Cali BBQ — Restaurant in Lemon Grove

Keeping the money in the Valley! This place, we've heard about through friends & on social media. We've driven past this place in the past and not realizing it would be one of NEW FAVORITES.

First, the restaurant blends in so well with the community that you wouldn't have known it was there, BUT it's a nice place. It looks small on the outside but big on the inside. Bar seating, high/low top seating, outside & inside eats. Family friendly, can watch the games, go for a bar treat.

My husband and I came here for our first date as FT parents on an evening out for a quick bite before heading back home to our little one. No, we didn't do bar seating/ try bar drinks, BUT there were a lot of people at the bar area & seemed pretty happy!

Food: -Great portions! Me and my honey have been to other "high" end BBQ places, Cali BBQ serves great portions worth the price! *We got a side of Onion Rings for like less than $9, and the portion was phenomenal! Beer battered, too! Filled us up halfway & we still had leftovers to bring home *Both of us got the combo plates: -Enough food to have leftovers -Combos were generous and offered different food options to get a primary option plus another protein, TWO SIDES (can upgrade for $1 to get different sides), biscuit, & sauce *highly recommend the beans! They were Jam packed with flavor and andddddd it had shredded meat in it! I found that to be a great high light as other places have plain beans served up *The jalapeño biscuits/corn bread was something that I'd get again but as an additional side!

My personal order would be the Combo with tri tip, plus brisket, side of beans + additional corn bread AND a side of onion rings.... you can probably tell I've been thinking about sending my husband back for a pick-up order.

The service is what kind of bummed us out. Everyone except our personal waiter was great! Everyone was nice, approachable, and accommodating. A different person helped us more than our initial waiter. He messed up my order (wasn't a big deal at first), then he kept forgetting to get us condiments that'd we'd ask for (he forgot about 3 different times), he didn't fill up our waters not once (it was a different guy), my husband was missing a part of his combo and he came back with it and kinda just plopped it down on the table, and we just noticed he was more attentive to other customers and insistent on going to the front-hostess area to talk to other employees. We aren't the type of customers to be knittpicky since both my husband and I worked in customer service, BUT we do believe in tipping if the service was good. We kept giving the benefit of the doubt.. The waiter wasn't horrible, but he wasn't good either. Everyone else was great & hospitality was welcoming. Maybe he wasn't seeing our potential for being good customers??

Overall, a place where you can tell the small business owner cares about the food quality and keeps the community satisfied with full tummies! Keep the money in the Valley! Delicious, I would recommend...

Day one was the Tailgater Feast and it was delicious. It was Tri-tip, pork ribs and tips, brisket pulled pork, 1/2 bbq chicken, jalapeño corn bread, wedding beans, mac and cheese, potato salad, Wicked peach cobbler, and coleslaw. Day two we had Cali Bear smash burger with onion rings, a side of Tri-tip Carolina sauced chicken wings, and brisket, mac salad, and mac and cheese. Every thing we ate was beyond what I expected. The meats were very flavorful and succulent, the Tri-tip was a slightly tough but very delicious. The brisket almost made me cry it was juicy and had great smoke flavor. My first bite of the pork ribs and tips is when the eyes closed, just fall off the bone with the perfect amount of chew resistance. The tips on the other hand just melted in your mouth. The pulled pork was a little dry, but the flavor was not lacking and I was really pleased. The potato salad really surprised me, the dressing was light and creamy with the perfect amount seasoning, and the texture was on point. I don’t like mac salad at all, but I wanted to shovel it into my mouth!! Eating the coleslaw and pickled onions and pickles along with the bbq was a stupendous combo. In between were bites of buttery, heat kissed bits of jalapeño cornbread muffins with just enough cheese. The chicken wings were crispy juicy and the sauce was finger licking good!! What a fantastic meal!! After moaning, grinning, and patting our bellies, the Wicked peach cobbler came. Oh you wicked wicked cobbler absolutely perfect!!😋 Two days later we were back, hopping for the same experience. Not a chance! It was more mind blowing. The Cali burger was my first ever smash burger, however it was top 3 burgers of my life. The patties were dripping with juice and flavor, the sauce paired great with it and the cheese. Dipping the onion rings in the ranch wasn’t even necessary, because they can stand alone, either way I was a happy camper. Overall I give it all an 8.9 out of 10, the food was top notch along with the friendly staff. Customer service seems to be on the endangered list, but not here, what a beautiful experience. We enjoyed it so much we ordered 1 pound of brisket, mac salad and peach cobbler on DoorDash on day 2. Safe to say we’re fans, I will be wearing my T-shirt so others can...

Update 03/19/2022

We went there the second time for a takeout online order, I loved the little stickers they put on each box so we know what’s inside of each box! The food was as good as the first time and they came out fast but the cornbread was put in a pepper bag and some of them were smashed 🥲 We were going out for a picnic so I asked for more napkins but the staff told me that they already put some napkins in our bag so I didn’t get any extra napkins but it turned out that there were only 2 napkins in our bag🥲

We loved this place!!! The parking was a little confusing at first but the staff was really chill and told us that we can park at the 15 minutes pick up area and the back of the restaurant too, even though there were Tow zone signs on the wall😂 We spend about 15-20$ per person at this place and we were blown away by their customer service!! We ordered by our phones, there was a QR code on each table, it is really easy to use and convenient, the staff was really chill and friendly, they kept checking on us and made sure that we were satisfied with our visit!

We got our drinks immediately after we sent our order! The food came fast and our favorite was the rib tips! It was so tender, flavorful and moist, the wedding beans were another highlight, they even put a little pork in the beans!! We added an extra dollar for the onion rings, it’s totally worth the price!! Really crispy and I would say it was a pretty good size!

The pulled pork sandwich was a little bit dry for us but we solved that after we put their amazing sauce and wedding beans into our sandwich!!

They offered us lemon scent hand wipes which I thought was really thoughtful!!

The whole restaurant was really relaxing and we loved all the music they played there! Great service, great food, we are definitely...