City Barbeque — Restaurant in Florence

My family and I enjoy the meals that are offered here everytime we come. The meals are predominantly meat, with mains dishes such as pulled pork, pulled chicken, brisket, turkey, and half chicken (they also offer ham during the holidays). They cook the meats in house, so you can be sure a consistent quality. (Note that, because they are smoked in house, they can and frequently do run out of such meats as the pulled pork, especially later on in the evening.)

You order your food and then wait for it by the big counter (you can see into the kitchen, where a someone is always cutting fresh meat). Then you can sit wherever you want (a paper towel roll is provided at each table).

They also offer refillable fountain drinks (Coca-Cola products with Dr. Pepper and diet Dr. Pepper). Next to that they have sweet tea and lemonade as an option.

To add to their slightly country feel they have things like mayo, straws, and salt packets in a set of garage tool drawers on top of the counter (don't be afraid to pull out the drawers to find a specific item). Finally, they have a small area with cold additions such as pickles and a variety of BBQ sauces. The sauces are in giant bottles on a small display of sorts. (Only the original BBQ is often in a warm option.) (I usually get the sweet BBQ and that sauce in particular has small bits, of what I can only assume is onion squares, and as such can sometimes get stuck in the nozzle of the bottle. My advice is to hold the small container or plate of food up with one hand and the bottle with the other, if not the container and/or the stream of BBQ goes everywhere. The BBQ is still worth it though.)

Keep in mind that this place is just off Mall Rd so the lane and traffic situation can vary and affect the time with which you get there. (It's tucked off the road a little bit, so you should know where you're going especially with the addition of new lanes at that spot in the road. Try not to miss the entrance. I would recommend the use Google Maps, if you're unfamiliar with...

Came in for lunch on a weekday, they were moderately busy around noon’ish, but we didn’t wait long to place our orders. They have a very appetizing menu, with salads, sandwiches, and then meat & side platters. I opted for their 2 meat platter to try their brisket and sausage.

The sausage was rather basic, not very smokey. Tasted like it was seasoned with black pepper and not a lot more. The casing was also on the rubbery side, not very crispy. The brisket’s flavor was decent, though not very smokey also. I did see that a new brisket was brought up while they were preparing our orders and I suspect I got the last of the previous one which might have been a little dried out by the time it was sliced for me. I also tried a single rib – very disappointing. Almost had the texture of being baked or made in some form other than smoking and then maybe finished with smoke. Lots of fat and not much meat on it.

For sides, I tried their corn bread, cole slaw, and baked beans. The baked beans had some meat in them, but were very sweet and not very spiced in flavor. I added jalapeños to them which spiked them up nicely. Their cole slaw was excellent. Exactly how I prefer it, which is on the basic side with fresh ingredients. Not overly saucy and definitely perfectly seasoned. Their corn bread was OK, but the Texas toast they give with the meal was so much better.

Their sauces were ok. I tried all of them and found that their NC vinegar sauce packed the most flavor, while I couldn’t tell which was their “brush fire” spicy sauce, as the spice level seemed the same as the others.

Overall, I probably should have ordered one of their appetizing-looking sandwiches, as I’m sure all the ingredients come together better like that rather than trying them individually. But I wasn’t tasting much smoke in the...

Every time we go to this restaurant it is busy yet we never seem to really wait for a long time. They have a manager that works there and he is the nicest guy ever Aunt. He's funny and kind and he actually takes the time to talk to his customers and joke around with him and be nice. And we have a tiny little joke going on between my family and him and that just makes you feel like family or at home. That employee has made every visit worthwhile. Actually, we don't live very far. We live like 30 minutes but the food is outstanding. I love their french fries and I love their turkey. I just tried their smoked turkey. It is to die for. The slices are not very thin but yet on the other hand, they're not super thick either. You can literally try to pick it up with your fingers and they will just break apart. It's awesome! And yeah it's so juicy, soft, and warm. Oh yum! Anyway, that manager really deserves a race in my book. The restaurant speaks for itself, right? You either have good food or bad food so that will make up your clientele. However, keeping your clientele once I walk through that door is the hard part. If you have a bunch of meanies working for you nobody's going to want to come back to your restaurant. If you have employees like this manager man you have no issues with going back. He literally jokes with me and makes my husband laugh and me laughing my son and it's just a great feeling to go there and get great food and have those great feelings and there's no better feeling than that. I just wish that he knew what a difference he makes in...