Chicken In A Barrel BBQ — Restaurant in South Lake Tahoe

BEST BBQ ON THE PLANET! You have to stop here when in South Lake Tahoe. Might not look like much from the street but their food is amazing! Prices are reasonable, portions are great and food is delicious. I am always skeptical to go to BBQ places because it tends to be dry BUT NOT HERE! We got the sampler platter - the meats were moist (not a single dry piece of anything!), not fatty, and so flavorful. Sampler came with chicken quater, pulled pork, a pork rib, beef brisket, Chilli and a side of rice which we swapped out for oinion rings. They give you BBQ sauce on the side so you can add as much or as little as you want. They have an original and a hot BBQ sauce- hot was not spicy hot. They were both delicious! The Chilli is a love child between Chilli and baked beans... perfectly spiced with a little sweet. We also ordered the chicken po'boy with pepper jack cheese. It was phenomenal! Bun was perfectly toasted; chicken was moist and flavorful; and just the right amount of slaw. Perfection! Added the fries with that. Fries were bomb too! Flavorful and crispy. Delicious! Had to have dessert! Got an ice cream sandwhich- They had several flavors to choose from. All sounded amazing. I chose snickerdoodle cookie with a raspberry cheesecake ice cream middle. It was the perfect amount of cookie with lots of ice cream. It was also the perfect temp to eat! It wasn't frozen solid! I was able to sit and enjoy it right then. It topped off a perfect meal. Staff was helpful and nice. Service was great. Outdoor seating was lovely on this warm June evening AND they even had live music. And you can watch then smoke the meats in the barrels out front. Great dining environment! We will definitely be back here!!! So good! I can't beleive I have waited this long to try this place.... when in SLT I will be stopping by for some amazing Hawaiian BBQ! Well done Chicken...

I should start by saying that I'm a foodie and that I have been exposed to high quality tasty food since I was a kid. Most of my reviews are about restaurants, their service, and the food they serve.

With that said, here we go:

This place is supposed to be a BBQ spot, yet, they don't serve brisket. I don't know about you, but in the South; from Texas on East, a BBQ joint is not a BBQ joint if it doesn't serve brisket. But, I digress.

My experience was ok. I ordered the 1/4 chicken and ribs (2) plate. The plate came with a scoop of rice and a cup of chili. I also ordered a fountain drink. The total came to a bit over 24 dollars. Somewhat high in my opinion, but we are talking about Lake Tahoe area.

The meat: The chicken had a good flavor and it was moist. Good job on the bird. The ribs (about 3.5 inches each) were tasty. In my experience, rib meat should be falling off the bone good. These should have been wrapped and kept in the smoker for an additional 15-20 minutes.

The BBQ sauce: They have one type of sauce. I would compare it to Sweet Baby Ray's. Nonetheless, they have mustard, honey, Sriracha, and Cholula for you to doctor it up the way you might like it.

The sides: The chili was good. It wasn't spicy like I like it, but the flavors were there.

Now...The rice. OMG. It should be a crime to cook rice like the one I was I was served. Totally flavorless. Not a hint of salt. And it was way overcooked to the point that the grains had split and had formed a sticky mass. I think boiled rice in a bag from a box would have been better.

Would I go again if I visit LT again? Probably. If it wasn't for the rice, I would have given this restaurant 4 stars.

Do yourself a favor, if you are going to patron Chicken in a Barrel, pay the extra to substitute the rice and...

We were super excited to give this place a try. The food looked delicious! The place had a nice look and a cool beer wall. I really like the garage-like roll up doors. However, it was ice cold there. It didn’t matter where you sat. They had two small outdoor heaters but neither of them were on. A young guy who was there with his partner tried turning on one of the heaters as he noticed everyone was cold. He couldn’t get it to turn on and the guy working there just watched him. There was one table with about two kids and two adults when we got there and they were already eating their food. While we were there, someone called to place a carry out order and a young couple stopped in as well. We were actually surprised with how slow it was for a Friday evening. We ordered food for two people and it took us about 45 minutes to get it. When we did, it was wrong. They took the wrong parts and we waited another 30 minutes to have it “fixed” - as we were waiting for them to cook what was forgotten, they realized that the other half of our food was sitting on the counter the entire time and the employees just didn’t communicate. At this point, the food was simply disappointing. The staff was friendly but they were veryyy laid back and didn’t really care about what was going on. Overall, combing the wait time with the price and quality of the food, and the carelessness of the staff, it just wasn’t...