The Rib Cage Smokehouse & Bar — Restaurant in Cleveland

Visited the W25th location 4-16-19 @ approx 4:45pm. Parking will be a challenge once spring/summer arrives. The place looked clean-as it should have for only being open 45 mins. Server was friendly but confessed to inexperience as evidenced in our never receiving the Tamale appetizer. My wife said her meal of Catfish filet, potato salad, greens was good. My order of the 1/2 chicken was sadly bland and very dry. This explained why the chicken was "drowning" in the Sweet Thai chili sauce when it arrived. No amount of sauce will moisten meat or cover up the fact that is was overcooked or over smoked. Actually I fear it was simply a days-old piece of meat, not fresh---From what I read on their website all-most meat is prepared at the Clev Hts location and then shipped to W25th. The baked beans were disappointingly undercooked, not favorful, but again "drowning" in sauce/grease. The piece of cornbread was ample-not sweet as advertised, probably made with mainly corn meal, which is perfectly okay...but served without any butter on it or on the side which explained why it was served at room temperature-(who does that?). Room temperature makes the cornbread seem days-old...and served DRY to boot?-yuck-Maybe the strategy is you won't want a second piece of THAT. The cole slaw was hand made and the best part of my meal. Meal prices were moderate although I am intrigued to see (but not to order) just how big is their polishboy...for $12 !?!?! - better be a foot long piece of kielbasa. There were no desserts of any kind listed on the menu, not even vanilla ice cream or sweet potato pie- strange for a place with a full service menu. Overall the atmosphere was adequate, my food was not. I will dine here...

We picked this restaurant to celebrate my birthday because in this cold weather I’ve been craving BBQ. Before ordering our food, I took the time to ask that everything was coming from the smoker even though it was cold as balls outside. After being assured that it was smoked, and they just warm the food we ordered a lot of items as a sampler to really enjoy our dinner. The loaded french fries and onion rings were awesome, the mac and cheese was very good, unfortunately the rest of our meals were not. My wife ordered the pulled pork dinner, and I ordered the ribs dinner and we both ordered a side of mashed potatoes and mac and cheese. The pulled pork must be cooked in a crockpot because there was no bark on the pulled pork, nor was there anywhere near a visible smoke mark anyone on the pork. I can’t believe that the ribs were cooked in a smoker as they were visibly charred on all sides and tasted like burnt ash. The mashed potatoes were about that in name only. While they appeared to be mashed, they were more a partial mash, partial baked potato that was hidden in around the mashed potato mixture and tasted so much like garlic that we will never have to worry about a vampire attack for the rest of our life. I would not recommend this restaurant if you know what bbq is supposed to taste like. Our server was great, but at the end she dropped the to go containers on the floor the picked them up and re-handed them to us. We went ahead and used them knowing we would be throwing away all leftovers once we came...

I was a bit skeptical to try because the reviews were pretty mixed, but I was looking for good wings tonight and many websites rank the rib cage high for wings. I ordered the Buffalo herb wings, hush puppies, and the brisket entree with fries and Mac on the side to split with my partner. Everything was well seasoned and prepared well. The corn bread was a fresh warm northern style sweet cornbread. I really enjoyed it. The hush puppies were the best hush puppies I’ve ever had. I think the dipping sauce for the hush puppies was mistakenly absent from my takeout container so I can’t provide any feedback on that, but they were great alone. The Buffalo herb wings were some of the best wings I have had outside of Buffalo, NY! The wings were cooked to perfection crunchy on the outside and well hydrated meat in the center. The wings just packed a bit more heat than I was expecting for a Buffalo flavor which often translates to mild. In my opinion spicy herbed Buffalo would be a better name for the flavor, but that may just be my European taste buds not handling the heat. The layers of flavor packed into the wings was very well executed though and I still ate them all despite the spice being a bit too much for me. My partner enjoyed the Mac and the fries were pretty good too. I got full so I didn’t eat the Brisket yet, but that also looks great and I’m looking forward to making it into a sandwich for lunch tomorrow. If you’re hesitant to try this place because of some of the other reviews stop reading and...