Blue Ribbon BBQ — Restaurant in Dedham

This place is the freaking bee's knees of barbecue. If you call yourself a barbecue lover or if you just "like" barbecue you gotta check this place out. They have DAILY menu specials and it's always some delicious mashup like looking at the menu right now, one of the daily menu specials is a buffalo chicken caesar rollup like what?! That sounds amazing! Anyway, it was pretty easy to get parking here, but they also have two parking garages because they get THAT packed.

We got platters (served with your choice of two sides and cornbread):

PULLED CHICKEN Dry-rubbed boneless chicken thighs smoked until falling apart, mixed with a little North Carolina Vinegar BBQ sauce. The chicken was deliciously juicy and that vinegar barbecue sauce is unreal. I usually don't like pulled chicken because of how dry it usually is and this was just so tasty.

KANSAS CITY BURNT ENDS Beef brisket that had been smoked for about 14 hours with oak & hickory, chopped up and cooked in their Sweet BBQ sauce (which is also sold separately) until the meat is caramelized and literally falls apart from the tenderness. I freaking love burnt ends and the best burnt ends I've ever had was down South and oh my gosh these Kansas City Burnt Ends were up there. So flavorful, lightly charred and just so so addicting, bite after bite. Sooo good.

ST. LOUIS CUT RIBS St. Louis style trimmed pork spare ribs that had been dry-rubbed, smoked for hours til tender, then lightly glazed with their secret sauce. We got 1/3 slab which is 4 ribs. Such tasty ribs, the meat just falls off the bone, the way it's supposed to!

BAKED BEANS Cooked from scratch for 12 hours, flavored with molasses and beef brisket trimmings. These beans are just a yummy classic. Sweet and hearty.

COLE SLAW Shredded green cabbage and carrots, mixed with a vinegar and mayo based slaw dressing. Refreshing and light with a great crunch in between all the meats.

COLLARD GREENS Big leafy greens, cooked for 3-4 hours until tender with chicken stock, garlic, red pepper, salt and pepper. These were some tasty collard greens made just the way it should be slightly sweet and earthy. Not soggy or overly salty. Just right.

CORNBREAD Their homemade cornbread is so tasty, it's super light and fluffy. Ugh, so good. Crumbly and buttery, and just a teeny bit of sweetness making every bite so delicious. It paired perfectly with the barbecue meat and was able to stand alone too with how good it tasted.

DIRTY RICE White rice sautéed with onion, celery, garlic, spices, and their Texas Hot Link Sausage. Topped with homemade gravy. The rice was perfectly cooked, nice and al dente. The addition of celery, garlic, spices and the hot sausage made this rice so flavorful with a hint of spice. The homemade gravy was just the perfect addition to make this side even more tasty.

GREEN BEANS Cooked greens beans, flavored with mildly spicy smoked pork sausage, vinegar, salt & pepper. These green beans were soo good. Well flavored and a very slight crunch, you can tell these were prepared fresh and not frozen, they just soaked up all the juices they were cooked in, it was just delicious.

MASHED POTATOES Red bliss potatoes mashed with roasted garlic, half & half, butter, salt & pepper. Really creamy with lumps of potatoes in it, lots of butter too. I really liked this side, it was well salted and flavored. Some yummy mashed potatoes they got here.

I have MISSED southern barbecue and this place really hit the spot and checked allll the boxes. I'm telling you, you have got to try this place out if you're a barbecue fanatic because this place is absolutely worth the visit and try....

0 for 2. Items were missing from my order from Blue Ribbon in Dedham. Not just one item was missing either. Multiple items in an order. Each time they were difficult to deal with. Not polite, not willing to help, no "sorry about that," and reluctant to give me my money back.

After talking with other customers in the area, I learned that my experiences were not unusual. Maybe those customers will post their experiences here soon.

To tell you the truth - the food wasn't so great that I'll go back a third time to see if they can get 1 of 3 orders correct.

So to answer their question "What do you want us to do?"...I have prepared a response:

Get the order right in the first place. Our just once. That means someone on staff actually going through the bags and checking that the order is there before handing them to customers. You also could check the items off the receipt with a pen as you add them to the bags. Even having the majority of the order there would help.

If you are messing up multiple orders, then have a policy on what to do when you mess up the next order. You don't offer delivery, so making customers drive back to the traffic mess that is downtown Dedham during rush hour and find parking only to get the items that you forgot to pack while the rest of dinner gets cold is a difficult value proposition. Customers should not have to do all of that just to get the first order right. Here are a few options for you (in no order): give customers' their money back, offer delivery for forgotten items, offer something to customers if they have to come all the way back to fix your mistakes, and/or offer a credit for a future purchase (greater than the $ for the forgotten items).

When you make a mistake...take ownership of it and show some humanity. That may mean using terms such as "sorry about that," "we want fix that now," and/or "how can we help."

When a customer pays for something and you do not provide it, give the customer their money back even if you don't want to, it is a busy time for you and/or you don't feel like it.

Don't make this same mistake over and over again. That means ownership reviewing issues (especially repeated problems) and asking questions such as "what happened?," "why is it happening again?," "how did we respond?," "what can we do differently?," and "how can we do better?"

After working in three restaurants of varying quality (two way better than this Blue Ribbon and one honestly not as good), I am amazed what a hot mess this place is. I think it because of changes in ownership. Geoff Janowski certainly isn't there in Dedham. He cared about the business, its food and...

-Pulled Chicken was tasty and not dry. -I selected Hot Bbq Sauce which can make up for any lack of flavor, its a decent thin sauce you can pour over yourself. But not really “hot”. Asked for sweet bbq sauce too, but they only gave me hot. -The Collards were fine but nothing amazing flavor wise. They drain the juice probably so it doesn’t spill onto your other sides. -Rice and Beans were good also, would order them again. -Cornbread is huge and comes with the meal, but it really lacked flavor for me. I appreciate it being there, but it can use some more flavor. Maybe sugar, honey, corn I don’t know. -Sweet Bbq Chicken dinner was a “dry rub” which I don’t mind, but it didn’t blow my socks off, and personally feel it was a little dry because it wasn’t cooked with the sauce they give you on the side. Mine was half a chicken, and you do get all of those pieces. The Breast, Thigh, Drum, Wing. It was short lived because it needed the sauce they didn’t give me (sweet bbq). I had to use the hot bbq sauce from my other order and it was just OK, and still dry. -Mashed potatoes looked dry, but they were actually really tasty. I didn’t need to add anything to them.

I would order here again but just stick to the pulled chicken, mashed potatoes and rice and beans!!! Hopefully they give me the sweet bbq sauce next time so I can try it! The meat had a slight smokiness to it, I enjoyed it, and wish it was more of that smoke flavor. ** Also felt for a “bbq place” it would be nice if they had mac&cheese, or sweet potatoes as a side. I ordered online for pick up, which it prompted me to sign up for post mates. Just be aware. Let’s you know when your order will be ready...