Aspen Hickory House — Restaurant in Aspen

Stopped by for breakfast because I heard that it was voted best breakfast in the town and after not really loving it I tried them for dinner one evening to see if it would be a better experience. Here are my takeaways!!

Environment Plenty of space for outside seating and inside dining - has your typical bbq place vibe, beautiful art on the walls - family style restaurant. I stopped by during brunch hours so it was fairly empty and calm - bright and relaxing setting.

Service The service was good. Nothing to run home about or complain about. He made sure I had what I needed and it was fast and efficient.

Food and Drinks The breakfast food was not for me. For breakfast I had pancakes, eggs and I tried the grits.

Pancakes - they were grain pancakes made with rolled oats, crushed wheat, quinoa and flax seed. So this was probably mostly my fault and just something I didn't prefer. Hit me with good ol unhealthy buttermilk lol. If you're into healthy pancakes then this may be the place for you.

Eggs - the eggs scrambled with cheese were also not what I expected. They. kind of slapped the cheese on top of the eggs. It wasn't that great.

The grits - similar to the eggs, they laid out block of cheese on top of the grits when serving. I mixed the cheese in to the grits but it didn't really make it any better. I'm from the south so it could be a regional different but it wasn't for me.

As i mentioned earlier, I did want to try them again to see if they dinner was different experience so I ordered the burger and fries and I also wanted to try the mac and cheese. The burger was way better than my experience for breakfast. It was massive and pretty tasty. The fries were just okay and the mac and cheese - you definitely get your $10 dollars worth in your order. It's pretty fairly tasty and on the heavier side so it can easily fill you up. It wasn't bad but I've had better. Way better.

Overall Overall not my favorite place but if I'm every in the area i should probably try the one thing they may be known for - the actual BBQ. I wouldn't completely count this place out - the burger was pretty good and worth a try and I would go back to try other options on the menu to see if I can...

Great wait staff, awesome bar tender, terrible management and food. TEXANS, if you eat BBQ back home (and I'm not talking about Dickey’s) DO NOT COME HERE. The brisket isn't BBQ, it's pot roast, and they don't know the difference. If you're from Texas and give this food a good rating, you're either drunk or dimwitted. They scoop the brisket onto your plate in a ball, like at prison cafeteria, then pour dark sauce all over it. The presentation is absolutely disgusting. Why do they pour sauce all over without asking? To mask the dreadful east coast style "BBQ" they serve. They probably mix it all together in a food trough, then let it sit in hot water warmers all day. It's overcooked, so it's bland and rubbery. It was so bad, I thought it was a mistake and I made the rare decision to voice my dissatisfaction with the food. The manager told me he had to "check and verify it's actually overcooked." I guess he hasn't learned how to do visual food checks yet. Guess what....he said it's fine! "To our standards". Apparently the customer's standards aren't as important.

Not your standard restaurant manager response folks.

The wait staff was great. The manager lacks basic common sense.

In case you're wondering....no, they didn't offer to do anything for me. "We can't because it's too our standards".... Smart policy guys. You wouldn't want to motivate dissatisfied customers to write bad reviews, that would be a really stupid...

Very fast service, reasonably priced (especially compared to everywhere else in Aspen), food is just okay.

Off the bat, we got seated immediately. Service was friendly and efficient. Food only took 5-10 minutes to bring out, despite being packed.

The pricing was fair. I got the rib/ brisket meal for $30 with a load of sides. Definitely a large portion.

We got the Onion rings to start and the small fed 3 of us easily. The rings were solid and the sauce accompaniment was great.

Unfortunately I got the brisket ribs combo. Ribs were good, brisket was not. The ribs were fall off the bone, and meat tasted great. The Brisket is essentially a home-style pot roast masked in LAYERS of bbq sauce. They drenched the fatty, flavorless meat. Was very unappealing- both physically and taste wise. Getting the brisket means ordering a pile of saucy mush.

My friend got the sausage. Excellent. If you get the Jalapeno cheddar sausage, you won’t be disappointed.

The sides are okay. The fries are bland. Toast was great and well buttered. The beans and slaw are completely unnecessary. Not worth eating. The potato salad was very good.

Overall the food was a 50/50. Some of the stuff was great, other items weren’t worth eating. The service and price earns this location a 4 star. If i hadn’t had the brisket, I...