I don’t mind eating baby back ribs, but given my rathers I’d choose the spare rib just as the Jailhouse did. Baby backs, in my opinion, are a bit foo-foo and not great BBQ fodder. Spare ribs have more meat and to me just taste better.

Baby backs tend to be a bit more expensive…and in that sense you are right on…for the price you paid you probably wouldn’t expect to be getting spare ribs.

But at the end of the day…nearly everything you BBQ is gonna be good. But you have to cook it properly, with the proper seasonings, and with the proper equipment. You simply can not roast (or boil as I suspect is the treatment the mushy ribs at the Jailhouse received) unseasoned meat and expect people to come back for more.

When people say your food was finger licking good you can take it as a huge compliment. When I left the Jailhouse all I wanted to do was thoroughly wash my hand and brush my teeth.

Now with that bit of information out of the way I’ll give you my review of the place on the only visit I made there.

My fiance and I stopped by after stumbling upon the place about two months ago. She had BBQ Pork and Chicken while I had BBQ Pork and Ribs. I’m an Eastern North Carolina native and I know good BBQ. What we got WAS NOT good BBQ. Everything we ate was a uniform brown color and absolutely nothing had any hint of smoke flavor to it. THEY CAN NOT IN ANY WAY BE COOKING WITH SMOKE…I don’t care what anyone says. No smoke ring + no smoke flavor = you ain’t cookin’ with smoke!

The meat we got was somewhat dry. The BBQ Pork as well as my ribs were somewhat mushy. None of the meat had flavor on it’s own. There was no seasoning on any of the protein we had on our plates. Look…if you’re not going to cook BBQ with smoke you at least need to season your meat people! This stuff had no flavor at all…NONE!

Vegetables. The best I can remember…they didn’t have any seasoning either.

Service was good, but that’s about the only positive this place had.

It’s no wonder their doors are closed. If you serve good food and have good service, you’ll likely have a successful restaurant…but you can’t have good service and bad food and expect to make it.

I would have never gone back to the Jailhouse BBQ, but now it seems I won’t have to.

Now if someone who knew how to cook BBQ were to go re-open the place, I think it’s in a decent location and has a nice “BBQ” atmosphere. I like the name and the history behind the building. It’s a shame someone went in there and made such a mess of the place. A bad aura is hard to get rid of.

For our sides, we had beets, potato salad, beans and french fries. They were all ok. I think the potato salad was my least favorite.

The sweet tea was very good. Sweet enough to use as pancake syrup… just the way I like it!

Finally, our service was good and the atmosphere was nice. I would visit again to try the bbq sandwich. Having eaten at several award winning bbq restaurants in the past, I would say there is potential for Jailhouse to be a fun place with good food.

Thank you for visiting! I’ve been to the Jailhouse once since this review was written and enjoyed the meal just as much.

Next time I’m there, I’ll definitely try the chocolate pie. It sounds good!

Thanks again for your visit to my blog.

I appreciate the picture and compliments. I am glad that you enjoyed the meal. We pride ourselves on the Carolina style Bar-B-Q. If you get the chance we would love to see back again. I hope you get the chance to try our chocolate cream pie and our smoked chicken “carolina style ” of course.

Just a note of history. The building you eat in was the dorm for the inmates. This was the Onslow County Jail from 1934 until 1959. The jail included 1100 acres of farm with minimum and maximun security inmates.

The past history of this building includes many other restaurants. When we decided to open, my wife and I felt it was important to recognize the roll this building played in local history even though you will find very little in the records about it.

Please come again and bring your friends.

Thanks
Rick
Head Cook and Owner

If it’s good enough for the birds, why wouldn’t it be good enough for us?

Sweet tea would be a gift from the gods…If there were any…Gods, that is.