Lakeshore Smokehouse — Restaurant in Burtchville Township

My review is going to try and be specific. I’m an amateur BBQ pit master myself, so I’m biased. That’s my only disclosure on that matter.

The wings are outstanding, smoked lightly, fried medium, seasoned well. They’re about as perfect as it gets until you start being nitpicky about personal preferences.

The pulled pork is served naked and unsauced. Exactly how I like it and prefer it. Good light smoke, some ring visible, I would prefer to have it served with some of the drippings in the container. Overall it’s top tier. Sauce to your preference.

The ribs, they’re good, they’re not “the best ribs I’ve ever had” but they’re definitely a higher quality spare rib. They’re a little soft for my preference, but I’m not going to knock points for that. I may have preferred they were wrapped a little earlier, but that’s also a personal preference. There is big mistake on them though, and that’s no salt and pepper on them. They’re naked, and some people are into that, and I’ll take into account preferences when possible, but no salt at least to me is a cardinal sin. With that said, still good smoke flavor and ring. I will order them again even if they’re salt free.

The brisket. This one is a big let down for me. If I had to guess, it’s pre sliced at some point before the order. It lost some of its juice and it’s not in the container. We also have a lack of salt and pepper again. With all that said, again, the smoke is mild and flavorful, it’s tender, the fat is soft and rendered, and it generally tastes good. I also suspect they’re not separating their briskets so we’re getting some bad slices with mixed grains. That’s a cutting table problem though and not a food problem.

The baked potato. It’s perfect. Just perfectly stuffed, the brisket problems showed up more strongly here, the pork was great though. All the other toppings are slam dunks. I’m consulting with my doctor to see if I’m allowed to eat nothing but these potatoes for the foreseeable future.

The baked beans are another incredible slam dunk. Sweet but not crazy sweet, savory, good meat ratio, mixed bean types, and lots of good sauce with a perfect ratio. A 10/10 beans.

The mac and cheese is another star here. It’s shell pasta, like you would expect. The cheese is perfectly thick and runny. Intense cheesy flavor. Everything you want from a perfect mac and cheese is here.

The corn bread is on another level, moist, slightly cakey, sweet and buttery with no need to add butter yourself. Prevalent honey throughout. Solidly 9.5/10.

My biggest complaints though are a lack of sauce options, no vinegar sauce for pulled pork is unfortunate. We got one BBQ sauce option, it’s sweet and bitey, it’s not bad, but it’s sweet. Sweet doesn’t work everywhere.

Everything needs more salt and pepper and if they would fix that I’d say they’re in the realm of top smoke houses in Michigan for flavor.

With these complaints though, this is a must visit place. The property is crazy cool. The food as a whole is very above average. Bring your friends, bring your kids,...

Me and my wife go here a couple times a month when their open now last season (2020) the lines for the most part went the same pace this season it’s been a issue in our experiences that one line moves way faster and it’s the luck of which one you pull in if you’ll be in the fast one. Never cared enough for it to be a issue till today’s experience I pulled into the left lane as the right was longer there was a older woman taking orders on the right and no one in the left that I could see. The woman takes all the orders on the right and goes inside. The right lane emptied, more cars pull in it and she comes out and takes their orders and then leaves again. The right lane almost emptied again before she came out to my lane finally to take our orders while more cars filled the right lane again. Then a younger girl comes out to take orders and starts towards my car and the older one says go to the other lane she replied they’ve been waiting pointing at me and the cars behind me that were also apart of this and the older one pointed to the other lane said something and the younger one went to the right lane looking like she got yelled at The food is good but it’s different this season for some reason and seeing how we were treated like our business there wasn’t important enough to make sure those who were there for almost 20 minutes we’re served before people just arriving even after it was pointed out by a employee of theirs They have lost us...

very good food and setting. but they left us kind of disappointed last summer. their website offers catering and in march we started to cantact them for catering for our june wedding just a few miles up the road. there was to be about 50 people. we exchanged a couple facebook messages. after that, the communication all kind of broke down and they seemed totally disinterested in making the sale. first they said they couldn't get approval from the city to use their event building on site. ok so we asked about renting out their patio for just a few hours on the day of. they said they couldn't do that. then we decided to rent a pavilion at the park and just have them cook the food. we even said that WE could pick it up. and again, i can't even describe how disinterested they sounded. they actually asked us to call back at a later date that would have put us 6 weeks out from the wedding. we started 3 months in advance but didn't want to push it that close so we ended up going with a bbq place in downtown port huron. we had a great time with our wedding that centered around the lakeport/lexington area (from the park, our bed and breakfast, even some putt putt). we thought this place was so unique that it would be cool to include them. but oh well, $1300 went to someone else. again, good food, nice grounds so i'm not going to totally slam them with 1 star. 2.5 would be more appropriate but that's not an option. so i'll be...