JL's Barbeque — Restaurant in Pryor Creek

Please don’t think all Oklahoma BBQ is like JL’s. This is my second try of JL’s BBQ. I decided to give it one more shot. My first review got pulled from Tripadvisor. I must have been too harsh? They offer a dinner menu and a lunch menu. The difference (other than the cost) is the number of sides and the number of meat items. On the dinner menu they seem to be very generous with the sides. My wife had the chicken strip lunch with fried okra. It was good. The chicken had a nice crisp coating and the fried okra was good. I had the two meat dinner. I chose the beef and the polish sausage with potato wedges and okra. The beef is different than anything I have ever had in any BBQ restaurant. It is more like roast with a hint of smoke and cut with the grain of the beef, unlike what you would typically see with a good cut of brisket. It was lean, moist and tender, but unusual. Not what you would expect to get in a BBQ restaurant. The sausage was okay. The portions of the meat were fair, but this was a little pricey per plate. Under the meat was a massive amount of potato wedges. Also they pile on a double fist full of fried okra. There had to be three pounds of potatoes. Both the potatoes and the okra were good. It is a lot of money for fried potatoes and okra though! They have their own BBQ sauce that is kept warm in a couple of crock pots on the condiment bar. They have hot and mild. Both are very sweet and syrupy with a hint of cinnamon. I did not care for either. People probably really like this place for the massive amount of sides that come with the dinner meals. The BBQ is just some smoked meats and a poor representation of good Oklahoma BBQ. As a BBQ restaurant it doesn’t rate an average. As just a place to eat, with some smoked meat items, I can give it an average. The good news is I have two and a half pounds of fairly good potatoes in a to-go box in the refrigerator, to warm up tomorrow. The better news is this it’s the last time I...

Although this was my first time at this restaurant, it has long been a favorite of others in my extended family and this was our meeting place for a remembrance luncheon for a close family member who had recently passed. Now that i have buried the lead, i will say the food is good, the portions are incredibly generous for the price, the service was good (although they did seem slightly understaffed). After entry, customers pass through a cafeteria style line where they look at a wall-mounted menu, place their order, pay, and pick up their food. There is no table service. The food was hot and abundant. The sauce was kept in warmers at a condiment station. Customers use ladles to fill styrofoam tubs or to drizzle directly onto their plates. It came in two versions: standard and hot. Both were signature sauces and tasty. The "hot" version is what i would call "Oklahoma hot," which is to say about medium on a Southwest scale. The food was good and the value was very good. I may visit again but i do not feel compelled.

UPDATE: I ordered my meal as a take-out and wrote the above review next day. We ate those left-overs for three days (the family meal really was a lot of food) and still had a (pint-sized) container of bbq sauce that stayed in the refrigerator and was used to flavor dishes for a month or so afterwards. I am changing my review only to say, I will DEFINITELY treat myself again...

Traveling and trying barbeque everywhere I go is my favorite thing to do. Sadly I was disappointed in this place.

The good: The staff was great and the facilities were nice and I liked the unique idea of hanging dollar bills on the wall. The ribs were great and the mild sauce was sweet with a kick. Not award winning ribs but good. The smoked bologna and okra were good and the green beans had a really unique (and wonderful) taste. The portions were very big.

The not so good: The sliced brisket. I was told it was a different cut of meat which was more lean when I went through the serving line. First of all it's more like shaved brisket. Second of all I hated it. The texture reminded me of eating overcooked white turkey meat or like it had been boiled to cook it. Even with the barbeque sauce, which I loved on the ribs, I just couldn't eat the brisket.

The other thing I didn't care for was the price for lunch. My friend and I both got a two meat combo and two drinks and it was over $40! For dinner that's understandable but lunch that's just a little high. The portions were too big for lunch in my opinion so I felt like you could have a lunch special with smaller portions and a...