Blackstrap BBQ — Restaurant in Winthrop

As a BBQ lover and living near Winthrop, I really wanted to love this place, but it is just OK and the BBQ is not that great. If you have never had Carolina, Georgia, or Texas bbq, the maybe you will be fine with it. First the positives! Christian the bartender/waiter was extremely nice and helpful and sat our party of six quickly. Good drink and beer selection, but might be the first bbq place without sweet tea! Amazing portion sizes but we didnt like it enough to finish. The appetizers are good. Fried pickles are excellent with a good batter that sticks on well. The crab and andouille hush puppies were very tasty with good chunks of crab but the outside was overcooked and too crunchy. The cornbread is huge but too dry and crumbly. The brisket was very tender and had an excellent smoke complexion. Decent smoke ring but no bark included. A few pieces were ok but a few were dry. The pulled pork was much more vinegary that most Carolina bbq I have had. It was almost inedible it had so much vinegar flavor. Also a bit dry. The South Carolina sauce on the side was a bit better than the North but was still more vinegar and not enough mustard. The sweet bbq sauce is standard and good. Brisket sandwich was good but a bit dry. If things were not overcooked and more juicy we might comeback. BBQ sweet potato salad was ok but lacked a bbq flavor and had some undercooked sweet potatoes. Cole slaw...excellent! Mac and cheese was good but not great. Collards were disappointing. Not the sweet blackstrap molasses flavor I was looking for and a bit raw. Nice vibe and an intimate small place. Needs work on the food. I recommend Smoke BBQ in Charleston, SC if you want...

I had been wanting to try this place for a really long time now and finally added it to my rotation. I'm glad we did.

We ordered through grubhub. Normally we dont but had a giftcard ... food came quicker than we thought.

So the food was all good. Specifically..

The wings were spectacular. I'll go back just to get those for lunch one day. Worth a trip. Big wings, spiced and smoked just right. We got them with the rub as opposed to sauce. Really tasty and a little different actually which I really liked.

The ribs were a touch dry. Hardly worth a complaint but I know some people despise ribs that are not super juicy. They had good bite and again really well seasoned and smoked.

The burnt ends were very tasty except not technically burnt ends seeing they dont even sell brisquit. This was a beef round diced, smoked and stewed. Very tasty, once you get past the technicality of not actually being burnt ends.

The mac n cheese wasavsolutely excellent. Again, 2 qts of that can be dinner by itself. Real cheesy, baked, high quality cheese. Really good.

The house slaw was on point as well.

Overall a...

Meh. Reading the reviews, this is probably the best BBQ around and getting jammed with customers - price point is high and delivery order was pretty bad.

This is not a destination BBQ place, don’t go out of your way for it.

Called ahead to find out what was gluten free gf - wings are fried, they can be grilled, but that isn’t an option ordering online.

I’m in town 1 night at the airport Hilton - very close,