Saturday, January 18, 2014

Restaurant Review: Dickey's BBQ Pit

This was at the location in Charlotte's Ballantyne suburb on John J. Delaney Drive. Dickey's is part of a Dallas, TX barbecue chain. They just opened this location three months ago. They're in a storefront:



That's a view of the back entrance, thru which I entered. I don't know what the front entrance looks like. I found a coupon offer in my email box back in December for Dickey's, pay $10 for a $20 coupon. I did so. Today I decided to redeem the coupon. Ordered a three-meat plate with two sides and a half-rack of ribs, which took up the whole $20 coupon and $6 on top of that. I picked pulled pork, sliced brisket and smoked turkey for the three meats, fries and mac 'n cheese for the sides. The food came on a metal tray with butcher paper, and included some sliced onions, dill pickles, and a cornbread roll that looked like a large pat of butter:



The food was, to put it mildly, shack-nasty. Only the turkey had much smoke flavor. The pulled pork had no flavor to speak of at all, the brisket was more like pot roast than barbecue, and the ribs had been cooked so long that they were dried out and hard, rather like jerky. The red tomato-based sauce was the most disgusting-tasting glop it has ever been my misfortune to taste. The fries were waffle fries, no different than you find at Chik-Fil-A. The mac 'n cheese was hot and freshly made, but the cheese it was made with seemed like it came out of a pump dispenser, much as you might use on nacho chips.

The restaurant was new and clean, and the service was good, with employees circulating regularly to refill drinks, etc. When the store manager/supervisor saw that I had not finished the ribs (they were that nasty), she was quite apologetic, offering both to refund my money and to get a substitute food for me to take home. I declined her offer politely, but give her points for not showing the usual restaurant apathy that you so often find these days.

I'll split the ratings on Dickey's BBQ Pit. I'll give the food a 1 on my 5-scale, and the service a 5. So - - the food is crap, but at least they dish it out quickly and apologize for it afterward. LOL.

Dickey's BBQ Pit website here.

3 comments:

juvat said...

Bob, even us Texans don't eat there!

James said...

Had one in our town, I agree with all you said. I only hit it once. They closed up in a little over a year.

Anonymous said...

Dickeys is a sad example of "going corporate' and killing the thing that made it good.

Come to Dallas and eat at Sonny Bryan's on Inwood. Concrete floor was swept the day WWII ended. You can smell the smoke and cooking meat throughout the Love Field /Hospital District area.
Tender, tasty and cheap- when they run out, the close for the day.

Regards
GKT