Restaurant Review: Moe's Original Bar B Que

Went down to Moe's Original Bar B Que down in Matthews, NC this afternoon for lunch. Was supposed to have a lunch companion, but I got stood up. Nice location for a restaurant, in a safe, yuppified area. The Matthews branch of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public Library is just at the end of the little drive, there are shops on both sides.

Inside the restaurant was clean and well lit from numerous windows; there are actually glass-enclosed garage-style doors that can be opened in the warm season to allow people to eat in the open air. They were close on this cool November day, of course.

I ordered a pork plate, which comes with two side items and corn bread; I chose mac 'n cheese and Brunswick stew. The mac 'n cheese was oven baked and good, although not very cheesy. The cornbread had a good flavor. The Brunswick stew was tasty, although most of the small bowl was taken up by a couple of huge potato chunks, which I had to cut apart with my spoon. The pulled pork was moist but without much in the way of smoke flavor or evidence of a smoke ring; I guess it was cooked on gas or in an electric smoker (there is a woodpile at the back of the restaurant, which was covered by a tarp, for what that's worth). The pork came from the kitchen with some barbecue sauce on top, a red tomato-based sauce; once I determined that the pork itself didn't have much flavor, I helped myself to the sauce bottle to add some additional flavor. The sauce was undistinguished, also. Here's what the food looked like:

All in all, although it's a great location and is a clean, attractive restaurant, the BBQ isn't all that memorable; I'll give it a 3 on my 5-scale of BBQ restaurants: 3 out of 5: average; reasonably good food, moderate effort by staff/management.