Bud C.
Yelp
If you believe that the best barbecue is usually found in the worse part of the city, in a place with bars on the windows and just enough grease on the table to write your initials, then this isn't it.
What this is, is a sort of combination sports bar with a lot of televisions and loud music, that is also a brewery and as well as a restaurant that has barbecue. What it is LoyalQ and Brew on old Milton highway in suburban Alpharetta. What it is, is a spic and span second effort to prove a concept that fell short in Marietta can succeed. If our experience is any indicator, it's going to be an uphill climb.
If you check out their web site, you probably can hardly wait to get there.
The photos show brisket at perfection. Mouth-watering, moist, good deep bark and textured; you can almost smell the hickory. With high hopes, the Brown Shoe Gourmet ordered Loyal's two meat (pulled pork and chopped brisket) platter with two sides ($22.95). The request to the waiter was simple, please leave the fat on the brisket, that's where the flavor is. Ditto the pulled pork.
The pulled pork came as requested. Excellent. Delicious bits of bark, full flavored pork, a light hickory flavor that tasted even better with a couple of their five sauces: the house (tomato and light vinegar), and their vinegar sauce, as good as most you'd find in Carolina.
The brisket was served in cubes that could have been cut from shoe leather. Not a quarter ounce of moisture in the plentiful serving. Taste? None regardless which of their five sauces was tried.
Sides? A mayo based slaw served in good quantity but nothing really different than you'd get most everywhere else. The menu said "hand-cut" fries. Which I am sure they were, but they were nearing rigor mortis when they got to the table.
As someone who really enjoys good barbecue, this was a big time disappointment. Almost as disappointing was the lack of service. In fact, the only way we could get a server's attention, after too many times trying, was to get up and find him back by the kitchen. Lunch for two at LoyalQ topped $50. It would seem at that price point, a visit to the customer's table for something other than to leave the bill would be part of the deal.
Ultimately a gentleman named Austin, whose title he explained was "house manager" came to the table and seemed almost embarrassed at the brisket his kitchen had served and not too pleased about the fries also short of what he thought the way they should be served.
For a place that pushes price points to their upper limits ($37.95 for a rack of ribs and just one side) service and quality should be a given. Yes, Austin did replace the items he recognized as being subpar - but that was maybe 20 minutes after lunch was first served. We (there were two of us) wondered how many people either didn't say anything, couldn't find their waiter to complain and just decided one visit was enough. They weren't going to be loyal to this Q.
For a guy who has spent a lifetime in pursuit of the perfect barbecue (read my more than 125 barbecue reviews from across the country on Yelp), I have a problem when eager entrepreneurs try to marry a Yuppie Sports Bar and a Barbecue joint in hopes of attracting enthusiastic (and loyal) customers from both.
Two stars and only two because the House Manager apologized and then did is best to make things right