My spouse and I dined at Queen City BBQ for dinner on a
Sunday afternoon in late October 2016 and again on a Sunday afternoon in
mid-January 2017. The restaurant is open daily for lunch, dinner, and drinks.
You can make a reservation online using the Open Table reservation system.
Street parking is available, or you can park in a local surface parking lot of
multi-level parking garage. The Bayou Boys Hospitality Group owns this restaurant,
along with nearby neighbor Grain, The Bayou, and takeout bottle shop Cork &
Cage.
Queen City BBQ opened in October 2016 in
the downtown Allentown space vacated by Shula’s Steak House. The restaurant occupies
a corner ground-floor space in the Strata Flats building. It features large
windows that overlook North Seventh Street and the pedestrian-only ArtsWalk. The
restaurant is located directly across the street from the main entrance of the
PPL Center, so it is a good casual meal option before or after an event. It is
one of the few table-service restaurants downtown (besides Chickie and Pete’s) children
will feel at home. (Although we love Grain, Centro, Hamilton Kitchen, and Roar,
their atmosphere and menu options appeal to a more adult crowd.)
The restaurant seats approximately 150 patrons both indoors and outdoors on
the ArtsWalk. A large indoor-outdoor bar offers 20 craft beers on tap, plus 8 frozen drinks churning in blenders; the restaurant also
offers bottled beer, wine, and cocktails. To keep you entertained, the interior
space features a shuffleboard table, jukebox, and several TVs. The interior
design features stone, reclaimed wood, animal wall decor and art, a gas fireplace,
and cowhide upholstery. Different sections of the dining space offer high-top
table seating, semi-circular booths, regular-height tables, with wooden picnic
tables outdoors on the ArtsWalk. The restaurant can private parties in a
separate dining room located next to the glass-front smoker room.
The menu at Queen City features authentic barbecue and Southern side dishes.
The restaurant smokes its own meats onsite, including house-smoked brisket, chicken, pork, ribs, and
sausage that you order by the pile (quarter pound), mound (half pound),
heap (pound), or sandwich. We ordered a pile each of the brisket, pork, and
chicken so that we could sample a few different proteins. (Our favorite was the
brisket!) The chef serves the meat loaded on a metal cookie sheet lined with
paper; the meats are plain so that you can slather them with the various sauces
(including Memphis
sweet, Texas hot, Bayou tangy, North Carolina mustard, and North Carolina
vinegar) located on every table along with a roll of paper towels. We also
shared a side of potato salad, which was the only item that we did not like,
although we appreciate its originality; unlike any other potato salad that we
have eaten, it featured some unique spice (paprika? cumin?) that turned the
mixture a sort of light burnt-orange color and gave it an unusual flavor. (We have
heard that the potato salad recipe has since been changed, and we plan to
sampling it again.) The buttermilk biscuits were amazing! The biscuit shape was
unique: thin rectangular layers that you could spread with maple-bacon butter
or top with any of the meats. (On our last visit, the shape, taste, and texture
of the buttermilk biscuits has been changed to a more traditional flaky-layered
round biscuit, lightly drizzled with honey and sprinkled with sea salt.) We
shared a slice of homemade coconut cake for dessert; the enormous slice was
multi-layered, with each layer divided by sweet frosting. On our second visit,
we tried the nachos (shredded brisket, chicken, and pork piled atop thin potato
chips, and also including the house-made baked beans and freshly sliced
jalapeno peppers). We also shared a pound of the brisket; this time, because we
ordered a larger quantity, it arrived as several thick slices (which resembled
a thinner cut of prime rib) rather than shredded when we ordered a smaller
quantity. We sampled the cornbread (delicious spread with bacon butter), burnt-ends
baked beans (tasty), and the whoopee pies for dessert. The food is all quite
good, and next time, we plan to try a few new options.
We loved our meals at Queen City BBQ. The way the restaurant
serves its delicious smoked meats offers a pleasant reminder of authentic barbecue
joints we have visited in Texas. We will gladly return!
Update October 2017:
