Li'l Red's Kitchen — Restaurant in Fort Lauderdale

So I am torn about this place. Can't quite put my finger as to why. Saw this place by accident as I pulled off i95 waiting for traffic to die down. As is my custom across anyplace I get bbq I ordered ribs, fries and bbq beans. Never tried a honey garlic sauce so I ordered that on the side. Service was excellent, waitresses were friendly, helpful and quick. Food was received within 5 minutes. Beans were excellent, fries were average.

The ribs. This is were I get confused. The ribs are the smaller full rib. Not St Louis style short ribs. So kudos. The rub looked light, the ribs had the nice deep red color and nice smoke ring with tooth to them, so whoever smoked them knows about slow and low. Probably and old pro you don't get that color with that bite unless you know what you are doing. There was a different aroma to them that I couldn't quite place. When I bit into the rib is when the confusion set in.

The ribs where obviously well dry rub smoked. But it appears they were either finished on a charcoal grill using briquets with charcoal starter fluid. It was a chemical like taste that burned the back of my throat. The taste stayed at the back of my throat for hours afterwards and had that cool peppermint feeling every time I inhaled.

I don't get it, obviously the ribs were finished on a grill and smoked perfectly, but why would a pro use anything besides natural wood to do so in any part of the process???

I might be wrong but without any evidence otherwise this is...

Looks and sounds like an amazing place to get food from. I've been trying to order online from their website for five days unsuccessfully. Tonight I called and said can order for delivery from your website so can you take it over the phone. Response I got was DoorDash does our delivery so you have to do it through them. Okay go to doordash try to find Lil Red's BBQ dot-dot. Searched....scrolled through restaurants.... there's no classification for barbecue... Putting call number 3 ask for manager... person who answered the phone says thats me. Holder been trying for days to order from her website went to doordash tried to find them not listed.. so told her to solve this issue by taking my order over the phone for delivery. All she kept repeating was I can't to which my response was you can't or you won't cuz that shows a complete lack of customer service for a complete lack of training and if she's a manager that's pretty sad. If that's near then how are you going to solve this problem and she just keeps repeating well I get orders from there so too bad you're doing something wrong. Yeah maybe I am but I still have a customer well now I'm not and I never will be not based on that kind of service or lack thereof. It's a shame because it looks like one of the few good barbecue place around. Thank God they're still Dixie Pig because they know what service...

I have been going to lil reds for over 25 yrs, back when the restaurant was farther east on st. Rd. 84. My husband and I we out that way and decided to stop because we have not been there in about 2 yrs. We walked in and it was alot of memories and some of the same waitresses that have been there for years. This was a Wednesday. We sat down and a waitress came to take the order fairly quickly , we ordered 2 pork sandwiches and our sides and drink. The waitress asked if we wanted our bbq sauce on the side and we both said yes because we hate tons of sauce and we know they put alot on. So here comes our food, the breed was completely soggy you could not even pick it up, the meat was covered in bbq sauce with a cup on the side... WTF. Waitress says it comes with bbq sauce, again WTF why did you ask if we wanted it on the side then ... baked beans were cold, Cole slaw was worn and awful. But the worst was the meat, it smelled so bad and was burned and hard. It was the most DISGUSTING food we ever ate. After we left we both felt sick. The only thing that was edible were the fries. The waitresses were nasty making fun of some of the other customers which I thought was very disrespectful. We were so Disappointed and will never step foot in this dirty place again. They should be...