B.B.'s Lawnside BBQ — Restaurant in Kansas City

I parked and loved the dive look of this restaurant. I ran into the live band members on my way in, so I was excited for some live music with my BBQ. I told the bartender that it was my first time when I ordered my beer. He was fairly busy, but it take about 10 minutes for him to get my drink order. I was never offered water, not given even a chance to ask for it. I ordered jalapeño, cheddar sausage and pulled pork, with a side of pit beans and gumbo. Food came out in reasonable time. Portion size was generous, beer options were also plentiful and interesting. I found all of the food quite good, pulled pork was tender, sausage was tasty with a nice amount of heat. The gumbo was a drier style, but was very good, with a nice amount of meat. Beans were more sweet, but there was a good kick after the fact. Overall, the food was very good. Sadly, the bartender was inattentive and almost seemed like he didn't like me, for no apparent reason. I asked him about wifi and he said it would be a minute. That was understandable as he was still fairly busy. But after about 10 minutes, I asked another employee, who quickly got me what I asked for. When the food was dropped, the bartender again gave me no opportunity to ask for water and I had to get up and grab the BBQ sauces, instead of time bringing them to me. By the time he returned to check on how I was enjoying my food, I had had enough and asked for a to go box. I still had to ask for my check which took another 4, 5 minutes, even thiugh he was on his phone texting, at this point. Maybe he was just having a bad day, and with the very good food quality, I would still recommend this place. I would just say not to sit at the bar, so that you might get more...

As a hobbyist pitmaster, I bring more constructive criticism than the typical customer. Hopefully, BB's will take it in stride.

I came here for the Restaurant Week lunch special ($20 for three courses). Overall, it was a decent value, and I received good service. For food I started with the gumbo followed by the brisket sandwich and pit beans, and for dessert I ate the Oreo pudding. The gumbo was thick and filling with plenty of meat. Its only shortfall was the blandness. Had it been given more seasoning, it would've gone from good to great. The pit beans shared a similar shortcoming. Insufficient seasoning combined with too much sweetness. The sandwich was also okay. It contained a heaping pile of thinly sliced brisket that possessed a modicum of smoke flavor. However, I observed that it gave some noticeable resistance to being pulled apart. For reference, a perfectly cooked brisket will have a tiny bit of resistance during the pull test when using a standard quarter-inch slice. One way to "fake out" a tough brisket is to slice it very thinly, which was clearly the case here. This is a common tactic among BBQ joints, and BB's is not alone in this practice (Joe's KC does it too). If you looked closely at each brisket slice, there was plenty of un-rendered collagen. This, of course, has a very easy solution: Cook the brisket longer to render the collagen.

Though I referred to myself as a "hobbyist pitmaster", I have a decade of meat smoking experience, and my brisket and ribs have won competitions. I possess enough knowledge to be qualified on this subject, and it is my hope that BB's will deal with these criticisms by making some minor tweaks to...

My buddy and I stopped into BB's on a whim a night ago and were pretty disappointed to say the least. No one greeted us at the door, so we just stood there awkwardly for a minute and then sat down. There was one booth open so we sat there and the table was dirty. When the waitress came over, she cleaned it up and I asked what beer was on tap; she didn't know. That was fine I ordered a bottle of what I wanted and she came back and told me they didn't have it; and that was fine, I got something else. Then when she brought the beer she told me they actually did have it. Which made sense, since I saw the same waitress bring a bucket of it to another large table. Then out of nowhere a live band starts playing obnoxiously loud, to the point my buddy couldn't take the ear pain anymore so we went outside to eat. Our food came eventually and it was really mediocre. There was no flavor to my ribs and the extra sauces on the table didn't help at all. DDD should remove Guy's poster from this place cause it did not live up to Flavor Town standards. And then!!!!..... they attempted to charge us a cover of seven dollars a piece that was not disclosed, for the obnoxiously loud live music. We did not pay that and when my buddy went to use the single bathroom they had for a 100 person occupancy restaurant there was big line. When I got back to my apartment, the flimsy container they gave me for my left over ribs fell apart in my hands due to the weight of the ribs and all over the ground. Seemed like the appropriate ending to my visit. I...