Sweet Lew's BBQ — Restaurant in Charlotte

First I want to say that if it's not available or ready to serve, why have it on the menu. Especially when the restaurant hasn't been open for very long today. We went into the restaurant a little after 12 noon. And no, there was no noon rush to come in and eat everything up. The item wasn't ready.

I ordered the half chicken which wasn't ready for whatever reason. So I had to settle for the smoked chicken wings. And a double order of macaroni and cheese. I wanted to order the greens but I could see the ham in them. I wanted to try to brisket baked beans, but they where pork and beans with brisket added. For whatever reason, pork has to go into everything for it to taste good. Or so the thinking goes among a lot of cooks and so called chefs.

My son had brisket and an order of macaroni and cheese. My wife ordered the smoked chicken wings, macaroni and cheese along with an order of greens.

The wings where dry and over cooked. Yes, they where smoked, but the smoked flavor was light at best. I suppose you could say that the smoke flavor had been sprinkled on by someone being stingy. No salt, no pepper, nothing as far as seasoning. Just basic plan Jane smoked chicken wings with zero seasoning. The macaroni and cheeses was okay to me. My wife had gotten small cups of all of the sauces the restaurant offered in the dinning condiment area. She love , I mean really love sauces. But all of the sauces offered by sweet lew's tasted nasty. Her chicken wings was just like my wings: dry with no seasoning. In order for us to enjoy our food, my wife went out to the car and got the Texas Peete's BBQ sauce that we just happened to purchase from Wal-Mart the previous day. We had not seen this particular offering from Texas Peete down in our area of the 'dirty south.'

What a difference a good sauce makes:- ) I mean wow... amazingly different. I suppose its a good idea for us to start carrying hot sauce and Texas Peete's BBQ sauce in the glove compartment when we travel.

Since my wife and I wasn't enjoying our meals prior to Texas Peete's intervention, our son informed us that his brisket was tender, and okay. I remarked to my wife, at least his brisket was good. However, my son corrected me stating that it was okay, not good.

The restaurant was clean inside the dinning area and the bathroom was clean. The outside was also clean. The staff was clean looking, polite and friendly. The brisket was ready when my son placed his order: however, the wings took a few minutes. I initially thought that maybe the wings had been deep fried as the final cooking step. However, they where too dry for that to have been the case. Anyway, as far as presentation, the food looked good even though it didn't taste good.

I saw a lot of reviews about this restaurant right before I decided to do my review. Most people say the food is good. A few people didn't enjoy the food. I always say go with what most people say because you can never please everyone. There is going to always be someone out there that isn't going to like your product. In this case, it's me and my family. On this particular trip, my family and I went to at least 8 different restaurants with Sweet Lew being the only one with bad food no one in the family liked.

I've been to a lot of restaurants around the world. Sweet Lew's is akin to the mother or family member that people say has the best cooking in the world. Everyone loves their cooking. Or that restaurant in the neighborhood that always have the long lines outside just to get in. You know the restaurant everyone always talk about being so good. The question is, is the food good because it really is good. Or is the food good because those that's eating the food doesn't know any better. Because they haven't eaten anything other than what they know and that's the local food. Maybe the restaurant was having a bad day. I'm not sure what the case was. What I do know is I wouldn't recommend Sweet Lew's to anyone. Unless you enjoy...

I’m down visiting from Maryland. In Maryland, I do know where the good barbecue is. But I still think it’s nothing compared to southern barbecue. With that being said, I figured I’d try Sweet Lew’s barbecue. I have to start out by saying that I’m giving them three stars because I really enjoyed the service and the portion sizes. The young lady working there was so nice and took really great care of me. She was the star of the show.

Now onto the food, starting with the sides. I got the baked beans, mac & cheese, coleslaw. They were all pretty bad.

The coleslaw was soft and just tasted like vinegar. We threw it in the trash.

The baked beans, I can’t even explain what the flavor was for them but it was horrible. They seem to be in some type of meat gravy but the beans were hard. Not tasty at all. We ended up not eating them either.

The Mac and cheese, looked really good when they were scooping it out but when I got home I realized that it wasnt cheesy at all. The noodles just tasted like boiled noodles with butter. No cheese on them.

The ribs have potential. They were super meaty. One rib could fill you up. Not a lot of barbecue smoke flavor to them though. Not salty. And what I’m starting to realize is I do not like vinegar-based sauce and that’s what North Carolina is about. So I couldn’t put barbecue sauce on them because it just tasted like vinegar.

The brisket was the same way, very meaty, not salty, light flavor. Once I took them home and put some of my regular barbecue sauce on them I was able to enjoy them a lot more.

The pulled pork barbecue sandwich was a massive portion of food. That was the upside. The downside was the pork had little to no flavor. No smoke. With some good barbecue sauce though, I could probably order that again just off of the portion amount.

This place has potential, but they really need to work on the recipes, add a little bit more salt and smoke. Get someone in there to fix their side problem. Because the sides are horrible. There’s no nice way to put it.

What I will say, is this is the type of place that I really hope that they look at these reviews and learn from them and get better because if they fix the recipes, this is the type of place I could see myself hanging out at. The staff was great. It’s in a great location. They’ve got a great patio with heaters outside. They just need to really tweak the recipe is...

Deep smoke, smooth sauces, and clearly made with passion. I know it all comes down to the final product, which happens to be of the highest levels, I need to tell you more about the personal touch Sweet Lew’s provided to me. As I’m waiting in line and marveling at the selection, I commented on how great the sausage looked from where I stood, the cutter stopped what he was doing and cut me off a sample. After he handed it to me, he watched to see my reaction. Holy Toledo! It was possibly the best, meatiest, and spiciest sausage I have ever tasted (and I’m from Cincinnati). I told him that the bite was pure heaven as he offered me his secret ingredient. I won’t divulge that info here, but it’s pure genius. As it turns out, the cutter was Lew. The Lew. Working on the line and not just hiding in the back to work his magic in the smoke room. Even though he knew his products were amazing, his interest in what people experience seemed to be just as important. I appreciate that. After we grabbed a few examples and paid our tab, we thanked the kind staff and headed toward the car. Being a smokehouse nerd, I began poking around the back door, sniffing the sweet smoke in the air, and trying to discern his secret combination of woods. Well, he caught me. He stuck his head out of the back door, laughed at me, and then asked if I wanted to check out his smokehouse. Heck yes! He brought me into this sacred chamber, open the doors, and proudly showed me how he had things packed in for the maximum smoky flavor distribution. Seriously, Lew knows exactly what he’s doing. He talked about temps, times, distribution, and his love for traveling to other pits around the country. He made a special note that his interest was mainly focused on the old school joints. No fancy equipment, old guys that have been smoking their entire lives, and of course, the final products. I’ve spoken to many pitmasters over the years, and they’re all pretty into their art, but I’ve got to say that Lew is something special. Top notch flavor, top notch facilities, and the highest of notches to the guy that makes the smoky magic happen. Thanks,...