barbecue restaurants Archives

Thatcher’s BBQ (Ringgold, Georgia)

October 4, 2017

Thatcher’s BBQ in Ringgold, GA, is serving up delicious smoked meats in all of your favorite BBQ restaurant standards and a few unexpected favorites!

As the sun glinted in through the glass door, I wondered if we should move or maybe I should put on my sunglasses. Squinting at my menu, I decided against it, seeing as the tiny dining room at Thatcher’s BBQ was pretty much jam-packed at 4:00 in the afternoon. Only one other small (4-seater) table was available, so I decided that the sun would move soon. We stayed where we were.

I didn’t catch our server’s name, and since it’s been a couple of months since I wrote a restaurant post, I forgot to ask. She got our waters to us quickly, keeping our styrofoam cups full to the brim the whole time we were there and offering us to-go lids as we paid our tab. She gave us a few minutes to peruse the menu, which I’d already been stalking online. I was pretty sure I knew what I wanted, until I wasn’t.

When a reader (aka superfan: Hi Michelle!) suggested Thatcher’s a few months back, I made a mental note to get there eventually. I didn’t check out the menu immediately, but if I had I probably would have gone there, well, right away. Barbecue restaurants around here have pretty standard offerings: sandwiches, plates, perhaps stuffed potatoes. Thatcher’s BBQ has all of that, but they have some pretty non-standard options too.

A glance at the menu online revealed several salads, and not just some iceberg lettuce with a drizzle of dressing and a little smoked meat on the side…the salads here will make you want to eat your veggies. They have all the standard sandwiches, of course, but lots of others, too: burgers, fried chicken sandwiches, a smoked bologna sandwich. They also have handful of creatively topped hot dogs.

My eyes were drawn, however, to the shovels and buckets. Not literal shovels and buckets, mind you – at Thatcher’s BBQ, a shovel is a pile of white corn tortilla chips topped with your choice of meat, melted cheddar, and other toppings, depending on the type of “shovel” that you get (I was eying the BBQ Oink Shovel, with smoked pork, baked beans, BBQ sauce, and coleslaw). A bucket is basically the same thing, except with tots instead of tortilla chips.

For those of you who, like me, are dying to see these dishes, well…sorry to disappoint you. After Philip decided to get something with pulled pork on it, I decided to go for a different meat, because, well, the meat is the most important part of a BBQ restaurant. I decided on the Brick House Spud, with shredded smoked brisket, cheddar cheese, butter, BBQ sauce, and sour cream. Um, not a mistake. The spud was gigantic and loaded up with toppings, including some of the best brisket I’ve ever eaten. Dang, that stuff was tender, and SO flavorful.

Muttering about how he was probably going to live to regret it, Philip settled on the Ole Hickory Cheeseburger, with a 5 ounce hamburger patty (it’s also available in a half pound), smoked pork, melted cheddar cheese sauce, and BBQ sauce. Meat and cheese heaven on a bun, y’all. It was super flavorful and not overloaded with toppings, so I don’t think that he lived to regret it, though he didn’t finish the whole thing. He did mention that he would have preferred it with just regular cheese instead of cheese sauce, as the cheese sauce made it a little more “goopy”.

Now, great fried okra is like my BBQ restaurant white whale…every BBQ restaurant serves fried okra, but I’ve yet to find one that was up to my standards. I had to try to fried okra, as I’d seen lots of raves about it on Yelp, but found that it was the same thickly coated frozen fried okra that I find at pretty much every other BBQ restaurant. If you guys know of a BBQ restaurant that is serving hand-breaded okra, please let me know! They are, however, making their own (delicious) BBQ sauce, which, when that is inexplicably rare among BBQ restaurants, totally redeems them for the frozen okra.

I’m glad I found Thatcher’s BBQ (thanks again, Michelle), because I will definitely go back. It’s a little bit of a drive since we don’t live anywhere near North Georgia, but it’s not too far from the shop so it’s feasible for takeout on an evening I’m working or if I meet Philip after a morning shift. Reasonable prices, great food, and a friendly staff make it worth a visit.

Thatcher’s BBQ is located at 2929 US-41, Ringgold, GA, 30736. They are open Tuesday – Saturday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. You can call them at 706-935-6465. For more information, you can check out their website, thatchersbbq.com/location/ringgold/ (by the way, there are other locations: Chickamauga, Trenton, and Calhoun. I will probably try the Chickamauga location next time). You can also find Thatcher’s BBQ on Facebook and on Instagram.

Sugar’s Ribs

February 22, 2017

Sugar’s Ribs is a popular BBQ joint near I-75 on Chattanooga’s Missionary Ridge, and it’s easy to see why they’re still around.

So the week before last I totally got taken down with some sickness. Cold, flu, I don’t know…all i know is that I was pretty miserable for an entire week. It did not, however, affect my appetite. Saturday I was feeling mostly better (except I was so tired) and I was craving barbecue. Philip and I headed to the Missionary Ridge location of Sugar’s Ribs. I previously wrote about their downtown location, which has since closed, but had never been to this location.

Sugar’s Ribs is a spot where you walk up to order, they give you a number, and your food is delivered to your table. The atmosphere is very casual and laid-back with inside seating and patio seating…it wasn’t too chilly but since I still didn’t feel great we decided to sit inside (near a window, of course). Each table has a selection of sauces and our server, Lisa, brought us a couple more. It didn’t take too long (maybe about ten minutes) for our food to be delivered to our table.

I knew that I wanted pulled pork, but I couldn’t decide between the pulled pork sandwich and the pulled pork tacos. I asked the cashier for her recommendation and she told me that the tacos were her favorite, so that’s what I went for, with crispy potatoes on the side ($9.95 + $.75 for the potatoes, which are considered a special side). The tacos were served on flour tortillas with shredded cabbage, radishes, a little bit of crispy okra, crumbled queso fresco, lime crema, grilled sweet onions, roasted salsa, and cilantro. The smoky pork was amazing and the flavor combinations were perfect. The crispy potatoes are baked first, then chopped and fried until very crispy, sprinkled with a little bit of cheese. They were so crispy and well-seasoned, very delicious.

Philip decided to go for the smoked sausage plate with okra fries ($9.75 + $.75 for a special side). The plate also came with a cornbread muffin. The sausage is house-made and freshly smoked. It was a little crisp on the outside and it was very tasty, though it was not spiced like a traditional sausage (which I liked, because I don’t love sausage). The okra fries were very thinly sliced pieces of okra fried until crispy, like chips. They were crunchy and tasty (they also serve smoked okra, which is fantastic). The cornbread muffin was okay, pretty average. By the way, all of the sauces were tasty.

Lisa almost talked us into banana pudding, which is made from scratch, but I had just bought ice cream and decided that I better skip the banana pudding. Lisa was a fantastic server, keeping our drinks topped off and talking to us about the dishes and the restaurant. She told us that the owner is a fantastic guy and she loves working for him. He also owns the Boat House, Canyon Grille (which we’ll try one of these days), and a new restaurant being built on Hixson Pike. We loved the food and the service. Our only complaint was that because of the pay at the register set-up the cashier told us that if we wanted to leave a tip we would need to leave it on the table. These days we usually have a little cash, but I know a lot of people don’t carry cash and I would have hated if we hadn’t had money to leave a tip for Lisa!

If you’re looking for great BBQ in Chattanooga, give Sugar’s Ribs a try!

Sugar’s Ribs is located at 2450 15th Avenue, Chattanooga, Tennessee 37494. They are open Sunday – Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Friday – Saturday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. You can call them at 423-826-1199. For more information, check out the Sugar’s Ribs website or find Sugar’s Ribs on Facebook.

Bones Smokehouse

November 2, 2016

Bones Smokehouse is a popular barbecue restaurant in East Brainerd that recently reopened after a lengthy hiatus due to road construction.

When Bones Smokehouse closed forever ago due to the road construction on East Brainerd Road, I thought they were closing for remodeling. Then one day I drove by and the building was gone. “Well, that’s one way to remodel,” I thought. I later learned that they had decided to close until they could find a different location, but when ages passed and they never resurfaced, I resigned myself to the fact that Bones Smokehouse was gone forever.

Then, something miraculous occurred. Back in August, it popped up in my newsfeed that Bones Smokehouse would be reopening in September. Taking up the space that used to be occupied by the oft-in-the-news Fanatics Sports Bar, Bones reopened to fill the space in East Brainerd’s heart that they’d left a good while back.

As I try to do, I waited a little bit before going…to let the initial crowds die down as well as to let them work out the kinks. We started to go there the weekend before, but they were encouraging people to come for the Tennessee-Alabama game and we were nervous of crowds…so we went to Teriyaki House instead. Finally, the next weekend I met Philip when he got off from work and we headed over.

At 3:00 in the afternoon, there were several tables occupied but the place was not crowded by a long shot. We were seated immediately and our server came over to get our drink orders. I didn’t even have to look at the menu to know that I wanted an order of their fried pickles ($4.95), which I consider to be among the best in Chattanooga (they’re in good company, as my other favorites are at Public House with the pimento cheese). The fried pickles came out quickly, served with tiger sauce, a mayo and horseradish based sauce that’s like Arby’s Horsey sauce but better. I love that they serve pickle chips, not spears (chips are much less dangerous to the roof of your mouth, and they hold together better since you eat them in one bite), and they are hand-breaded with cornmeal. They’re fried to a light crisp and not overly greasy. I’d missed them so.

It took me a while to decide what to order. I was torn between going classic (pulled pork sandwich) or a little off the beaten path (pulled pork tacos or enchiladas). I decided that since Philip had the tacos the first time we went to Bones Smokehouse (scroll down to see that review) that I would get something different. I never order chicken at barbecue joints, so I decided to be a little rebellious and do just that. I settled on the pulled smoked chicken with fried okra and french fries ($9.95), also served with a cornbread muffin (garlic toast was also an option). The sides were decent, though I’m fairly certain that both were just frozen standards. The cornbread muffin was pretty good, albeit sweet, which is not my preference. I was not thrilled with the whipped spread in place of butter (why why why do restaurants do this?). The chicken was nice and smoky, though (I did wish that they used dark meat or at least a combination of white and dark meat, since white meat gets dry so easily). I found myself wishing for pork, because it’s just better suited for smoking since it has more fat and stays more moist. I liked the chicken, though, and thought it would have been delicious as chicken salad. I liked all of the sauces (except for the hot, which I did not attempt); however, my favorite was the tiger sauce that was served with the pickles. It reminded me a lot of Alabama white sauce, which is customarily served with smoked chicken.

Philip decided to go for the special, which was a blackened prime rib sandwich ($8.95). Bones Smokehouse serves smoked prime rib every Friday night, so I suppose they had leftovers that they wanted to use up. It was served on a bun with lettuce and tomato, and our server also brought him a cup of tiger sauce. We were surprised to see a large slice of prime rib on the bun instead of more “shaved” slices, which is what we were expecting. Prime rib, you guys, is a perfect medium for smoking, texture wise (I am sure that some purists would turn their nose up at the idea of putting a prime side of beef in a smoker, but seriously, it works). The amount of fat in the cut makes it super tender and moist, and it was so flavorful and smoky. When I tried it, I was concerned that since it was a pretty thick slice of meat that it would be difficult to bite through, but it was extremely tender and easy to bite into. The tiger sauce was a perfect complement (we always eat our prime rib with a little prepared horseradish).

Pre-tip, our total (for my pulled chicken plate, Philip’s sandwich, fried pickles, and a craft beer) was $32.05. Maybe a little pricier than some people would expect for barbecue, but Bones Smokehouse has lots of items on their menu that you would expect at a barbecue restaurant. They know their way around a smoker, and they also know their way around some fried pickles.

I for one am glad that Bones Smokehouse is back in business!

Bones Smokehouse is now located at 7601 East Brainerd Road, Chattanooga, TN 37421. They are open Monday – Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. You can call Bones Smokehouse at (423) 710-3382. Bones Smokehouse does not have a website, but you can find more information on the Bones Smokehouse Facebook page.

Original Post:

Someone give me a cookie. I have managed to only throw in the towel and go out to eat ONE TIME on a weeknight since school started back last week! That’s an achievement, my friends. I wouldn’t have even done that if it hadn’t been for the fact that I HAD TO go to Hobby Lobby Monday night for teacher things….in this case, ribbon for my word wall. My tooth-achingly adorable word wall. But anyway, I’ll stop talking about teacher things and move on to Bones.

Needless to say, after two weeks of marathon kid-wrangling (I have a fantastic little class this year, by the way) I was way exhausted and last night I was really, really looking forward to having someone else cook for me (though Philip did make pizza for me the other night when I had open house!). I had to go to the School Box for this really fantastically life changing tape called “mauvelous” tape (teachers or anyone who wants to hang paper on a wall, check it out) so East Brainerd was an easy choice for today’s review, especially with the Southern Brewer’s Festival taking place downtown and rendering it a no-Chattavore zone because I canNOT risk getting caught in a crowd. There’s a Chinese place that Philip frequently visits with a friend who lives on that end of town, but it’s cash-only so I suggested that we ease on down the road a bit and visit Bones Smokehouse, since we never have cash and also a friend had mentioned to me that Bones Smokehouse had fantastic fried pickles.

A very friendly host greeted us at the door and immediately took us to a booth. Our server, Hilary, took our drink order and left us to check out the menu for a minute. It didn’t take us long to settle on our orders, but they do have an interesting menu for a barbecue restaurant. The appetizers section includes the standards (wings, queso, Brunswick stew, which is a must-have at a BBQ joint) but also a barbecue chicken pizza, a “smokehouse quesadilla”, and, of course, the fried pickles. They have the usual sandwiches but also some more interesting sandwich options like “The Big Pig” with sausage, pulled pork, and bacon, and an overloaded hot dog. The salad menu is definitely more expansive than most barbecue restaurants, and they offer a “favorites” menu that includes several things you probably wouldn’t expect to find in a barbecue restaurant: chicken pot pie, enchiladas, vegetable lasagna, and open-faced roast beef sandwich. They also offer catering options.

Obviously I had to try the fried pickles. It seems that most of the fried pickles that I encounter these days are spears, which I don’t mind from a flavor standpoint but from a mouth-burning standpoint they definitely hold the heat longer triggering more roof-of-the-mouth injuries. Chips are much safer and in the end you really do probably get more on your plate. These were lightly batter-coated, not to a point that they were “wearing a jacket”-you could still see the pickle. I have had some fried pickles that sent me into sodium overload. These were not among those. Yes, they were salty, because pickles are salty….but they obviously know to be shy with the salt on the coating to compensate. These were great, and the creamy horseradish sauce served on the side was a nice (only slightly spicy and a little bit sweet) departure from the usual ranch dressing dipping sauce. Hooray for fried pickles!

While I was intrigued by some of the menu items, I felt like I needed to order the pork-stuffed potato for comparison, since that’s pretty much my standard order at barbecue places. The stuffed potato comes with your choice of meat, cheese, sour cream, butter, bacon, and chives (though the chives were actually green onions….but I like both on my potatoes so I didn’t mind that). It was a salt-crusted potato cut open with the toppings sort of stuffed inside (stuffed potato, hmmmm) unlike that at many restaurants that lay their potatoes all the way open and drown them in ingredients. There’s no sauce…you add your own at the table from a choice of mild, hot, Carolina sweet, or a mustard-based sauce. I tasted the Carolina and the mustard-based sauce before deciding to stick with the standard thick red mild sauce. I found it to have a nice flavor but not overpowering. I would have liked a little more smoke flavor to my pork, but it had a good texture and taste. The potato was big enough to fill me up but not so huge that I couldn’t finish it. It was on par with the better pork stuffed potatoes I’ve had in town.

Philip decided to order the pork tacos: “tender mojo seasoned pulled pork in a soft flour tortilla with smoked corn salsa, jack & cheddar cheese, red pepper aioli, and shredded lettuce, served with red beans and rice. The menu is actually incorrect-the tortillas were not soft. They were freshly fried to a nice crispy texture, which I found to be an impressive touch. The pork had a great flavor and all of the elements really worked well together. The star of the plate from Philip’s perspective, though, were the red beans and rice, which contained (at least from my observation) onions, peppers, corn, and tomatoes. He was entranced by the smell and had me smell them too, prompting Hilary to check on us to make sure everything was okay, then he kept raving about how great they tasted. He said they “taste like Totino’s pizza, but in a good way”. Total compliment because we love Totino’s pizza (though we don’t eat them any more because sub-prime meat, ick). A very interesting menu item indeed and a hit for us.

We liked the atmosphere Bone’s Smokehouse…it felt like, well, a barbecue restaurant. Everything was wood, the ceilings weren’t too high, it was darkish but not gloomy. Hilary was amazingly friendly and I had to make sure to get her name so I could mention her here. She did a great job. The service was quick but not so much that we were concerned about how the food was being prepared. The prices were good-almost exactly $20 before tip. Since East Brainerd feels like the other side of the world to us, it is unlikely that we will ever become regulars, but we would like to go back sometime-perhaps to try the Friday night smoked prime rib advertised on the marquee-that sounds truly interesting. It’s kind of out of the way (for me, anyway) but it’s been around for a while (since 1999).

Check out Bones Smokehouse!

Note: Due to the road-widening project on East Brainerd Road, Bones Smokehouse closed and the building was torn down in the fall of 2014. Rumors have circulated that they were seeking another location, but this has not happened yet (updated July 2016).

Bones Smokehouse is located at 9012 East Brainerd Road, Chattanooga, TN 37421. They are open Monday-Thursday, 11-9 and Friday-Saturday, 11-10 (closed Sundays). You can call them at 423-894-2663. Check out their website, www.bonessmokehousechattanooga.com. You can like them on Facebook though it appears that page is not active and you will have more luck with this page, which is set up like a personal page (you have to send a friend request).

I also wanted to take a moment to address a comment that I received yesterday on my Elemental post from last week. The comment was in very clear violation of my comments policy (found on my disclosures/privacy policy-I’ll list the details below, though) so I deleted it; however, I figure it’s a good time to do a little recap of my review policies.

The reader basically stated (in a very crude way) that he did not respect my reviews because I only write positive reviews. I spent a lot of time in my earlier days as a blogger trying to decide if I wanted to include negative reviews. In the end, I decided that (a) I am a blogger, not a critic; (b) I don’t want to write anything that could potentially damage someone’s business; and (c) not everyone shares my tastes; it up to you guys to decide your feelings about a restaurant. If you are a regular reader of my restaurant posts, you know that I will point out if there is a problem with an experience but as long as my overall experience was positive I’ll still write about it and be nice. The weekends that you don’t see a post (that happens occasionally)? I probably had a bad experience. I’ve chosen quite a few times not to write about a restaurant. You can read more about my decision to be positive here.

Finally, my comments policy. My disclosures/privacy policy includes this statement:

“If you don’t agree with me about a restaurant review, feel free to share your opinion on Urbanspoon, Yelp!, or one of the many other travel and restaurant sites on the internet. However, any unnecessarily negative opinions posted in my comments section (I will accept constructive and nicely worded criticism) will be deleted (you can read more about my policy of positive-only reviews here). You are welcome to post your opinions on other posts, but if you attack other readers or myself, your comments will be removed. I reserve the right to decide what does and doesn’t belong on my blog.”

And you as readers reserve the right to disagree with me…and if you don’t like my blog overall, well, you reserve the right not to read it. But I certainly appreciate those of you who do!

BBQ Andy’s (Soddy-Daisy)

September 7, 2016

BBQ Andy’s, located in Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee, has a very small menu that allows them to do barbecue well – including making their own sauce.

When it comes to BBQ in Chattanooga, I feel kind of “meh”. I’ve written about quite a few BBQ places around town and truth be told, most of them are perfectly decent but less than memorable. There’s nothing that I hate more than eating at a barbecue joint and seeing sauce in a package or getting meat that tastes like it was cooked two days ago (I get reducing food waste, but come on…if I want leftover barbecue I’ll make it myself).

BBQ Andy’s has been around in Soddy-Daisy for several years now and I have eaten there once before, but it was an unplanned dinner with my family and I wasn’t really prepared to write about it. Their hours are kind of limited (11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday) and they don’t really have much of a seating area. Not knowing that, Philip and I once tried to go there to find that they were packed out and there was a 20+ minute wait for food, so we went somewhere else and vowed to come back when we could call it in ahead of time, which we have dutifully forgotten to do ever since.

The first few weeks of school give me infinite excuses to dine out on a weeknight, though, and I’m trying to get a week ahead on my dining out experiences, so it finally dawned on me last week to call BBQ Andy’s. So that’s what we did! I pulled up their menu on their Facebook page. It’s a very limited menu – “Killer” potatoes, sandwiches, plates, a handful of sides (like, three – potato salad, baked beans, or coleslaw), and banana pudding. I called at about 5:30 on a Monday night and was told by the friendly girl on the phone that it would be about fifteen minutes. When we arrived, there were no other customers in the store. We paid for our order and headed home to try it out.

As is my Chattanooga BBQ restaurant tradition, I went for the BBQ potato, or, as they call it, the killer potato. Since Philip was ordering pulled pork, I decided to go for the beef on my potato. They cut the potato up into small pieces that they scatter over the bottom of the styrofoam container, then they top it with meat, butter, sour cream, shredded cheddar cheese, and BBQ sauce. I got some extra sauce so I could taste it on its own as well. I was a little surprised when I opened the container and saw this big mess of a potato, but it was quite delicious. Beef barbecue can sometimes be a little dry, but this was tender and moist. The sauce was very tasty – BBQ Andy’s makes their own sauce (hip hip hooray) and it’s the red tomato-based sauce that is common around here, just a little sweet and a little spicy. I ate half that night and put the rest in my Thermos for lunch the next day.

Philip also went for his standard – the BBQ pork plate. He was a little disappointed that they didn’t have fried okra, but settled on the potato salad and the coleslaw. Like the beef, the pork was very tender and moist, well seasoned and lightly sauced. He actually really liked the potato salad, which was your basic mayo-based potato salad with potatoes that were cooked to a nice consistency and not too much dressing. We are picky about coleslaw and found this one to be very nice. We like it chopped up fine, and this was. There was not too much dressing, which makes coleslaw soupy and unpleasant, and it was just a little sweet.

I decided that I wanted to give the banana pudding (or Nanna Pudding, as it’s listed on their menu) a try as well. At $2.50 for a cup that was plenty big enough for me and Philip to share, it was hard to pass up. It was pretty much what you’d expect of banana pudding – creamy sweet vanilla pudding, sliced bananas, and vanilla wafer. Definitely worth $2.50 to have a nice Southern dessert to go along with your BBQ dinner.

BBQ Andy’s is close to home for me and I have to say that I was pretty happy with the food (house made sauce is definitely a plus). At $17.48 for a BBQ potato, a pork plate, and banana pudding (with enough of our entrees left over for dinner the next day), the price was definitely right. The staff was extremely friendly, and you can’t overlook the fact that BBQ Andy’s consistently scores 99-100 on their restaurant inspections.

BBQ Andy’s will definitely be on my “don’t want to cook” weeknight short list! Check them out!

BBQ Andy’s is located at 106 Karen Drive, Soddy-Daisy, TN 37379 (near Merv’s Burgers). They are open Monday-Friday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and you can call them at 423-332-2011. They don’t have a website, but you can find BBQ Andy’s on Facebook.

Mike’s Smokehouse (Chattanooga BBQ)

March 23, 2016

Mike’s Smokehouse on South Broad Street in Downtown Chattanooga serves great barbecue in a cozy setting!
March is almost over, y’all! Let me fill you in on what I’m doing in April…I’ve challenged myself to eating in for the month of April. That’s right – no dining out! I’m going to focus on freezer meals, make-ahead meals, and creative ways to use leftovers. Don’t worry, though – spring break is next week and I plan on getting ahead on restaurant reviews before April hits!

Okay, on to Mike’s Smokehouse. I’ve been meaning to try it ever since we ate at Mike’s Pizza and Burgers in Fort Oglethorpe, when our server told us that Mike was the Mike of Mike’s Hole in the Wall and Mike’s Smokehouse, where all of the smoked meats for the pizzas were prepared. I had a bit of a craving for BBQ this weekend, so we headed down to South Broad.

The log cabin that Mike’s Smokehouse is in has been a barbecue restaurant for as long as I can remember…most recently, I believe it was Sweeney’s, but I think it’s been others in the past (don’t quote me on that, though). When we arrived around 2:00 on Saturday, the parking lot on the side of the building was full, so we parked in the back. There was a family waiting to be seated, and we waited about five minutes to be seated. They seemed to be a little short-staffed in the dining room, as it was basically full and there were only two servers working.

We perused the menu and decided to order the pulled pork egg rolls ($7.99) with pulled pork (obvs) and spicy slaw wrapped in an egg roll wrapper, fried, and served with Alabama white sauce. These were fried to a perfect crisp and the flavor of the pulled pork and slaw was awesome, though the spicy slaw eventually got to be a bit much for me. The white sauce was a little thicker than what I make, peppery and with just a bit of a bite. By the way, if you want to make pulled pork egg rolls at home, I might know someone who has a recipe…

Since a BBQ stuffed potato is my standard barbecue joint order, I decided that I had to order the pulled pork potato ($6.99). This potato is topped with pulled pork, butter, sour cream, cheese, and sliced green onions. The potato itself was actually coated with the house dry rub, which I thought was a nice touch that set this potato apart from those served at other BBQ restaurants where I’ve had a stuffed potato. The pulled pork was extremely well seasoned with the rub and honestly didn’t need any sauce. It was excellent – very tender and flavorful, some of the best I’ve had. The potato was well cooked and the toppings ample. This potato was huge, as barbecue stuffed potatoes tend to be…I only ate half.

Philip decided to go for a barbecue plate. He wanted pulled pork but decided to get a combo plate ($11.49) with the brisket as well so we could give it a try. He also got macaroni and cheese, which I had read rave reviews of on Yelp, and fried okra, of course. We couldn’t decide if the fried okra was frozen (my guess is yes) but it was pretty decent. The macaroni and cheese, on the other hand, was obviously house made, as prepackaged mac and cheese always has a suspiciously creamy sauce with no sign of actual cheese. This was like what you’d be served at a Sunday family dinner, though I would have liked a little more cheese and seasoning on it. The brisket, which they refer to as “Texas-style”, was well-seasoned with the dry rub and extremely tender. Again, the pork was pretty much perfect. They know how to smoke some meats.

As I mentioned, the servers seemed a bit slammed so the service was a little slow, but they were very friendly and were obviously doing the best they could do. The food did come out pretty quickly, though. The atmosphere is cozy, as the dining area is divided up into three separate spaces in the log cabin. The prices are about average…our total for our meal was $28 and some change pre-tip. This was some of the best barbecue I’ve eaten in a restaurant around here, so I’d recommend that you give them a try soon!

Mike’s Smokehouse is located at 3147 Broad Street, Chattanooga, TN 37408. They are open Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. You can call them at (423) 668-8341. Check out Mike’s Smokehouse’s website, mikessmokehouse.com. You can also like Mike’s Smokehouse on Facebook.