Mitch's Barbeque Restaurant & Catering — Restaurant in Marshall Township

I have a hard time giving a place 5 stars. That, to me, basically means there's nothing to improve. That's kinda bold to say.

That being said, Mitch's BBQ and Ice Cream is as good (of both) as you can hope to find. I'm giving it a qualified 5 star. We'll take it a step at a time...

While we focused on the brisket. Didn't try the pork or chicken. Didn't have any sides. Didn't have the ramen, which is super intriguing. When I try those my opinion might change but, I feel that we had enough of an experience to make a judgement on the items we did have: Ice Cream, Brisket Sandwich and Brisket Taco.

Since the demise of my previous favorite brisket taco (R.I.P. Carmen Taco's, we hardly knew ye) I've been looking for a replacement. I think Mitch has managed to out taco a taco place, and out BBQ most other BBQ joints. It's kinda impressive when you think about it.

Everything about the brisket taco just came together into a perfect bite. My wife, a bonafide taco fiend, advised that it was "better than it had any right to be". And I absolutely agreed. A great, great taco. The perfect amount of cheese and seasoning and crema. Through it all you still taste the meat, front and center.

To go along with it, I also had the brisket sandwich, which let me focus on the meat itself. I found the seasoning to be really interesting. The rub seemed to be pretty heavy on the cumin. Probably what helps make such a good taco. It almost struck me to be like a Diablo Sandwich. However, once I dipped the meat into the BBQ sauce it was perfect, perfect brisket. Just excellent stuff.

To top it all off, we also got some of the homemade ice cream and were not disappointed. The PB crunch was a really good vanilla with chunks of peanut and maple candy (think of the inside of a Clark Bar). Texturally it was a little less smooth than you might find at an ice cream shop, but it was still delicious.

The crown jewel for me was the Thai Basil sorbet. My only complaint was it was only advertised as 'Thai Basil', it was very reddish almost purple in color, and at first mostly tasted of strawberry - so I thought they gave me the wrong thing. However, a second or too later that lovely floral basil flavor came in and was a definite "ooooh" type moment. After the nice rich brisket, the sorbet was an awesome way to wrap it up.

I still need to try a lot of the other things on the menu and maybe I'll adjust the score, but... for what we had... it was damned...

Was excited to try this place out as it came highly recommended from different people. Ended up being very disappointed with my visit. I went solely for the brisket as I’m from Texas and have yet to find anything that has scratched that itch in Pittsburgh. Ordered half pound of brisket and asked if it came with any sides like plain white, sliced bread or pickles. The guy behind the counter looked at me as if I was the dumbest person he’d ever seen. He responded with attitude and said, “maybe they can give you a bun” while pointing at ladies behind a different counter. This is Not a surprising response, considering some of the other negative reviews have all mentioned a rude person behind the counter. The brisket wasn’t terrible, but also wasn’t great, pretty middle of the road. The BBQ sauce on the other hand was terrible, basically ketchup sauce.

What was really weird, the entire time I sat there and ate, an employee(busboy?) was throwing wet waded up paper towels across the entire dining area trying to make it into the tip jar. I’m not exaggerating when I say that this went on the entire time I was there eating. He was throwing them from the Coke fountains all the way to the cash register while people were waiting for their food. He told a random customer that if he made two out of three, he got to keep what was in the tip jar.

While this was happening, the rude cash register employee was yelling at a doctors office on the phone. How do I know this, because he was yelling at them saying that he couldn’t get a hold of an actual human being to talk to regarding somebody’s kidney test results. Just an overall weird experience to the point that I will not be returning or recommending to anyone who remotely knows what bbq is. The mac & cheese and baked beans were...

THIS IS NOT REAL BBQ. The chicken tacos were buffalo chicken tacos with old bleu cheese and chips dumped on top. The chicken was good once you could get to it. My wife had to practically shovel off the chips and old bleu cheese. The brisket was flavorless and lacked smoke. It looked like they smoked it for maybe a couple hours and then finished it off in the oven. Was not impressed at all, I am from Texas and that was not brisket. I also ordered the sausage sandwich which I assumed being that I was at a bbq restaurant I would be getting smoked sausage. I was wrong again. The sausage was grilled sweet Italian sausage that I only knew it was grilled because of grill marks, again felt like it was precooked and then finished on the grill. Now for the service, the guy behind the register was a grump and treated the customers as if them being there was a problem for him. My wife asked legit questions about the food and he looked and acted exacerbated about her asking questions. Oh and by the way only eat their sorbet if you want to eat straight granulated sugar cause that’s what it was with some peach syrup dumped on top. I will never recommend this place or go there again. Terrible...