Hill Country

There is no table service (except cocktails). There is no reserved seating. You may sit at a long communal table (just like Asia de Cuba). You may wait on line for your food. They have a quirky check system. GET OVER IT! People that are bothered by any of that probably eat their ribs with a knife and fork. The ribs are great, the beef shoulder is great, the sides are great, the prices are fair. The hot link is fantastic. Everything is priced by weight which is great for light eaters or huge pigs. (You can order just 4 ribs for example... or 15) There's live music downstairs, too!

It's just like Texas...only better. The meat is smoky and melts in your mouth. The sausage is sick-good and the sauce is tangy and sweet without being over powering. And, you could make a meal of the sides. I ate a bite of the meat and then the cucumber salad which was refreshing and the perfect side to the fatty brisket and sausage. The sweet potato's were lightly flavored with bourbon but not too sweet and the mac and cheese was 5-star. The moist cornbread was better than any I've had anywhere and the special butter that comes with it was heavenly. Luckily, we were with a big group so we had all the desserts and I think they are the best in the city. The PB&J cupcakes rock and the Banana Pudding is sublime. I took the pecan pie home and had it for breakfast...mmm, mmm, good! I can't wait for the music downstairs!

First of all, I'm born and raised in Austin and this place feels more like Austin than anywhere else I've been in NYC. And needless to say, I know BBQ and I've tried most of the spots in the city so I can compare with relative authority. I see that some people don't like the "market place" way of serving and would prefer a more traditional table service paradigm. When I'm in Austin I get my BBQ from a gas station where the counter looks incredibly similar to the one here. Different doesn't mean it's bad, give it a chance! Alot of what I wanted to try was out. But BBQ is a very slow cooked food so it's not like they could whip some more up. They've only been open for a week or so and are probably still trying to figure out how much to make on a daily basis. So I'm not going to fault them for that. No ribs of either kind, moist brisket or the beer can game hen. We had some of the lean brisket (very good) the pork chop (very tender, subtle taste though) and some of the jalapeno cheese sausage (some of the best sausage I've ever had). For the sides we got some baked beans (eh, I've had better) and the potato salad (very good). They cary some stuff you only see in Texas like Bluebell ice cream (drool) and Big Red soda. My biggest complaint is that I didn't like the sauce (thus 4.5 stars instead of 5). Not a huge problem because I'll just bring my own next time; but really it wouldn't hurt them to have a couple of options (theirs has anchovies in it, I don't think that's very traditional and may be one of the reasons I'm not a fan.) Considering the 3 of us stuffed our faces for $45 ($4 bucks tip at the register, no table service = no 20% tip!) it's almost as cheap as Texas as well."

We were looking forward to this new joint but sadly disappointed on a number of levels. Having to line up for food at different counters and keep score of what was ordered on a card is an inconvenience to customers. This would have been acceptable if the food was good but it's nothing that you wouldn't expect from other BBQ places in NY. They also seemed to run out of one of the meats early in the evening. On the whole the food is expensive and sub par.

We were excited to get a new bar-b-q place in the neighborhood and went in with high hopes. Once there, we were told to wait 15 minutes to be met with not a seat at all, but a community table where you have to get your own food from a counter...which would have been fine if there was a way to get a drink other than an ice tea, my ice tea finished and i could not have it filled although we were told that there where drink waitresses walking around...we never saw one? And my fiance never got his cocktail. Supposedly there is live music on thurs nites...that might be fun, but food & service not up to par for NYC restaurant.