The Bar-B-Q Shop — Restaurant in Memphis

A friend of mine that lives fairly close to Memphis told me this was his favorite BBQ joint so I decided to give it a try. I was in Memphis to pick up my sister and niece for the weekend so they didn’t have to be bored at St Jude’s as they waited for my niece’s surgery on Monday.

You can park on the street out front but there is more parking in the rear and you might be able to find a shady spot like I did. They also have an entrance in the rear as well and seeing stacks of wood built my confidence in the place.

When we walked in it took a minute for someone to come attend to us. The guy told us it would be about a 30 minute wait and I gave him a funny look because there were not many people in the place. He explained that they were short staffed in the kitchen. They had plenty of tables but they weren’t using them. I almost left but really wanted to give the place a try. He asked us to wait in the next room so we went in there and found a spot to sit at a table. It took almost the full 30 minutes to get seated and we were past the lunch rush at about 2:00.

I decided to order a combo plate so I could try multiple meats. I ordered the ribs and pulled pork which came with slaw & beans. These must be the defacto sides because we certainly weren’t offered a choice. My sister ordered a pulled pork plate and my niece a pork sandwich that came topped with slaw.

The food came out fairly quickly and we enjoyed our meal. The meat portions were large and I shared mine with my middle daughter. You can order the ribs different ways. I ordered mine both dry rubbed & glazed. The ribs were tender and delicious, the pork came with a mild sauce that I would have preferred on the side. The meat flavor was very good though. The slaw was fine but not great. The baked beans had a unique flavor profile but could have been better. While the meat portions were large, the side portions were skimpy. Neither my sister nor my niece could eat all their food. We boxed up the rest and took it home.

Much like the seating process, service was just ok. Our waiter made himself scarce.

So to answer the big question, “WOULD I GO BACK?” That answer is a solid yes. The food...

In all fairness I gave it a 4 only because I hated it but my company loved it. I decided to try the place at their suggestion but it should be noted that I am not a bbq fan. The spaghetti had been raved about so I figured I would at least enjoy that. I was having a conversation with my party about the spaghetti and one of the workers must have overheard us because next thing I know she comes to the table and says "here is a sample of the spaghetti since you never had it". How awesome. Getting to try it before I ordered it as a side for $7.99. It was decent. It was bbq based but this is a bbq spot. I didn't like it enough to order it as a side. Now since my first plan fell through I skimmed the menu for a trusty burger but to my surprise they only offered a black bean and a veggie burger. Darn..plan c..I saw the fried bologna on the menu. I do like bologna so.i thought, what the hay, I'll give it a try. It came with 2 sided so I settled on the potato salad and fries. When the brought my order out they brought beans out instead of potatoe salad but quickly fixed the error once they were made aware of it. The confusion may have been that I inquired about the beans and if they had meat in them and when told yes, I asked for the potato salad. Well, I didn't like the bbq bologna. Was too salty for my taste and didn't at all taste like what I was expecting. The potato salad was okay. I wish the waiter had let me know that it had meat in it as well. My company ordered the side of spaghetti and the large pull pork plate with baked beans and fries. I will say that the portions were a nice size. The customer service was also top notch and the atmosphere was cozy as it wasn't busy at all. Overall I cannot say that my meal was nasty. It just wasn't for me as I am nit a bbq person. My company enjoyed theirs to the fullest. So, what I will say it try it for yourself if you enjoy bbq. It may...

I don’t have words for how disappointing this experience was for my husband and me. We are visiting from out of town and I’ve been looking forward to eating ribs on this trip. We made a point of reading reviews online, in the media, and we specifically asked a local for a recommendation. We are staying at The Peabody (fabulous BTW!) and we took an Uber to try this restaurant. On recommendation, we ordered a glazed slab of ribs. It was so fatty and gross that I had to put my napkin over mine. My husband’s slab was even worse. Our server came over and we explained that we weren’t looking to get our meal for free but that we were disappointed and wanted to offer some feedback. Our server looked at the ribs and acknowledged that they were fatty and understood why were weren’t eating them. He said he wanted to send the owner over to talk with us. We specifically saw our (awesome) server walk over and show the ribs to the owner. Our server returned and said the owner offered to give us another order of ribs, which we politely declined (I was sick to my stomach at that point and just wanted to leave). The final thing I will say is that I was disappointed by the owner’s response. He didn’t come over to our table and he didn’t offer to remove the ribs from the bill. Again, this wasn’t what we were looking for, ie, to not pay for the ribs, but as someone who has worked in my fair share of restaurants, I think it would have been appropriate for the owner to offer to do so. Or most certainly, it would have been appropriate for him to at least come by our table to apologize for the bad experience. It was bad business to not do so. Boo BBQ Shop! (On a semi related note, last night we ordered ribs at BB Kings at the end of Beale St. I had low expectations. I have to say, they were some of the BEST ribs I’ve...