City Barbeque — Restaurant in Lafayette

Tonight on Kevin's Diner

City BBQ has been a place I have wanted to try and tonight was the night.

I visited briefly with one of the employees who was working busily cleaning tables and making sure everything was ship shape for patrons who were dining. This is just a guess but I think he was probably the manager of the restaurant. He said City BBQ uses hickory wood exclusively in their smokers. They also employ three pit masters who smoke all their meat. He said they smoke it low and slow with temperatures in the 200s utilizing probes to make sure the internal meat temperature is exactly what they want it to be.

Being this was my first visit I wanted to try many different things. I chose the City Sampler for my dinner. The sampler platter had four different meats to tantalize my taste buds. Smoked turkey, sausage, pulled pork and brisket along with choice of two sides come with the sampler. I picked baked beans and corn bread as my sides. One thing I missed was the sampler also comes with two pieces of texas toast. Obviously if I would have caught that I would have chose a different side like coleslaw rather than cornbread.

All of the meats were excellent! The turkey was moist with a hint of smoke. The pulled pork was delicious. The smoked sausage was very tasty! The brisket was juicy with just the right amount of char on the edges. It also had a very distinctive smoke ring near the char. The baked beans were more tangy than sweet. They put small pieces of burnt end brisket in the beans to provide a smokey flavor with the tangy taste. The cornbread was moist with a sweet taste, more like cake than bread. I chose two bbq sauces (Sweet City and Brush Fire) to dip the different meats in. Sweet City was a common sweet bbq sauce, Brush Fire was a much hotter sauce that will definitely cause your nose to drip. I really liked the Brush Fire on the turkey.

Overall I had an excellent dining experience. I think including my drink it cost around $25. Keep in mind I have enough leftover for lunch tomorrow. If you haven't noticed the price of all meat is high at the grocery store so that is why I'm not upset about the price at City BBQ. Not to mention the amount of time it takes to smoke these meats to perfection.

5 stars for City BBQ

Until next...

The food is good, so, on my only day off I decided to treat myself. As I pulled to the speaker in the drive thru, I waited quite a while. As the line started to build up, I said “Hello?” to possibly get someone’s attention. Nope. So, I wait a little longer. I grab my phone and start checking my emails just to pass the time. I finally pull around to see if someone is at the window. Nope. There’s a woman with a headset on, across the (kitchen?), talking on the phone. I waited for her to finish her phone call and she walks over to me, opens the window and says “You’ll have to pull around.” I asked if I could just go ahead and place my order since I had already waited. She said “ Don’t matter if you pull around or order here, I’m still gonna make you pull up and wait!” I could tell she was getting frustrated by her hand gestures and the way she was talking down to me. Perhaps she had a bad day. Short staffed? I don’t know but I simply told her “Have a good day.” As I pulled away, she mumbled something. I’m assuming it was a compliment. (Enter sarcasm, lol) Anyway, no city BBQ for Dawn, today…or for a long while until she forgets my face or they find more staff to help her not be on the phone and running...

I am not sure if City BBQ is expanding too quickly, but this is my third location and another subpar experience. It took 15 minutes from when I placed my order to receive my food. I got a chopped brisket sandwich with mac & cheese and a drink for a cost of $16.99. Chopped brisket were huge chopped chunks, making it very difficult to eat. Both mac & cheese and brisket were ice cold. I don’t understand how as I watched them pull meat from the ovens. The brisket was very dry and needed barbecue sauce to even swallow. The soda machine had two out of order options. There were no forks or spoons available. Everyone had to ask, and they received plastic silverware that are normally used for to-go orders. The trashes were full tables, dirty garbage on the floor.

All in all, I would not go to this location again. At this point being my third location I don’t believe I’ll be going to any city barbecues moving forward. The quality of the food and atmosphere versus the price and time spent it’s not worth...