J&C Barbecue & Grill — Restaurant in Lebanon

I know times are hard in the restaurant industry, but J&C has gone way downhill since the high they reached after taking over the Bigfoot grille location.

Today I went in at 4pm to find out they were sold out of their brisket. They only serve BBQ 4 days a week and they were out before dinner? That shows a weird lack of logistics or serious thought in the kitchen.

Water glasses had a chlorine taste like their sanitizer needs to be worked on.

My Old Fashioned was $12 and incredibly watered down, tasted like a half shot of whiskey in way too much soda water.

Food took more than an hour to come out. Pulled pork was cold and also weirdly not pulled, just chunks of cold smoked pork. Coleslaw was bland, no acid or salt. "Slow Cooked" Pit beans had crunchy onions and a few undercooked beans. Baked potato was absolutely bathed in sour cream despite the menu not describing it as such.

The pulled pork wantons were good, but only half of them had any recognizable amount of cream cheese.

Lebanon might not be the small town it use to be, but it still feels personally disrespectful for a establishment to charge $30+ a plate for such a substandard meal.

The wait staff was nice and the only reason I'm not leaving a 1 star review.

Edit: In response to J&Cs comment on my review I would like to say a few things. I like PR babble as much as the next guy, but I have some of the constructive feedback you say you want.

I get that smoking BBQ takes a long time, and that other factors can be unpredictable. But you didn't run out "before close", you were sold out of your signature and arguably most desirable dish before 4pm on a sunny, spring Friday. That is bad logistics, plain and simple. Whoever in your buisness is shrugging their shoulders about that is loosing you money and customers.

If I got a review saying there was a chlorine taste after I got my sanitizer serviced, I would check out my sanitizer, not blame the city water supply. I live in Lebanon, I would have noticed the water tasting like bleach. Either your PPMs are off, your rinse is inadequate, or your plastic glasses are too etched. Maybe you have a quat system and bought the hype that you don't have to rinse. Idk, but it's not the city water.

I don't see any positive feedback about your drinks in the past 3 months. Your Old Fashioned is bog-standard considering it's on your designated drink menu. A seasoned bartender should have told you to get better ice, only use a splash of soda to open the whiskey up, and make it your own by using smoked maserated cherries or smoked candied orange slices or something muddled with the bitters and sugar/syrup.

If you aren't going to pull the pork even a little, because you didn't and it arrived in like 5 big chunks, then don't call it pulled pork. Call it smoked pork shoulder/butt/loin, boom problem solved. That way people aren't expecting to get pulled pork when you aren't giving them pulled pork.

You had something like a 4.6 star overall rating a year ago, maybe reflect on that. Something changed, and it wasn't...

I slept on making this review for about a week, Im not one to make reviews on restaurants Nomatter the service. I truly wanted that to be my favorite restaurant I go to weekly. However every-time I drive by I remember how you guys basically committed highway robbery with my order. I recently came in with my Family after moving to town at the end of last month. We seen you guys were having the Show Collab so wanted to try it out. Unfortunately I wish I never did, I ordered the Competition Steak and it was prices at like $67 that day( LITERALLY 85% of the steak of complete FAT! , The seasoning was good, I truly wish there was meat on there so I could’ve tried more then 2 bites from the very middle of a 16 OZ steak. ) My Wife tried the Pulled pork Sandwich as she hasn’t tried it since she was younger. ( Pork was not Pulled😂 Literally Cold and Dry and just put on the bun. No effort.) She also ordered a burger incase she didn’t like the pulled pork Sandwich (We mentioned many times 0 Pink on the inside. Ruined is what they call it? We said go past that! Tell me why it came pink? We ordered Mac and Cheese which my daughter said was good for her. I will say, The milkshake and Lemonade Was AMAZING! I had my drinks before food was done so I initially tried that and was so excited for my food to be super bummed. I quite literally went to KFC after. The steak was completely inedible. The pulled pork was just poorly made.

As far as their atmosphere and service goes, when we initially went we were planning on eating in until we had an unsettling Feeling walking in (Don’t want to go further into detail) Most of the Staff seemed great and friendly! There was 2 woman helping us, 1 was very pleasant while the other seemed slightly irritated the whole time. (I understand food industry can be difficult at times so gave her Benifit...

What we ordered: 1/2# brisket 1/2# pulled pork 1/2# Mac n cheese standard Side of Cole slaw Slice of corn bread Pricing good for amount received.

We waited just shy of 25 minutes to receive our food. Not sure what caused the wait because it was not terribly busy and we didn’t get anything that needed to be made/assembled besides the Mac n cheese as they claim to prepare to order.

Brisket and pulled pork were moist but didn’t have any notable flavor. Fat was well rendered but rub/seasoning was lacking. Not sure which bbq sauce we received but that’s what gave the meat flavor. It’s weird pickles were just thrown in to box with the meat. The pickles we got seemed to be a mixture of new and old (see pic)

Mac and cheese was underwhelming. Texture was good but it didn’t taste very cheesy as one would expect. Just seemed bland. Could have used some salt to potentially bring out more flavor.

Coleslaw just tasted like wet chopped cabbage. I could see pepper in the dressing but no flavors stood out.

Cornbread was not grainy but dry AF even with the sweet butter.

Packaging and plating was sloppy to say the least. We got a few slices of brisket but the rest was just a handful of shreds/fat. The coleslaw was scooped into the top of its container which had vent holes so when we got home (7mins away from the restaurant) coleslaw dressing had seeped through the vents all over the inside of the bag and on the other containers which was super annoying and messy.

Overall, food was just okay. Nothing we had was worth...