Redbones Barbecue
| Address: | 55 Chester St, Somerville, MA 02144, USA |
| Phone: | +1 617-628-2200 |
| Site: | redbones.com |
| Rating: | 4.3 |
| Working: | 11:30AM–12:30AM 11:30AM–12:30AM 11:30AM–12:30AM 11:30AM–12:30AM 11:30AM–12:30AM 11:30AM–12:30AM 11:30AM–12:30AM |
Location
Photos 1
Reviews 6
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Kristy Thibodeau
The girls and I were looking for a nice weeknight, CHEAP, meal. Come on, you know we are classy ladies but we aren’t made of money fools and some of these Best of Boston restaurants may flaunt the best delicacies but they come with a price. If you know me, I’d rather go to a concert or travel which often leaves me high and dry but I am trying to expand my horizons and still venture this little city of ours. Since I work in Davis Square and my friend suggested a savory meal on a dime, Redbones seemed like a no brainer. Conveniently located off the Davis Square Red line stop, my friends met me after work in the upstairs bar. Redbones is a dive, a wonderful, dimly lit, artistically voodoo painted hole in the wall. It has an upstairs and downstairs bar with two dining rooms on each floor. The upstairs has a family kitchen/diner feel to it while downstairs is a darker version. The menu is large and a bit complicated for a first time customer. Our waitress suggested some apps and we started with fried pickles, hush puppies, and fried catfish. Good stuff, but we could have done without the hush puppies because we were served a nice size portion of corn bread before the apps arrived and 3 fried plates may have been excessive. Selecting the main course was in itself a challenge. You could go individual meals, family style or bulk style. Family included meats and sides, bulk was heftier meat portions but separate sides. We decided to go with bulk a rack of baby back and half rack of Memphis pork ribs with side of grilled veggies, mashed potatoes and beans. We hardly started our apps when our meal was served. Talk about efficient, but we felt rushed and overwhelmed on our small dinner table for four (even though we were 3, eating for 7, so what?). Truth be told, this was my first experience eating ribs. I know, I was hardly let out as a child…no not true, I just refused to eat anything with BBQ sauce until I left college and no I don’t know why. Baby back ribs were over cooked, memphis ribs were a little undercooked and the grilled veggies we could have done without. Overall, the meal was filling, okay and cheap (total $30 pp). Excellent selection of beer and whiskey which is always a plus, so we’d go back again.
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Estelle Mathieu
French version below. Ribs are really really amazing. Meat was so tender than it melted in the mouth like butter. Seasoning was tasty and well balanced. You can choose to make it spicy or not. We dont, we wouldnt mess this great taste with hot stuff. Decoration, atmosphere and staff is what you expect of a steakhouse in your sweet dreams. Beers are very good also, I recommend porters to have good tasting match with the meat. Les Ribs sont fantastiques, la viande est parfaitement assaisonnée, et fond dans la bouche comme du beurre. Rien nest épicé auparavant, cest la sauce que vous rajoutez (ou non) qui fera la différence. On a préféré ne rien mettre en plus tellement la viande était excellente. Lambiance et lequipe sont à la hauteur du steakhouse dont tout le monde rêve secrètement. Très bon choix de bières, et je recommande les porters, qui vont très bien avec la viande en général.
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Mister Green
WHAT HAPPENED?!?! Not sure if Redbones is under new management or not, but something terrible has happened to our favorite BBQ place. The service, which used to be prompt and courteous, is now slow and standoffish. I recognize none of the old staff, seems to me they cleaned house and brought on younger people to cut costs. We asked for the cornbread of course and were told, "We no longer serve it, but Hushpuppies are kinda the same thing" uhhhhhh........no. They decreased the portion size across the board. The sides are now in a thimble sized cup instead of piled on the plate. The meat portion is less than half of what they served in previous years. Everything is the same price as before but with way less quality and portion. The menu overall has totally shrunk to half the size. Unreal. We were so bummed out the last time we went, our family left unhappy because we will never go back to our favorite quirky BBQ place for the last 15 years again. Anyone giving this place positive reviews recently has obviously never been here when it was good, just doesnt know BBQ, or is a current employee trying to paint it in a positive light online. I realize circumstances change, maybe something happened and the old business model just wasnt going to work anymore. But its still a major, major bummer. Im sure they have lost a ton of long time customers this past year. Such a shame. Does anyone here have any real information on what happened? I havent been able to dig up anything. The staff had no idea because they are all brand new.
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A Private User
i would skip this place. we got the memphis ribs and the brisket. neither had much taste at all, we hypothesized that our meat had been baked in an oven (instead of slow roasted over coals with woodchips for flavor). we also thought it seemed that the meat lacked a spice rub. after putting some salt on the meat and adding some bbq sauce it was better, but not approaching good. another problem was the bbq sauces, which came in three little tiny paper cups, apparently to be divided among the meat with great care and precision. really? a bbq joint should want to show off its sauces, there should be ample amounts of sauce, not ridiculous tiny paper cups. if for no other reason, more sauce should be provided to make up for the inexplicably tasteless product. now i feel like I am being kind of hard on this place. the fried okra was OK, as were the beans and the slaw. the cornbread, however, was definitely subpar. this does not deserve the reputation as a "real bbq joint" that some posts seem to give it. if these ribs were served anywhere in the south they would be laughed out of town.
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Amanda Bowers
Great food, wait as expected for busy Friday night, slightly loud but overall good experience. My husband and I got an order of corn bread to start, which was moist and buttery without the sweet tones many kinds of cornbread have, it brought a savory authenticity to the start of the meal. It came out warm, not just on the outside but through an through. I got pulled pork and pulled chicken in a pick three with double pork. The chicken had an odd sweet sauce with a seasoning I couldnt place, maybe cumin which I wasnt fond of though it was moist and had great texture, I ended up getting full and didnt really want it, though it wasnt so bad as to be inedible it was definitely a low point. But the pulled pork more than made up for it, falling apart soft with great flavor. My husband got the St Louis (pork) and Texas beef ribs which he enjoyed, though he said the beef was better, and wished he had tried the brisket.
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Alex Mottern
Im going to need to go back. That plate of fried pickles and jalapenos was so filling and HUGE. I wish my plate of buffalo shrimp was just as big because it was so good, but I would have needed to be rolled out then. Cheap beer and I liked the way the menu was laid out with a few lines of descriptions, not overkill and overwhelming as some places do now. Staff were interesting...Im not talking about the service itself, but the fact that our server didnt know what a flash drive was (my friend gave me one, I couldnt reach my purse, so I left it on the counter). He said he didnt know anything about that computer stuff. They wont seat you without your whole party, which makes sense because the place is small but everything moves fast enough so you shouldnt be waiting too long. We sat at the bar by the oven, and watching the meat come out and be cut up and it was almost enough to convert two vegetarians.
