Located at
4395 Regency Drive in High Point (with another location on Lawndale Drive in
Greensboro), City Barbeque offers barbecue from 11-9 Sunday-Thursday and 11-10
Friday and Saturday. There is a drive-through window, and delivery, online
ordering, and catering trays are available.
To be a
barbecue chain in a state well-known for barbecue is to exist under a cloud of
suspicion. City Barbeque seems well aware of this as even the very name (absent
a “Kansas”) seems calibrated to lower expectations. Indeed, the walls are
adorned with the approximate distance to better-known BBQ joints. All of this
is to say that this place makes no pretense of trying to dethrone a local
favorite, which is just as well as the meat quality here cannot touch the likes
of Black Powder or Biscuits, Brisket, and Brews. What it lacks in bona fides,
it makes up for in convenience though there is still room for improvement.
Enter City
Barbeque, and you’ll be greeted by a hunger-inspiring smell and a large digital
menu. There are salads and sandwiches though the meats are likely to be the main
draw. You can do them ala carte, by the pound, or in a sampler platter. Should
you save room for dessert, chocolate cake, cobbler, and banana pudding are
available as well.
For our
first visit, my wife and I split a City Sampler (4 meats/2 sides/1 bread) and a
Nashville Hot Chicken sandwich. We opted for brisket, pulled pork, smoked
turkey, smoked sausage, fried okra, hush puppies, and Texas toast. We didn’t
have long to wait for our food, and we found an impressive array of sauces
(sweet, heat, vinegar, mustard, and more) to pair with it.
The food
proved to be a decidedly mixed bag. The brisket was legitimately good, probably
the best I’ve had at a chain. The Nashville Hot Chicken sandwich was tasty as
well, offering mayo and creamy slaw to offset a less saucy chicken breast. Its
heat + sweet pickle combination remains a winner. The turkey and hushpuppies
held their own. On the other hand, the sausage, while flavorful, was very
salty, the okra was forgettable, the pork was dry, and the “Texas toast” was only
a hot dog bun.
City
Barbeque probably won’t be your first choice when a barbecue craving hits, but
the ease of ordering, quick turn-around, and number of menu options mean that
it shouldn’t be ruled out, either. Just the same, you’ll have to watch what you
order here.
