Mac's Speed Shop — Restaurant in Charlotte

We decided to stop in here for lunch after an afternoon of Axe Throwing at BATL

We ordered the Burnt Ends as an appetizer. They were good, not tough, and with a good flavor.

For the meal we ordered the Platter Combo A Lot of Stuff. For that we ordered the Pulled Pork, Prime Brisket, Beer Can Chicken, and the St. Louis Ribs

For the sides we went with French Fries, Creamed Corn, Green Bean Casserole, and BBQ Beans.

With the meal came two sauces, one was a red style Carolina sauce, the other was a gold-ish dark yellow style Carolina sauce. So please excuse my lack of understanding in the regional BBQ sauces. I will refer to each as the Red or Gold sauce. I am guessing the difference is Red is tomatoes and Yellow is mustard. Either way, both sauces are great in their own right. The only time one is better than the other is when you pair it with the meat.

The meat: first, I will say this and it is no insult to anything else about this place, just go with the Pulled Pork. It's that good. However variety being the spice of life; if you and another person or a group want to try more than one meat, go with the platter combo we did.

The pulled pork was very good with and without sauce. Not too fatty, perfectly stringy but dense, so that bite you just took was bigger than you realized. A good smokey flavor by default. As for sauces. I'd go with the Gold sauce. Something about the extra tang from the mustard to me makes it that much better.

The prime brisket. It has a good smoke ring on it and the meat itself is very good. You do not need sauce for this. However I found the red sauce to be the better one to go with. However again, the dry run on it already adds a good flavor that is worth trying it before adding any sauce.

The beer can chicken. We had dark meat so legs and thighs. The chicken was very juicy or moist if you prefer that term instead. Adding the sauce to it I think is needed. I mean it's chicken, and once the skin is taken away you got to season that meat. So for me, the red sauce worked better than the gold sauce. However do not let my review make you think there is no flavor at all. There is, just that chicken always needs that extra kick.

The St. Louis ribs. The meat just fell right off the bone. There was no pool of grease or oil showing that these were nuked freezer ribs. These were as far as I know, legit ribs. Alone and without sauce they are pretty good. Flavorful, good balance of fat and meat. However with the sauce. Toss a coin, start with that one, then try the other one. Wash, rinse, and repeat.

French Fries: very good. Not a bland taste or finish. Mayo over ketchup for these.

Cream Corn: smokey with pepper and pork within the mix. Better than I thought it would be.

BBQ Beans: smokey, hot, and beans. Not sweet. And by hot it's not melt hour mouth hot, it's spice hot I'd say. The beans are very soft and delicious

Green Bean Casserole: beans in creamy base with crispy french onions on top. Pretty rich, beany. We...

We tried this place a couple of times before and were disappointed, so we thought we'd give it one more chance, and yet again, Mac's failed to deliver. We were seated right away, but it took almost 10 minutes before anyone even acknowledged us and told us our server would be with us soon. Being well after the dinner rush, it was not even busy. Atmosphere is very loud music playing and people talking even louder to project over the noise. Typical bar atmosphere so not surprising. As we were sitting there waiting, we noticed how dusty all the ledges were along the booth wood trim and windows like they definitely hadn't been cleaned or dusted in years...my boyfriend ran his fingertip along the ledge and showed me his blackened finger.....gross....Our server was friendly enough when she finally showed up, so to save time, we ordered drinks and everything at once. Food did not take long to arrive, but our appetizer came with the meal, so it defeated the purpose of ordering a starter. Onion rings were overly greasy, barely warm, and barely breaded. Taste was ok. Our bbq sandwiches both came on rock-hard stale buns. Took 5 minutes to get the attention of another employee to ask to track down our server to fix our food issue. Here's the part that really got me - instead of a simple apology and taking our food back to fix the issue, our server actually asked us if we'd like her to bring new buns out to us for our sandwiches or if we would rather her get them 're-plated'. I didn't know how to respond, so my boyfriend politely asked her to just redo it. Plates came out again 5 minutes later....softer buns...ok.

For a BBQ place, our sandwiches had very little meat, hardly any flavor, and sauce was nothing awesome... My boyfriend said even McDonald's BBQ sauce was better. We both had baked beans as our side, and they were hot and delicious with heavy flavor and chunks of pork. After delivering our food the second time, our server didn't come back to follow up until we were long finished and ready for the check. Never saw a manager present. Our bill was $50 for 2 sandwiches and 1 soda. This is a typical unauthentic Charlotte restaurant..overpriced, overrated, and underpar service. I was really hoping this place would get better for us, but that's a pipe dream, I suppose. We will not...

My friends and I came here on Wednesday night and did not have a good experience. Would not recommend based on our experience.

It was very slow and we were seated right away. We ordered two waters and a sweet tea for drinks. My friend had the tea and it tasted stale- like sour old tea. So she asked for a water instead. For our food we ordered hush puppies for a stater and then 3 chicken quesadillas, one without bacon.

Our quesadillas came out, and each did not have bacon, despite only requesting one not have bacon. They also looked very small and thin for an $11 quesadilla. An adult could have easily eaten 2. They were very plain consisting of only cheese, bacon, and chicken. Served with canned salsa and sour cream. I was expecting a substantial quesadilla, not one that I could’ve made very easily at home in the microwave.

We had to go to the back near the kitchen to explain how our orders were wrong and after a few minutes, our server, and who I think was the manager came to ask what the problem was. We explained how none of them had bacon and they then took the quesadillas back to fix them leaving just my friends quesadilla who was made correctly to get cold while we waited. I asked for hush puppies while we wait for food to be corrected, but they must have forgotten because they didn’t bring them out until we were almost finished with the corrected quesadillas.

I was really sad about our experience tonight, especially because I recommended we go here based on previous experiences. I would say Macs is not worth the money for both the experience or the food based on our...