Tom's BBQ - Chandler — Restaurant in Chandler

When we travel we hit up bbq joints.... this one is likely our 4th in the area in the last week and a bit and our 7-8th in general.

I should pre-face my review with we didn’t realize it was Chicago style and we are typically more of light sauce people or basic rub. We would definitely get the sauce on the side next time- but that’s just us!

We did a bbq sampler and a 1lb of burnt ends with Mac and cheese, coleslaw and potato salad. We try to always try a little bit of each meat everywhere we go and similar sides to compare.

Burnt ends - we really enjoyed these! If my whole review was based off these it would be a 5/5. It was a perfect fat to meat ratio.

The sauce - we did the mild one. Was a nice sweet bbq sauce

Pulled pork - this was super moist with a lot of nice shredding.

Brisket - this was covered in sauce so it was hard to see what kind of bark it had and rub was fine. It was good and tender though

Ribs - these were ok. It was too saucey for us so we didn’t get the opportunity to get to taste the meat.

Chicken - was good. Once we peeled off skin and sauce it was decent.

Hot links - these were good.

Mac and cheese 🧀 - my favourite thing about bbq left me wanting more, but not in the way of more of this Mac and cheese. This Mac and cheese was shells which is great, the sauce didn’t do it for me though. I would rate this a 3/5.

Coleslaw was good and moist, I would reorder that as my side again I think

Potato salad was good, my husband suggests this potato salad over Naked BBQs. I think it could use some seasoning salt personally.

You could smell the smoke when you walked in, but couldn’t see any “stacks” for smoking so I sure if it’s smoked on site, as we did notice on google quite a few locations.

We felt it was priced higher then some of the other ones in the Phoenix General bubble area. We’d eat here again, but wouldn’t travel far...

What happened to Tom’s bbq? Maybe they ran out of wood today and braised the brisket? Or maybe they cooked everything yesterday and reheated with too much liquid? I don’t know- but the only thing resembling BBQ today was on their sign. My previous experiences were awesome, so I don’t know what happened. I came to reviews to see if there was a change in ownership, new pit master, but seems a few others experience soulless meals as well. Unfortunate for a place I once regarded well. We had the brisket, ribs, and chicken, There was no smoke ring on anything- and the only color on the chicken was from the dry rub (maybe paprika) added a little color as we the seasoning was visible under the bbq sauce. I’ve never had bbq brisket so moist in my whole life- but not In a good way, it had zero bbq essence to it at all, was a grayish color, no char, no bark, no nothing- maybe was cold smoked or lightly smoked at some point then finished in a hotel pan covered with parchment, foil, and some au jus for 3.5 hours to tenderize it. If you’re gonna do that- at least cheat and add a little liquid smoke to the cooking liquid.

I have a lot respect for restaurateurs and pit masters, but I am regretfully quite disappointed from Tom’s this evenings. I may give it another go one day- because at one point over a year ago it actually was...

I'm disappointed this visit. Even placing my order at 7:15 I'm told they close soon. I asked don't you close at 8pm? He responds yes. I reply "so we have time to eat?" He doesn't say anything. As we are eating he turns all the tv's off. It was only 7:35. I let him know the tv's went out. He says again "we are closing" and he has to turn them off. I ask him to turn it on because it isn't 8pm yet and we are still here. He turned on only one. As we are finishing our meal he turns off the TV. No we didn't go to watch TV yet it was rude to turn them off as we were there while the business is open. No customer service skills from this kid. While I genuinely appreciate the military discount, the lack of respect/common courtesy means more. I had my daughter with me attempting to show her my favorite local places. She is here visiting from Sacramento, CA. I have been here before and have always been treated with dignity and respect. That was not the case today. I hope management will train this kid to better serve the valued customers. Thank you, Daniel, US...