City Barbeque

The Decatur area has been blowing up lately and with new developments come new stores and new restos... But sadly, most restos in new developments are usually franchises or chains that everybody and their mother has eaten at before or refuse to eat again after bad service, food or experiences. Barbeque is big in the south and this town ain't no stranger to very good BBQ. But there are also a ton of really shitty que that somehow has garnished incredible reviews by celebrities and Yelpsters for mediocre grub. So, now comes a new BBQ contender to the new Decatur Crossing shopping center. They are a chain from Ohio and have a few dozen locations spread around 5 states. They supposedly got their start from guys who competed at BBQ competitions and then decided to get together and open up a brick and mortar shop to showcase their award winning que... Sounds pretty damn promising right?
Well, I guess it's time for the pouch to take a first look... I hope it's edible or else the pouch will donkey punch it back to whence it came. The ordering process is almost full retard, you got like one order taker/cashier at the counter so of course a fucking long ass line going out the door is inevitable. Why do so many places do this? If you are gonna set up a order counter right when you get in, at least make some room. It looked like cattle was being herded for slaughter... Speaking of cattle... Let's take a look at the goods.

Judge's Sampler, 1/4 chicken and 1/2 slab of ribs plus pulled pork, beef brisket, 2 sides, 2 cornbreads and Texas toast.

Giant metal bucket of manmeats. It's nice they pack up all the meats in a tin tray with a lid but they really didn't have to do that, it's kinda a waste of money using these big aluminum trays for to go orders. Some butcher paper woulda been adequate. Let's go in order here with the 1/4 chicken, they asked me if I wanted dark or white meat... I always go for the dark because the white gets so dried out and chewy, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt and tried the white meat to see if it was any good or different... Nope, it's about the same as all the other places with white meat, dry and chewy, but it did have a nice flavor and hint of smokiness to it. Definitely, go for the dark meat next time and every time. The ribs looked very nice, great color and smell to it, they only lightly brushed it with their house BBQ sauce. The ribs do pull apart quite easily but you do have to eat them quickly or else they kinda dry out too soon. I don't know if this rib was sitting in the warm box longer than it should have but this woulda been a pretty good rib if it came out fresh from the smoker. The pulled pork was hand pulled roughly and not all minced up which was preferred but you had to sauce the pulled pork up in order to get any decent flavor out of it. The brisket had a great dark bark on it and a nice smoke ring around the edges. It was moist, tender and juicy... Not a bad brisket at all for a chain resto. Overall, all the meats were surprisingly decent that I would actually go back for it again soon.  

Mac & Cheese, Red Beans & Rice. The mac was ok, the cheese sauce was a bit bland. The red beans & rice had nice size chunks of chicken in it. I don't know if I would use chicken but it didn't hurt my feelings, either.

Cornbread and Texas Toast. The cornbread was a bit dry and needed more butter and salt. The Texas toast was acceptable. Both were just filler and not really meant to enhance the BBQ, but you could use the toast to sop up the red beans & rice juice with it.

The Judge's sampler for $29 ain't a bad deal considering what you're getting. It will definitely feed two people with leftovers and perhaps even 4 medium sized humans under 5'7". The set up is quite efficient except for the ordering process. There's a sauce stand where you can load up on different sauces... None of them were that great and they kinda taste the same after awhile. But it will do the trick if you need some lube to swallow that manmeat down. I like the place so far and they just opened, so, hopefully with a little more practice and routine they will become more consistent and efficient. The convenient location alone will get me back there sooner than later.


2511 Blackmon Dr.
Decatur, GA 30033
https://www.citybbq.com/