Whole Hog Café — Restaurant in Springfield

Ok, first off, I'm gonna say, I had extremely high expectations based on the sign stating World Champion. That in itself is stating that you're one of the best in the world. Right, now let's get down into it. I ordered a variety of items to try, because, after all, they claimed to be a world champion BBQ restaurant.

Pulled pork sandwich. Have you ever had something that was really mushy, and the texture just completely ruined the taste/sandwich for you? Well here we go. There wasn't enough BBQ to even make this eating, not to mention it was just barely luke warm. I had to force myself to take a couple more bites after the first one. World Champion? Maybe world champion of the world's worst pulled pork. 0/5

Baked beans. I was skeptical because they said there was sausage and meat in the baked beans. It wasn't too bad actually. Wasn't spectacular, but wasn't bad. 3/5.

4 bone ribs. Ok, I know it's smoked, but I couldn't really taste any of the smoke flavor. I had to drown it in the bbq sauce. The glaze really had no flavor to it at all. 2/5

Cheesy corn. Do you remember that video of that little boy and his corn? Let's apply that here. Delicious!! I should have gotten this as my main entree! 5/5

Potato salad. It's potato salad. Nothing fancy about it. Wasn't amazing, but wasn't bad. 3/5

Hushpuppies. Who doesn't love a good hushpuppy? What I don't understand is that BBQ places always sell hush puppies, but all the other restaurants serve hushpuppies with seafood. So what exactly does hushpuppies pair with? As far as hushpuppies are concerned, they don't top Long John Silvers, but they are better than most other places and including those mixes you can buy at the grocery store. Win-win for me. It's the only thing I took with me to eat when I got back to my hotel besides the brownie. I would have brought corn if I hadn't finished it all off. 5/5

Brownie. It's a brownie. It's soft, it's sticky, and boy do I wish y'all had some vanilla ice cream and hot fudge to go with it. I would have not minded paying $7.99 for that brownie paired with some ice cream. Yummy! Think about that profit there. You're selling the brownie for $2.50. A scoop of ice cream is gonna cost you 50 cents, and another 25 cents for hot fudge. Sell for $7 to fat people like me, and you're buying yourself a new Dodge Ram in the near future, paying cash! 5/5

Service. I visited 2/2/2025 around 6 pm. The order taker was friendly and talkitive. I enjoyed my visit. I just wish the food was better.

Now, back to that world champion claim. Now if it's for the food, there's no way. The sides were ok, but the meats were not! But the BBQ sauce. There was 6 different flavors. Apparently I like the ones with molasses in it, because those three were yum! Not the best, but still really good. But, I really question that world champion claim. Pair that BBQ sauce up with some flavorful meats that are actually hot, and not luke warm (The ribs and pork were both barely luke warm), and then you'll have yourself a winner here. Pulled pork that has some meat consistency to it, not the consistency of a chicken nugget from McDonalds.

I can't rate you high, because, luke warm food doesn't deserve anything more than a 3. Foods should be hot. But the sides were ok. So I'll rate it a 3. If anything, i'll come back for the corn. And if you had chicken wings, I'd try those too with some of that bbq sauce.

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An edit the morning after. I was up all night with an upset stomach after eating here. 14 hours later, I haven't stopped throwing up. I have to travel on plane home today, its not going to be a very good trip. Food poisoning is no joke. And its both ends being affected too. Luckily, I have immodiun but its not helping with the serious upset stomach. At least the constant gas finally stopped. Planes are not the place for gas. I had to remove the rating of 3 after it made me sick. 🤬

World champion of what?...

I have never experienced such bizarre, uncalled for and instantaneous rudeness from waitstaff in my entire life. I'm from out of town visiting my girlfriend and we heard great things about Whole Hog. We placed a GrubHub order for some ribs. I received the text it was ready. I walked in and a very cantankerous woman behind the counter approached. No hello, just gruffly, "You GrubHub?" "Yep! Name's Rikk." She curtly said, "No ribs", and gave me one of the dirtiest looks I've ever seen. I was confused and caught off guard by the instant hostility. I asked what she meant. "We sold out". We both stood there silently while she shot venomous daggers at me with her eyes. I go out of my way to be patient and kind to people in the service industry because it's so high stress (it wasn't even slightly busy at the time of this incident, though). I politely said, "Okay, what do I need to do to get a refund?" She raised her voice, "We never took your money!" I informed her GrubHub had notified me the order was ready and had charged me. After another volley of intentionally unhelpful responses, she showed me their counter iPad to show she could do nothing to help me. We both saw she had marked the order as "ready". "Oh, I shouldn't have done that", she said under her breath. Instead of anything approaching an apology, she only grew even more furious at my very existence. "Just cancel the order!", she instructed me in a vengeful tone, her voice as unapologetic as it gets. I went back to my car and saw that it's not possible to cancel a GrubHub order once the restaurant marks it as ready. I went back inside and informed her I could not cancel the order because she had marked it as ready. "So...?", she responded and stared at me with utter disgust. It was almost comical how instantly horrid this person whom I had never met before chose to treat me. Like something from an SNL sketch. We went to Gettin' Basted and were treated wonderfully. The ribs at Gettin' Basted were probably the best I've ever had. I wanted very much to try the ribs at Whole Hog but needless to say, I'll never be back to support an establishment that employs people that treat customers like that the moment they walk in the door when it's not even busy. Go to Gettin' Basted for great ribs without the verbal abuse. The date of this incident is...

Stopped in for lunch today and from the moment you walk through the door you just know it’s going to be great. The smell upon entering is fantastic.

I ordered the lunch special today. Pulled pork sandwich with choice of 2 sides and a drink for $10. Given that this is a price in line with most fast food combo meals I wasn’t expecting a huge portion of anything.

For my sides I went with the home fries and a brownie. I kept the coleslaw on my sandwich.

Expect to eat half to 3/4 of the sandwich traditionally, and the other half with a fork. The meat on the sandwich was a large portion, and really tasty.

The fries/potato’s were above average, and really good. The smaller ones nice and crispy, the larger ones still soft with a crispy coating.

On the table was a choice of 6 bbq sauces and being my first time I sampled most of the sauces on my fries before adding sauce to my sandwich.

The brownie came wrapped in Saran Wrap and definitely tasted home made. Very chocolatey, dense, and moist.

I would expect everything here to be of good quality and large portions. I was torn between the catfish, the wings, and the ribs.

One thing I noticed was that there was only a difference of $2-3 between a 1/4 rack of ribs and a half rack. Same with the catfish, just another $2 to go from 3 pieces to 5.

Plan on sharing the larger sizes or having left overs for the next day, or both.

Overall, this really hit home with me. I haven’t had bbq this good in a really long time.

Definitely will come back next time I’m in Springfield.

The only thing I thought was odd was that nearly every customer asked if the styrofoam cups on the counter were the correct ones. They aren’t, those are for to go orders. The dining room cups are next to the fountain machine. Obviously the next time I go, I will know, but I wonder how many times a day they have to stop and answer that question, and haven’t thought to move the cups or let the customer know where to find a glass before they inevitably ask.

Last but not least, the music matched the food. Soulful, upbeat blues/jazz played over the speakers was a nice...