Old Hickory Bar-B-Que — Restaurant in Owensboro

My family and I stopped here as we live about an hour away. I am a huge barbecue fan, so my family will indulge me by going to special places I select once in a while. We walked in and stood for 15 mins or so while the girl at the desk ignored us and the waitresses walked around us. Eventually we were seated in a very rickety booth and table that shook side to side when you touched it. The place smelled of barbecue pits, which made me drool but the waitress quickly squashed that as we had silverware tossed onto the table. They were busy but that's no excuse. She took our drink order and promptly returned with all of them which she sat in the middle of the table forgetting completely of who ordered what. I should say at this point that my oldest daughter and I were dead set on ordering mutton ribs because neither of us had ever tried them. My oldest was up first to place her order. As soon as she said mutton ribs, the waitress immediately told her that she shouldn't order that because mutton ribs were all fat and gristle and tasted awful. Well that changed my order too and was very disappointing. My daughter quickly scrambled to order the smoked turkey plate with a side of coleslaw and mashed potatoes. My youngest ordered a catfish sandwich with fries, my wife ordered the special of sweet, heat, pulled, chicken sandwich with onion rings while I ordered the only thing I could eat without too much trouble... catfish plate with fries and a side salad. The side salad came right away and was in a tiny little applesauce bowl but so heaping with lettuce, tomato and cheese that I had to put my packaged blue cheese dressing on in stages. No even so much as a 6" salad bowl. Our waitress came by several times for refills and to tell us our order was on it's way 3 times. Finally, the food came and at an average time. Everything was hot and a decent portion of each. One thing I noticed right away was that the onion rings, fries and fish were all prepackaged and frozen prior to frying. the catfish was actually swai fish which is a Japanese fish and pretty commonly found in most places that sell frozen fish. My wife loved her sandwich and onion rings. My oldest liked her smoked turkey which appeared to be one of only 2 things made in house on the table. The mashed potatoes may have been but not the gravy. Back in my home town, we had a chain of "barbecue" places called Triple E. This place was about as authentic as that. If by tradition, they mean traditionally frozen, prepackaged and just put out smoked meats, then they are as traditional as any other place who gets most of their food off a GFS truck with little to no effort by staff to make things from scratch. I scrapped the idea of getting a desert by the fact that if everything else was made from an outside factory, the deserts would most certainly be the same. If I had a place like this, my first thing would be to scrap the overcooked, soft and mushy foods for real homemade. Many of the older generation that frequents these places like to thing on all their plates and that is soft and mushy food that is easy to chew and doesn't upset their colon. Easy in and easy out. That's not for me and paying $50 for food that cost and estimated total of $5 is not my idea of a good evening. Fortunately, we went to Lic's Ice Cream afterwords and that made the night bearable. Later, I felt sick and it wasn't the child size ice cream cone I had. Overall, I'd say pass this place up and go somewhere you can be sure the food is actually prepared by people who answer to someone who cares what they serve. You can get this anywhere GFS services. Oh and tarter sauce shouldn't be in a Kraft peel and dip container at a sit down restaurant. If you are beyond your 40's, you make like it and go here often. If you are not an AARP member, find another option because you won't get anything better than McDonald's or...

I was in Owensboro on Wednesday afternoon to visit a local cemetery, and thought it would be nice to try the local barbecue and a cup of burgoo. I've waited two days to post this review, to give myself time to calm down and not overreact. I needed time to write a cogent review devoid of the wrath and fury usually lurking in my keyboard.

My barbecue pork was okay. It wasn't BAD, I just don't care for tomato based sauce. I prefer the vinegar based sauce. Now onto the cup of burgoo. The server did tell me it had mutton, yet I was unprepared for the taste. Between the mutton, and the suspicion that the batch of soup may have been scorched, I found it inedible. I could not even finish it to appear polite. The banana pudding was pretty good, although I have had better. I did find it interesting that I was given once slice each of white and wheat bread. Very odd.

My sister's meal was where the problems were. She ordered a turkey sandwich, which came out on a plate just big enough for the sandwich. Her two sides came in individual monkey dishes as did mine. She asked for lettuce and tomato on her sandwich, an upcharge by the way. What she got was a scant few chiffonade cut strips of lettuce, less than two ounces I would say. The slice of tomato was very thin and disintegrating from age. Our server swore to us she had sliced those very tomatoes that morning. She may have sliced tomatoes Wednesday, they weren't those tomatoes. I don't like being lied to. I've been in food service long enough to know a few things, among those are bad tomatoes, and when a smokescreen is in place.

We asked to speak to the manager, the man who spoke to us may or may not have been the manager. His picture was on the wall in the hallway, I suspect he was merely one of their cooks. What he did do was to shuck and jive us, putting us at ease, or so he thought. They took the tomato off our check, a whole half dollar, wow!

Our check was handwritten, and when we went to pay our bill we weren't given an itemized receipt. It had the amount due, and a space for a tip. I should have stiffed her, but didn't. Maybe I should have. I'm not what sort of chicanery was afoot, I suspect some trickery intentional or not in the total. A barbecue pork plate, a turkey sandwich, a Dr Pepper, a sweet tea, a slice of Lemon Ice Box Pie, and a Banana Pudding should have cost a lot less than $47.00,much less!

For twenty years I've seen videos and read online articles about how good Owensboro Barbecue is, and how Kentucky Burgoo is just as good. I hate to say this but, this was the second worst meal we've had on one of our road trips, second only to the Gondolier in Harrogate, Tennessee. Owensboro Barbecue and Kentucky Burgoo ate both overrated and overpriced. It makes me wonder how many other people went there with there with high expectations, only to have those...

This is definitely a local hotspot as the place was full of patrons, the walk-in counter was busy, and the drive thru had many cars in line. I know my opinion of their bbq is different than most others according to how busy it was and by the other reviews, but our experience wasn't great. As far as atmosphere, upon walking up, one can smell smoke from the pit, it was busy and was out dated, which I don't mind if the food and service was outstanding, but that wasn't the case. Our server was extremely nice and was definitely a people person, but was really forgetful as we had to ask several times for drinks or other items. We would ask and then she would become busy and forget. Now to the food. I am pretty familiar with most types of bbq and how they fit into each of their genres, but Owensboro bbq, definitely has its own twist. The bbq is all served wet, which sometimes hides the dryness or over cooking of the meat. The rub seemed to have an overpowering chili/paprika/pepper taste. I couldn't identify any sweetness or vinegar in it. They had 3 sauces and in my opinion, none of them were very good. They had an original which was very peppery and thin, so thin that when you tilt the old style ketchup/condiment container, it will spray all over the table (all sauces were this way). The sweet heat sauce tasted as if the OG was used as a mother sauce and then a sweetness was added and something used for heat, my guess is cayenne. They have a newer bourbon sauce which again seems as if the OG was the mother sauce and they added bourbon. We did not like any of them. We ordered the sampler plates so we could try many of their meats and none of them were good. The chopped meats looked as if they were ran through a meat grinder and were served wet with the OG sauce. The texture was off-putting and the sauce is not good. The sliced pork was wet and was very dry. It was hard to taste the smoke flavor. The cook on the ribs were tender, but resembled a rib that would be baked and not something from a pit. The chicken was the better of the options, we had dark and white. The dar was ok, although the rub ruined it, but the white was very dry. The turkey was tender, but tasted as if it was a Swanson's sliced turkey, no smoke flavor and was covered in OG sauce. If you are accustomed to the traditional 4-5 typical styles of bbq, beware because this style is different. I don't mind different, because bbq has adapted and evolved for many years, but as much as I tried, I couldn't find a liking for it, too many technical errors in the cook, and flavor profiles of the rub and sauces were not...