Smokeshow Barbeque — Restaurant in Concord

I rarely give 5 Stars, if ever, since everyone can always do better. So, on with the review. I had the ribs, jalapeno cheddar sausage, baked beans, texas caviar, and cornbread.

Ribs - I have had other ribs in the area, and these are truly smoked ribs. Tender, quality with a nice smoke ring under a tasty bark. The rub is just the right amount of tanginess and saltiness to bring out the smoke flavor. The ribs were separate and not racked, and there was consistency in the amount of meat on each rib, which was plenty. So, for the price, and the amount of meat on each rib (4), I was pleased. I appreciate the fact that the sauce is on the side. It allowed me to try my ribs with different sauces. If you are going to put sauce on my whole rack of ribs, it had better be pretty awesome. So, I like adding it on my own. The Carolina style was very mustard forward with a sharp tang, easily my favorite. The spicy was just that, but flavorful and not a sweat-inducing challenge to my senses. The regular was sweet, tangy, and what you should expect from a BBQ sauce. Well done on the ribs!

Jalapeno cheddar sausage was smoked goodness. The meat was still the champion and it was salty, juicy, and delicious. Just enough cheese and peppers to make it a specialty link, but the proportions were where they should be. I am glad I had the ribs first because these could risk overshadowing the ribs. Again, high marks.

The sides - baked beans were not as smoky as I had hoped, but had a nice spiciness to them, and were very nice. They also had a nice amount of pork meat in them to help with the smokiness, but again, mildly fell short of what I was expecting, and I was possibly expecting too much. Don't pass on these. I was bummed they were out of collards. I will be back for those some day. Texas caviar was crisp, fresh, and palate cleansing. If you are doing multiple items, get this. I like the fact that they were not trying to out-perform each item with too much spice, etc, but let each menu item speak for itself. The cornbread - sweet, moist, delicious. It's easy to screw up cornbread and they certainly did not. I would get a flat of this for the holidays if possible, it's that good you would want to lie to people and tell them you made it. I did not put butter on it, but smokeshow should consider making a special herb butter to compliment this cornbread to make this a true slam dunk!

I have had a lot of barbecue all over this great country, and I hate to compare one region to another, so I won't. Let Concord be Concord. They are doing a good job putting themselves on the map with great food and quality experiences. This is not to slight others in the area because Georgia's northside is another quality experience that offers ribs as well, I just felt Smokeshow outperformed in this case. Keep...

I understand why this restaurant opened in New Hampshire and not Texas and why it was dead on a Saturday night

To begin with, for the $60.74 I was charged, I should not have gotten home and found I was shorted a side. To follow that up, I understand prices have gone up on everything, especially meats, but, BUT four ribs and four slices of brisket and a container of jalapeno and cheddar sausage medallions, straight cut, not even cut on the bias, a long with an, admittedly, sizable portion of utterly bland Mac 'n Cheese, does not justify the price tag. Additionally, I was given only lean brisket, was never asked if I had a preference and it somehow managed to be both dry and greasy at the same time. There was no bark and instead of pulling apart, it flaked like over done pot roast.

So far, the best thing I had was the brisket chili, which was actually very good. Spicy and rich in flavor. The cornbread, which should be a stand out at any BBQ joint, let alone one that advertise Texas style BBQ was alright. As it stands, it's a very acceptable flat corn muffin. I am sure it would it be better with butter and molasses.

And finally, let's talk about the ribs. The fat was rendered well and the the meat actually has texture. I could leave teeth marks in the meat when I took a bite. All of which, are in my mind, signs of a stand out rack of ribs. Normally, I would be thrilled and I would be extra disappointed in only getting four of them. However, I can honestly say, that aside from the price, I am pretty thrilled there weren't more.

Apparently, the "smokehouse blend" of seasoning used on them is about 98% black pepper, 1% salt and 100% disappointment. I couldn't taste smoke, pork or anything else besides black pepper. And, despite checking all the boxes aside from flavor, they somehow managed to make St. Louis cut ribs dry.

I have eaten BBQ all over the country, at little shacks and chain restaurants and everything in-between. And I have run my own pit for about twenty years, on and off. I can honestly say, I am not interested in giving this joint a second chance. Not at $60+ for a large sack of...

I was very disappointed in the food quality given the hype of marketing and from reading previous reviews. We chose Smoke Show because we were visiting Concord for a show and hadn’t had bbq in quite some time. Reading that the owner previously worked at KC’s was a factor in my decision as I feel KC’s is one of the most authentic bbq restaurants in New England. We ate on Friday night, Jan 18th at around 5:30pm. All of the meats were cold. We had a rack of ribs, and the mild sausage. Both were cold and the taste was rather bland. The ribs were dry and not nearly as tender as I would expect from a bbq restaurant. I was extremely disappointed with the Mac and Cheese. This too was cold and we literally watched one of the kitchen staff preparing this dish by pouring boiled macaroni into a warming dish and then dumping cheese into the warming dish and stirring it together. Again, I would expect a restaurant of this type to at least bake the Mac and Cheese. The corn chowder was hearty, tasty and hot. The best dish we had was the cornbread. It was moist, warm and very very tasty. All in all this was not a great experience. I expected better quality ribs and sausage and certainly expected the proteins to be warmed or better yet, hot for a meal that almost cost $100.00. Beans and slaw were acceptable...