The Barbecue Pit — Restaurant in National City

First & last time there, our order was to go. My mom & I walked in & it looked like a truck stop diner without the truck stop vibe, we walked up to the counter & the woman that was helping us noticed that my mom required more time & some assistance to order. The woman was very patient & helpful (no one behind us) & she didn't rush us. I am not able to name the nice woman out because they didn't wear name tags & the cashier lady is probably the reason why, she started barking orders in Spanish (& despite my last name suggesting Hispanic decent I am from Guam so idk what she said) to the young man preparing the meals. The woman & the young guy were a bit confused & looked uncomfortable to serve us our order. While this was happening behind the counter my mom was talking about how my brother picked this place & praised how good it is. My brother is a 400+ lbs foodie guy, so we normally trust what he recommends & I chose not to question the happenings behind the counter amongst the employee's. The cashier was not cordial, didn't make eye contact until the money came out & her eyes definitely made contact with that. Customer service was out the door with her. The food was not impressive - the bbq sauce on my dry pulled pork sandwich tasted like Sweet Baby Ray's Hickory & Brown Sugar bbq sauce that I buy from the store. I didn't finish my food & I went to McDonald's after I left my parents...

Full disclosure: I grew up in Texas, where barbecue is a second religion. Because of this, my taste is picky.

The Barbecue Pit has excellent servers. They are very friendly and know their stuff. When it comes to people, they get it 100% right!

The mac & cheese has overcooked, mushy pasta, and not much flavor in the cheese, yet the sauce is still broken and grainy. This is an easy fix by using primarily an extra sharp cheddar for flavor with 15-20% Velveeta for the emulsifying agents to keep the sauce from breaking, cooking the macaroni to a minute less than al dente before baking it, and then putting it under the broiler for 3-4 minutes to get some nice color on the top. Also, using half and half instead of milk isn’t that much more expensive, but it delivers a much creamier and richer bechamel for the cheese sauce.

The hot link sandwich was… well, it was sausage on white bread and nothing else. So much could be done with this sandwich, but it was pretty boring.

The ribs were not evenly cooked, so some bites were tough, others were dry, and still others were perfectly tender.

If somebody asked me to describe the food at The Barbecue Pit, my answer would be, “It ain’t bad, but I wouldn’t go out of my way...

Pulled pork was superrrrr dry and tasteless. Had to drown it with BBQ sauce to it choke down. Slaw was weird and not very edible. The beans were ok, but they were like pinto beans and not "bbq" beans and didnt go with the meal. Im from the South, and havent been able to find any decent BBQ since Ive been forced to move to California. I even told the owner who was working the front counter that, and he assured me "oh man, we're from Texas and we make the best darn bbq u ever had". Lol NOT. The thing they were famous for was the mac n cheese, but "the man who comes in once a week to make it didnt come in to work that day" I was told. Maybe if their employee would have come to work it might have saved the meal and bumped them to 2 or 3 stars, but no. Also WAY OVERPRICED. Would never go back and pay that much for 2...