It’s no surprise that I like to try different restaurants. This is especially true when I travel. So when my sister, Randi Vahl, and I took a trip to experience the Ark Encounter, I was only interested in eating at a place I’d never been before. That’s how we stumbled upon City Barbeque. I later found out that it is a chain restaurant, but I don’t care. If the food is good, I’m all about it. And let me tell you, the food is real good!
We were told by the cashier that they smoke their own meats in house, every day. She also explained that the favorites on the menu were the pulled pork and brisket. Randi and I tossed around the idea of getting just one order of the Two Meats feature. However, in the end we each got our own. We decided to carry out our orders so we could enjoy them at our nearby hotel.
When you order one of the featured dishes, they don’t come with a side. But you can add them on for an additional cost. Their sides were vast and varied and according to their website they are made from scratch every day. What we liked about City Barbeque is they offered us samples of the different sides. We could actually tell them the ones we wanted to try before we even placed our order!
Randi and I were both interested in trying the corn pudding. Again, steered that way by the cashier, she said it was very good. Once we had our sample, we definitely decided to each get a side of that. While it wasn’t as sweet as the corn pudding you used to get at Chi Chi’s, it was still pretty good.
The staff at City Barbeque in Florence, were super friendly. After we placed our orders, they added to our meals some more samples of their sides. We didn’t even have to ask them. They said that since this was our first time, they wanted us to be able to try a bit of everything.
So when we walked out of the restaurant, we had our carry-out bags loaded down not only with our meals, but with our three additional samples of their sides. As I said earlier, Randi went with the popular pulled pork and brisket. I love pork, so I also had to get the pulled pork. But then instead of brisket, I went with three ribs. Our purchased sides included macaroni and cheese, smashed potatoes and corn pudding. The samples we received included baked beans, collared greens, vinegar slaw, brisket chili, potato salad and green beans with bacon. We would have ordered one or more of their made from scratch desserts, but we had already picked up ice cream from Walmart before we got there.
Let me tell you, City Barbeque does not skimp on their portion sizes. Randi and I were both pretty hungry from our four hour drive. That was one of the reasons we didn’t want to share our meals. We were concerned that it wouldn’t be enough. We were so wrong! In fact, we had plenty left over and were very glad that our hotel room included a refrigerator.
So, I told you the food was good, real good. I think it gives you a sense of how home cooked barbeque tasted back in the “good ole days” when people smoked their own meats and made stick-to-your-ribs kind of meals for the farmhands. I enjoy barbeque. It is the one time that the smoked flavor is for me. (I don’t generally liked things smoked.) The pulled pork was tender and moist. The bark was perfect. Add to it their barbeque sauce (I got a couple of sauces — their sweet and their regular sauce) and you’ve got an excellent specimen of pulled pork.
The ribs were fall off the bone type of ribs. It didn’t look like they would be that way when I saw them in the container, but they were. When I lifted it from the container to my plate, it did just that. And again, the flavor was so good. Randi also enjoyed the pulled pork. She said the brisket was good and it had a nice bark on it.
The sides were very tasty, too. I enjoyed the smashed potatoes, a lot. The cashier had asked me if I wanted gravy with them. I said, “Of course, who wouldn’t want gravy?” I didn’t know that the gravy would come with pieces of meat in it. Since this is a seasonal dish, I couldn’t find on their website what type of meat it was. But I guess in the end it doesn’t matter, it added another level of deliciousness to the side.
I’d like to make a confession right here, I have always wanted to try collared greens. I know, it’s weird, but every time I see Guy Fieri from Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives try them and go crazy over them, I wonder what they taste like. Again, because of the staff’s generosity in giving us samples with our orders, I was able to check this off my bucket list. Since I have nothing to compare it to, I can only say that I assume all collared greens taste like the ones City Barbeque offers. If you like collared greens, you’ll like these. I’m O.K. with this being my one and only experience with them.
The macaroni and cheese was pretty good from my point of view. I hate it when mac n’ cheese doesn’t seem very cheesy. This order was cheesy. Randi said she enjoyed it, but likes hers a little more creamy.
If you like chili with beans, you will like the brisket chili, although don’t think of it like a soupy kind of chili. It is really thick. It has good flavor, but I couldn’t eat too much of it, because I’m not really a bean kind of person.
I know this isn’t all of the sides we had, but you’ll have to try them for yourself. Just be prepared for onions to be part of the potato salad and maybe the vinegar cole slaw, too.
When we “finished” our meals, we were stuffed. Yet we still had more than half of what we had purchased. Should I return to City Barbeque, I will definitely keep this in mind.
As I stated, I found out later, City Barbeque is a chain restaurant. I searched to see if there was one near me. What I discovered is there is one in Fairlawn, Ohio. This is about 45 minutes from where I live. That makes me excited because now, not only can I take my husband, Bobby, to one, but next time, I am definitely going to try more of their options. Because even though we had a lot, we didn’t get to try everything. And probably, I’ll have to try their desserts, especially the triple chocolate cake!
