Shack in the Back BBQ — Restaurant in Louisville

I feel very sad I have to leave a review like this. I have been going to the old "Shack" for 8 years. Was always my favorite place for BBQ in the Louisville area, had the best moist "fall of the bone" ribs you could ever wish for and the brisket was also sliced, moist, and tasty. The back porch area was always comfortable to sit at and the place was never overrun, food always was delivered in a resonable time and service was always great just recently went to the "NEW" shack last Saturday. Place was completely overrun lots of customers waiting around in the hot parking lot looking very irritated waiting long times trying to get a seat inside the new restaurant. We waited for over an hour and a half. Finally get seated. We are sitting at our table for about at least another 20 minutes and no waitress comes by to take our order. No water, nothing. Finally I have to go and hunt down a waitress and beg her to take our order. Finally food comes out very slow. Ordered pulled pork, brisket, and ribs. The pulled pork was pretty good but the ribs were nothing like the "old shack" they were dry and tough. The brisket was really bad, just a chopped up very dry small pile of meat resembling brown sawdust. Side orders were ok at least they seemed to be still made the original way. Also we noticed that everything looked very corporate, they had a new generic looking logo on the wall and on the sauce bottles. The old "shack" had a cool pig in overalls for there logo as I had a t-shirt with this on it. Sad to see it go and replaced with something some slick marketing person talked them into. Also there new restaurant should be studied by anyone who is thinking of opening a restaurant on what NOT TO DO. Although the outside building looks fairly large, the inside has a lot of wasted space and thus is probably the reason for the long wait times, there is not many tables inside. There is a second floor with very steep stairs making it almost unusable that we saw no one at all using. There is a giant bar taking up about 1/3 of there inside restaurant usable table area that no one was using, I get it all the restaurants want to sell lots of liquor to make big profits but this really takes away from there core business of serving BBQ efficiently. I mean are you trying to be a bar or a BBQ restaurant? They had a few outdoor tables on a patio that could have been nice, but most of the tables were just completely open and sitting in the blazing hot sun with no awning or umbrella to shade any of it, so this made this area completely unusable. Most of these items are just so basically wrong you wonder if the owner even though 5 minutes about any of this or got any feedback from there customers and try to adjust. I mean really?, metal patio seating in the 98 Deg Temp in the blazing sun with most of the seats with absolutely no cover? Eating in there outdoor patio had to feel like hell on Earth. Please Mr/Mrs owner, just get some Umbrellas! Maybe this place was just having growing pains or needs more time to get things sorted out. I hope they can get it together as it wasn't just us but we noticed a lot of customers looking frustrated and not happy at all with the situation with some of them vowing never to return. I think I'm going to wait quite a while before I would try this place again hopefully they can work out some of this in the near future. I miss the...

Shack in the Back is a true Louisville(ish) gem. We visited here a few years ago, before the move to the new location, and promised we'd visit again.

Then things like COVID happened and life got in the way...so we finally made it to Shack in the Back again. Woo-Hoo!

While the original location definitely had its own charm and character, the new location is freakin' gorgeous. It's probably 3 or 4 times bigger than the original location, it has a large outdoor seating area, and even a few table on the second floor. (Yes, a Second Floor!)

We visited on a Saturday afternoon and were seated immediately. The weather was fantastic and there were a number of people eating outside (not me...I'm not an outdoor seating kinda guy). Our server greeted us immediately and got our drink orders.

The menu isn't extensive, but it doesn't need to be. It's well suited to Shack in the Back's focus (BBQ) and doesn't clutter the menu with nearly the same items.

I love, Love, LOVE the interior. It's kind of rustic inside with a lot of exposed wood, several television screens showing various sporting events, and the most unique gift shop I've ever seen. I get the impression that some time before it was the improved Shack in the Back that it was a bank. The gift shop is inside a literal bank vault. #CompletelyAwesome!

I had the pulled pork nachos (I'm a sucker for nachos anywhere I go) and we delighted to find they're served on fresh-made potato chips instead of your average tortilla chips. While I've had pulled pork nachos before, they did not measure up to Shack in the Back's.

Our server (Abby?) was spot-on with drink refills, making sure we had what we needed, and stopped for a friendly chat a few times.

I absolutely love the new location of Shack in the Back and I feel bad that I haven't been there in so long. Gonna have to fix that and...

First time here, And last time.

By the look of other reviews, this is similar.

We went inside it had a decent crowd which is a good indication that people like it. I’ve only heard good things.

We went to the bar to sit and order because there was no staff to seat us or give a menu.

We sat there for a long time and the people (2) working saw us and never asked if we wanted anything, no menu, not even a hello. They took care of the customers that were already at the bar, that was it.

We looked at the menu on line and continued to wait. There were 3 workers sitting at a table, talking and carrying on. They saw us because I was looking at them.

We called them (while sitting at the bar.) and ordered our food to go. The lady at the bar finally acknowledged us and we told her we just ordered it to go. She said they only had 2 people working the floor.

A lady in a UofL healthcare uniform apparently works there too. She was sitting with the other workers at the table.

I went outside, got it to go and the lady checking us out had no personality at all. (And they wanted a tip).

We took our food home to Cedar Grove / Shepherdsville and by that time it was cold and very dry.

The brisket, the baked beans and potato salad had a great flavor and probably would’ve been great if it was fresh and hot.

We planned on eating there and enjoy our first time trying it. We drove a long way, out of our way to try it.

I would not drive out of the way to try it again.

There was a “strange lady” (trying to be nice) at the bar that was not in reality… again, trying to be nice and not give an in-depth description.

Shepherdsville needs a good sit down BBQ Place. Getting food to go just to eat it cold is not enjoyable. Especially...