Sweet Cheeks Q — Restaurant in Boston

Overall Rating: 8/10 – Good but not amazing. I liked it and it’s probably one of the “best” southern BBQ restaurants in Boston, MA …but I wouldn’t go back anytime soon due to the steep prices. Really impressed with their biscuits, pork belly, and pork ribs. But didn't blow my mind.

Trays are very filling and food satisfied our BBQ craving. (Also allegedly better than Smoke House in Boston – the ribs/meat at Smoke House were way too dry).

1)    Biscuit – appetizer ($4 each) – comes with Honey Butter. Their homemade strawberry jam is $3 extra and it’s nothing special. Would not recommend getting the jam. But omg, their honey butter is amazing – whipped, light, and with a lingering hint of honey (that’s not over-powering but you can definitely taste it). I would buy a jar of that butter if they sold it. Biscuit is large, warm, fresh, fluffy & tall (vs. dense & squished), with several layers. It’s really good by itself but especially heavenly with the honey butter. I would come back JUST for the biscuit and honey butter. Best I ever had and this is coming from someone who does not like southern biscuits at all. (10/10).

2)    Ginger Beer ($3.50) – Thought it was a light alcohol beverage but it’s just a soda which was a HUGE disappointment. Note that it has an absurd amount of sugar (49g) as well. Tastes just like ginger ale. As of July 2019, Barritts Bermuda Stone is their new ginger beer provider. They rotate providers once in a while.

For the Big & Fat Trays, you can only choose between 7 meat options (vs. the 11 meat options for the one-meat trays).

3)    Big Cheeks Tray – choice of 2 meats with a choice of 1 hot scoop & 1 cold scoop ($24) – Meats: Pork Belly & Pork Ribs. Sides: Potato Salad (cold) and Mac-n-Cheese (hot). The Pork Belly was melt in your mouth delicious. A good ratio of fat and meat and not too oily. Would recommend. The Pork Ribs were surprisingly one of the best I’ve had at any BBQ place. Usually, the pork ribs at BBQ places are dry and then smothered in sauce to cover the fact that it’s so dry. But here, the skin is perfectly crispy (not burnt, black, and cracked) and rubbed with the perfect amount of spices. The meat is REALLY tender that once you bite into it, the meat falls off the bone. The Potato Salad was nothing special and wouldn’t get it again. The Mac-n-Cheese was decent. The crumb topping was good once it was mixed in with the pasta. Meat: (9/10). Sides: (7/10).

4)    Fat Cheeks Tray – choice of 3 meats with a choice of 1 hot scoop & 1 cold scoop ($26) – Meats: BBQ Chopped Brisket, Pork Ribs, and Pulled Chicken. Sides: Potato Salad (cold) and Mac-n-Cheese (hot). The sauce for the brisket was really good. Had a nice kick to it and it wasn’t too salty. It was a bit dry underneath all that sauce – was expecting more melt in your mouth. Pulled Chicken was okay – the bbq sauce was decent but the chicken was dry. Wouldn’t get it again. Meat: (8/10)....

We started our dining experience with 2 orders of “smoked wings” as appetizers. They were ordered “dry rubbed” and although tasty and fresh with an interesting rub, did not seem to be particularly smoky tasting. Pork ribs unfortunately did not meet expectations and we found them to be disappointing. My dining partner and I, both bbq self described aficionados of all things smoked (read, fussy bbq snobs) noted firstly, that there was a total lack of a smoke ring on the meat. The full rack of pork ribs were ordered as “dry rubbed”, but came out rather wet/greasy. I found the rib meat to be decidedly overcooked, and for lack of a better description, soft & mushy. There seemed to be no structure to the rib meat. Also the taste was not particularly smoky. Thickness of meat on the bones was anemic, as was the very limited selection of bbq sauces The cole slaw was excellent as was my dark rum and aperol concoction of a cocktail. Our bartender “Gaby” was delightful, engaging and friendly and pleasantly served up our cocktails, beer and food, which was served fast and furiously.

We’re truly hoping that maybe we just caught them on a bad night and that our experience was unusual and not the norm. As I mentioned, both my friend Robert and I are quite experienced bbq cooks of all varieties of smoked meats, sausages, fish and incendiary varieties of hot peppers with Robert hailing from one of the bastion states of bbq; Alabama. We have spent countless hours smoking various types of proteins on devices from simple electric water smokers to near if not actual professional-grade smokers. We have dined at some of the best and unfortunately some of the worst bbq joints in New England. Fortunately Sweet Cheeks Q did not, in our opinion, rank among the worst we have experienced. They were, all things considered, firmly average to slightly below average due primarily to the quality of the pork ribs; the first standard by which we judge bbq. Sweet Cheeks was generally fun with a cool vibe and a pleasant staff and did I mention the exceptional bartender “Gaby”. Perhaps on our next trip to Boston to watch a Sox game and catch some bbq afterwards we’ll stop in for a follow-up visit.

Pictured is some of my personal smoked meats; cooked long, low, and slow. Dry-rubbed and tender, but firm and tasty with some great, ample, apple-wood smoke flavor.

Truly miss the old “Riverside BBQ” in Nashua, NH. They unfortunately never survived the pandemic, but had some of the best of the best BBQ ever; not just for New England, but just about anywhere in the US! And yes that includes, Austin and Dallas, Texas, Nashville, TN, the Outer Banks of North Carolina, St Louis, and only second to my friend Robert’s experience in his native state of Alabama. This guy Dave at Riverside had his bbq dialed in and had the best multiple award-winning smoked, whole wings I’ve ever had. Unmatched anywhere since

Life’s too short...

My wife & I had dinner at Sweet Cheeks Q on Friday, July 18. Don’t let the large-scale photo of the elderly man sitting in a classic Texas BBQ joint fool you. This is not “classic” or “true” BBQ.

For the food, let’s start with a positive: the biscuits are legit. Do yourself a favor and place a to-go order for the biscuits. Otherwise, the food was mediocre. The “smoke” flavor on my brisket and potato was artificial, and my wife and I both left a lot of food on our trays. My wife’s bourbon-based cocktail was “not bad.”

Service was similarly “OK.” Our server was friendly, and it was clear that he was hustling to meet the demands of taking care of his tables. Timing of the meal was off; our full order of food arrived at the table before my wife’s drink came from the bar.

The atmosphere was, quite frankly, the worst part of our experience. Near Fenway Park on the night of a concert, it was understandably crowded and noisy. Around 7 pm, a party of three came in and was seated directly behind the host’s stand and near our table. One man in the party was clearly intoxicated and was very, loud. It seemed like the manager(s) and host were cognizant of this, but when the man fell asleep at his table, they seemed to find that an acceptable solution to what may or may not have been viewed as a problem. As my wife and I were preparing to leave, my wife texted me from across the table, saying, “If this guy pukes, I want our meal for free.” As I looked up from my phone and towards the man’s table, I watched the man pull the table’s can of napkins and silverware towards him and vomit into it before laying his head back down on the table; his friends continued eating their dinner. While fervor of the dinner rush was dying down, all of this happened within feet of the host’s stand, where multiple hosts and/or managers were gathered.

Having seen that, my wife and I got up to leave. We told a server (not the one who waited on us)what we had witnessed so that unsuspecting patrons were not fishing for napkins and utensils from a puke-filled bucket. The server apologized to us and offered both complementary drinks and the opportunity to speak to the manager. We were do disappointed and disgusted, we just wanted to leave, and we did.

Had we been at one of the neighborhood’s dive bars, we might have expected this. I don’t think Sweet Cheeks Q wants to be categorized that way, and at $30-$50 per person, it shouldn’t be. At the same time, they need to be attentive to the experience of all their guests, create an environment that is inviting, and serve food that outshines any shortcomings in service or atmosphere. In our experience, Sweet Cheeks Q, definitely did...