City Barbeque — Restaurant in Raleigh

This makes the second time that I have ate here and it will be definitely the last time. The reason why I tried it again for the second time is because everybody don’t get it right the first time so sometimes you give them another chance to prove themselves, but obviously it’s just not in their best interest.

The first time I ate at this place was sometime around September 2024 and I ordered peach cobbler and the chicken with the pickles (that I never got) and a lemonade. My food was so cold, the only thing that was hot/warm was the cobbler. The chicken I did not eat because it’s supposed to come with pickles and I am the person if your meal is not complete I can’t eat it and when you order something and it’s supposed to come with something the people who is preparing your order should make sure that you get everything that you were supposed to have and while I am unpacking while on my way to my destination, and I realized I did not have my items.

Nobody wants to turn around and go back and get their items. That’s a very much inconvenient to someone. The best thing out of this first order was the peach cobbler. Everything else went into the trash. They have some wonderful peach cobbler. The crust was great and crunchy. Very moist That’s the only thing out of this order that I enjoyed.

My 2nd order 02/06/2025- HORRIBLE Six wings with fries, lemonade with a peach cobbler that comes with ranch dressing- the wings are supposed to be honey buffalo flavor, Instead, the wings are Salty buffalo flavored, there is nothing honey about these wings. No sweet flavor whatsoever. They are hard to bite into, room temperature, I placed this order at 12:59 and I received a email telling me my order was ready at 1:14. I was outside in my car. The fries went into the trash because they were soggy. I was outside the entire time. I ate the cobbler, 2 wings and couldn’t eat another wing bc the hardness and salty taste was too much. I will never eat here again! I know good food when I taste it!! The only good thing here is the cobbler. Really...

Let me tell you the City BBQ tech, at least at this location.

Plan to order on Mondays. You get double rewards points. The meats that are reliably good are the brisket and usually the tenders/chicken sandwiches. Ribs in my experience are good as well, and some other things have been better depending on the visit. The "chipotle BBQ" in particular is a bit of a mystery in regards to what types of meats and cuts it can be. It can take many forms and appearances, seeming often like "the stuff we made too much of we need to move", but actually not in a bad way lol. I'd say I even prefer it to some of the straight "pulled x" options alone. The sides here are honestly more of a star than most of the meats, and better even than say Sam Jones' or other local barbecue places. My favorite potato salad is here, it has a slightly stronger onion flavor but it's very good. Fried okra, fries, mac and cheese, fried pickles, all good choices. The desserts are mostly an afterthought. If you can get a deal, go for it, but otherwise they're pretty basic. There are a lot of sauces here but they imo all kind of blend together and none stand out. They're not bad, but not a shining feature. I could scarcely tell them apart. The sandwiches are some of the best ways to order here. It may at first feel like you'll get more meat/value by ordering platters, but I really feel like the context of the sandwich is the better way to eat here. In part because: Leftovers (meat) is often not a strong suit. You can kinda reheat/air fry some of these things, but in general it's way better if you're planning to eat this stuff soon after you get it.

Hope that...

I haven't even gotten to eating my sandwich yet and felt I need to let this out. First off I might have 1 or 2 reviews ever. This just goes to show how much if a bad taste the experience left me with so far. Ordered online through curbside pickup. Got sent a text to say "here" when we arrive and our food will be brought out shortly. 40 minutes go by after parking (10 minutes beyond estimated ready time) no bug deal yall are busy I get it. But I go in and stand around for 5 minutes till someone finally asks if I was helped. While waiting to be helped im looking around and see a bag of food sitting on a shelf across from the cashier (where us patrons stand and wait) with my name on the receipt. I tell the guy who finally helped me that is my bag he said I can just take it. Didn't ask any questions didn't ask me to verify or anything just take it. Now I went in to see whats up but apparently my curbside delivery thing was a curbside walk in pickup this evening. Anyway. We get home. There's no collard greens with pork. There's no brushfire sauce nor original sauce for either of our two sandwiches. There was a random side of corn pudding thrown in. Our mac and cheese we ordered with bacon(additional cost) had no bacon and was a congealed glob of cheese and oil and very salty. As im writing this my wife who is eating came to say how extremely extremely salty it is. Great. So yeah I haven't even taken a bite and there's 5+ messed up things already. First time there....