Vision BBQ & Catering — Restaurant in Charlottesville

Stopped into Vision after traveling a few hours from out of town, taking my wife to UVA for a consultation.

Didn’t even intend to go (damn glad we did, though). In fact, the wife and I had stopped at McDonald’s first. I know, I know…

We pulled over into the parking lot to eat our QP’s and wolf down some fries before our trip home. Accidentally parked near a little smoke house in the parking lot, not even in the actual BBQ place, (it’s just down the sidewalk about 20 feet) and the smell was just incredible outside.

Imagine one of the better BBQs you’ve hosted or been to… that smell of a smoker just going to town on some protein, yeah, that smacked both my wife and I right in the face. We had already finished the McD’s, but there was zero chance we were coming home without some of that meat.

Walked in, quaint, simple, done well place. You could say they had a… Vision.

The guy whom my wife and I had seen earlier whilst pushing through a QP, at the smoker outside welcomed me. I asked if they had a sampler type platter. Turns out they do. Two, in fact. A 2 meat and a 3 meat (if you want a 4 meat, he won’t argue).

I got the 4 meat. We figured we could take it home and have it for dinner. Ended up getting the Brisket, Brisket Burnt Ends, Pulled Pork and Pulled Chicken. It came with 2 good sized sides as well. We opted for the Baked Beans and Baked Mac-and-Cheese. Grabbed 2 of the Cornbread Muffins, had a few more words with the fella, rang out, hopped in the car and on the road again. On to dinner…

First, all of the meats were incredible. The Burnt Ends were about as perfect as you can make them. Tender, juicy, excellent flavor and sauce. The Brisket was also tender and juicy and had a great smoke ring on it, well seasoned. Both pulled varieties of the meats were great as well.

The Baked Beans were superb! Excellent take on a southern staple for any “real” BBQ event. The Mac was a Baked version. Not overly complex, no craziness, just a really well done recipe that I wouldn’t mind having, if I’m honest. We all know Baked Mac is the superior version anyway…right?

The Cornbread was fantastic. Had real corn in it as it should. Fluffy, MOIST, and very easily one of the best Cornbreads I’ve had. Wife claims it is second only to her Father’s which apparently is as guarded as the formula for Coca-Cola. Been married 17 years and I still don’t have it, so that’s pretty impressive.

Look, if you’ve read this far, you can probably tell by now this place was a diamond. Don’t be like my wife and I and stumble upon this place by accident. Go there on purpose. You’ll be damn glad you did. We’ll be returning on every single trip to Charlottesville. Oh, and I didn’t even mention the price. I’m not going to say how much it was so as to preserve Vision’s ability to adapt to an ebbing and flowing economy, but know this… he could charge double and I’d still buy it.

Do take care though, Vision is only open from 11am - 7pm. Closed Mon. and Tue. They give you 8 hard hours of the best BBQ in the area and then they retreat back to their respective lairs.

A VERY EASY 5/5 stars. Give them your money. They’ve earned it. Shop/Eat Local!!!

Thanks, Vision, for some of the best BBQ we’ve had in a good while. We’ll meet again. I can assure you of...

Unfortunately, this was one of the worst dining experiences we’ve ever had. When we walked in we went to the hostess counter to be seated and no one was around. We waited for a bit and finally a guy who was sitting outside visiting with folks on the front tables walked in and started clearing a back table. He came up to my husband and asked if we needed help and we said yes we were wanting to dine in. I honestly don’t even know if this guy worked for the restaurant or was just helping out friends that worked there, but he got us seated. The restaurant had a few full tables and a couple of people at the bar, but certainly wasn’t very crowded or busy for a Saturday evening. After we were finally in our booth a guy came by about 5 minutes later and brought us some waters. He dropped the waters by and he immediately turned around to leave. I had to stop him to ask him about other beverage options. Another 10-15 minutes pass and we see other tables get seated and served/orders taken. My husband got up from the booth and went to place our order with someone at the front of the restaurant. While my husband was ordering up front the guy that brought us the waters came by and said “has she come to get your order yet?” I said no my husband had to go up front to order because no one has come by. When we finally got our food, it was a huge disappointment. To summarize - cornbread was cold, Mac & cheese was cold, BBQ beans were still hard and not cooked all the way through, smoked chicken was tough and not warm, BBQ sauce servings were extremely small for 12 oz of meat. It was a $50 meal and really only the chicken wings and pulled pork were ok. I don’t know if this evening was an off night or if something went wrong today, but I hope for future patrons that you have a better experience...

Ordered the pastrami plate and burnt end plate to-go. Both meats were extremely dry, unfortunately. Good flavor, but just way too dry. The burnt ends were tough and chewy, not the way that burnt ends are supposed to be. The pastrami was obviously the flat of the brisket, particularly over-smoked. It’s a shame because the rub was decent but I couldn’t eat it based on how dry it was. Mac and cheese was the same, very dry and crusty with zero creaminess at all. On the other hand the collard greens and baked beans were very good, but the corn muffins were cooked on top and very raw on the bottom. Decent sauce selection and excellent homemade pickles, to be fair. However, the actual smoked meats really missed the mark here. I really expected better for $40+tip but at least the service was friendly. I picked up my order to-go because it was 9pm and I had just gotten off of a long day at work, perhaps I should’ve dined in to have been able to bring the issues to restaurant’s attention at that time but it is what it is. I wish I could leave more stars but the meat should be the star of the show at any BBQ joint, and no sides or sauce could help how dry it was. Bummer.

EDIT: spoke with owner who accepted full responsibility for the issues and made things right. Will be looking forward to giving this place a 2nd try since as mentioned, the ingredients were good. They were simply not executed properly on the first visit. Gave another star because you have to respect an owner who stands behind both their successes as well as failures. Too many other owners make excuses and he...