. The bread was fresh flavorful and delicious. Well that was a short list. Needless to say, we won’t be eating here again. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t good either. It’s getting 2 stars, because while we weren’t ripped off, we really didn’t get the value for our money. My wife had the pulled smoked chicken, potato salad and a side salad. I had the brisket and sausage plate with beans and coleslaw. Total was about $23 and my plate was just under $14. To start, somebody needs to fire the dishwasher, spotty dishes that were washed with food still stuck to them is unacceptable. We were able to get some that were clean but I shouldn’t have to ask. As for the chicken it was quite moist without being greasy, but here is a little tip. There are a lot of parts of the chicken people don’t want to eat, cartilage being one of them. If you are taking the time to de-articulate the chicken then there is no excuse for subpar portions of meat, no matter how generous said portions might be. Salad was mostly spinach and cabbage with odd portions of each, not wilted, but not crisp either. The brisket was a mechanically smoked processed food, I suspect it was a Sysco product which is fine; it is hard to keep the same from getting tough. They seemed to accomplish this by cutting it extra thin. The effect however is ruined since there were no knives sharp enough to easily cut the meat. The slices were thin enough to get the whole piece in ones’ mouth and chew without embarrassment, but I don’t like paying BBQ price for a packaged product. The sausage was…edible is the nicest thing I can say about it. An ok texture with no real problems with gristle. Not dry, but not quite moist, decent case but there was not even a hint of smoke. The beans were quite nice and well-seasoned from whatever can they came out of. The coleslaw had been around for too long and had too many celery seeds. Finally, the sauces were…weak, unimaginative and lacking in flavor or heat. The sweet was not particularly sweet and the hot was not particularly hot, as you can imagine this did nothing to enhance the quality of the smoke. If I had to sum up our experience I’d say we were left feeling profoundly underwhelmed. We did not get good value for our money. In fact a trip to Rudy’s would have only been slightly more money and we would have been a lot happier with our purchase. I can’t help feeling that there is something seriously wrong with giving any large chain restaurant the best BBQ review in town because I haven’t found anything better, but there you have it. If I were judging the two side by side on the same criteria, I would have to give Rudy’s 4 stars compared to 1.9 stars for Whole Hog Barbeque, based on a ranking of all the criteria I have just mentioned. In short, skip this one if you can. If you are forced to eat here through some social pressure, i.e., a work party, save your money, eat the cheapest you can get away with, and plan...

The amount of pain involved in placing the order by phone should have been an indication of what was to come but I’ll say up front that the food is well worth the occasional pain. Usually it’s pretty solid service and the order was repeated back correctly on the phone. However, somehow between hanging up the phone and arriving 30 minutes later 1 pound of pulled chicken became 25 pounds and and they charged my card $446 on a to go order that should have been approx $75. Nobody knew how to do a refund and no manager on-site. To be fair, one employee REALLY worked hard to fix the situation and finally got a manager on the phone to help with the refund - shout-out for the grit she exhibited. But it did take 20 min just the refund to the card. The other counter employee’s mask was not covering her nose the entire time and if that wasn’t enough she kept pulling it down to huff, puff, and sigh in an awesome, award winning, and aerosolizing performance during peak delta variant! The to go order had not yet been prepared but thank god on that one since I wouldn’t know what to do with the 25 pounds of pulled chicken👀. So it ended up taking 30 min to get our call-in order out the door from the time of arrival. As an aside, maybe I’m too analytical , but if one sees a ticket for 25 pounds of chicken and only 2 small bags of potato chips and 12 dinner rolls that might be an indication there might be a potential gap in understanding and a follow up call might be in order. Maybe some additional training is in order for refunds on errors in cxl charges but most importantly please mask properly, people have kids that are unvaccinated! In the end I made it out (hopefully without covid) due to the hard work of one employee and the kitchen. I even got comped some Mac n cheese which is EPIC and the both the ribs and ONE pound of chicken...

I visited this place because it looks good. I went during the day and walked in. The place was sooooooo hot. Too hot for me to dine in with my boyfriend. We walked out, I told him we will return when the weather gets cooler so I can try this food and I will update my review. I wish they had better air conditioner, but I am sure it is due to the many windows that made the place too hot. Will be back soon.

I finally went back when it was later in the day. I had a pretty good experience. Very good sausage and very good ribs. Those were my favorites. The brisket was pretty good, the pulled pork was good even though there were a few dry pieces, it was fine. Smallish portions for the money. I like the variety of bbq sauces. I did not care much for the rolls, they did not taste like much, yeasty and dry. The coleslaw was good, but I like coleslaw. I did not care much for the sweet beans, although, they were okay. Overall, I had a pretty good experience, and my boyfriend and I asked for a substitution on the platter and we were accommodated. So, the customer service was pretty good,...