306 Barbecue

Great location, fast service and great food. We have eaten here now a few times and love it !! Great for families or just walk in.

After reading the reviews, I was excited to try them out. Well, I’m a little disappointed at the results. The rib sandwich had no bones and no sauce, taste like it had been cooked in a crook pot. the meat was tender but had no smoke flavor. Coleslaw was OK. mac n cheese looked like everyday Kraft mac n cheese. I’ll keep looking for better BBQ in Athens.

best food around! squash ala bam is great as is everything else served here!!! high reccomend

Staying town tonight and didn’t want to eat at a chain restaurant. The hotel clerk suggested this place. Glad we asked!

I like this restaurant a lot. They serve several types of meat, ribs, pulled pork, ham, brisket, turkey, chicken. Their absolute best is the smoked turkey. This is the most succulent smoked turkey I’ve ever had. Great flavor but still moist and tender and they serve you a nice portion. You can buy it by the pound if you like. The other meats are good but not the best in the area, although I would say they are competitive so don’t shy away from them.
The sides are often the star of the show. Not all barbeque places offer great sides; this place does. The green beans, squash casserole and mac-​n-​cheese are very tasty and make it worth the trip. The banana pudding is not the best. It’s sweet and tasty but not the kind the grandma makes. And they serve beer on tap! So well worth worth it if you are in the area.
And their food is made fresh, so they will run out of some items occasionally. Just don’t wait until closing to visit.

Every time I go I promise I’m going to try something different but then I walk in and can’t get past the ribs on the menu. Some of the best I’ve ever tasted, consistently. Wife says the smoked chicken is also delicious, but I may never know.

Good bbq turkey and pork. The squash casserole is usually good. Don’t miss the banana pudding. It’s not like mama made, but it’s definitely delicious. Friendly and fast service.

As BBQ joints go… this is pretty darned good. I had the 2-​meat/​2-​sides combo. The pulled pork and ribs were very tender. The broccoli casserole excellent, and the mac-​n-​cheese very creamy. Overall… delicious.

We drove down from TN to Athens for a meeting and decided to get some local BBQ. 306 BBQ had excellent ratings, so we decided to give it a try
My first impressions weren’t great. I saw they had brown sugar green beans as a side dish. As I had never heard of these, I asked what they were. The cashier said she had never tried them and didn’t know what they were. She said they might be like baked beans. After ordering I went to get my drink and found they were out of both ice and sweet tea. A remark to the manager had both refilled quickly.
Our order consisted on half rack of ribs, pork plate and chicken wings. Sides were mac and cheese and coleslaw. The mac and cheese were excellent, very creamy. The coleslaw is a vinegar slaw with just the right balance of sweet and sour. Very good.
The wings were ordered with Zinger sauce. That is some great sauce! We all shared our plates, but for some reason the person who ordered the wings didn’t want to share more than one wing. Something about «Eat your own food, this is mine!»
Now for the not so great.
The pulled pork is moist and very flavorful-​pork flavor. There was NO indication of a rub and no sign, visual or taste, that it had been smoked. It was more like a baked pork roast.
I had high hopes for the ribs as they were very thick and meaty. But the texture and flavor were not good. The meat will indeed fall off the bone, but unfortunately the texture is very, very soft. It just falls apart. At first I thought they had been in a pressure cooker, but even a pressure cooker leaves actual meat fibers. The flavor was also not good. I’ve had ribs from all over the US; Kansas, Memphis, Carolinas, and I’ve never tasted ribs like these. I only ate 2 of them and boxed the rest. On the drive home, it finally hit me– They tasted exactly liked BBQ flavored Vienna sausages. I’ll eat vienna sausages when camping, but sure don’t want to spend $ 13 on ribs that taste like that.
So, in conclusion a couple of hits but a couple of major misses.

When this place first opened it was fall off the bone outstanding. It’s fallen off a bit (no pun intended) but still way above average. Only once have I been there on an «off» day.
As far as the sides go. It’s a BBQ joint. They’re decent but BBQ is their thing. I still have no complaints. I’ve seen some reviews that seemed like they were auditioning for something in a large city. It’s a hometown BBQ joint for the love of Pete. Come here for the BBQ. If you want a vegetable plate, go to Cracker Barrel. If you’re looking for ambiance and fine dining, stay away from restaurants with BBQ in the name.
Bottom line? I’m hungry for BBQ and headed to 306.

This is one of those local places that people love. It was very good and this was the second time I have been here. Both times I have been pleased. I will return. The place is always busy. I have noticed that some people have stated that this place does not have much for vegans. So to help that person and anyone else who might be thinking of eating here I want to offer some helpful hints on whether a vegan should eat here or not. First off the sign has not only the 306 but it all includes barbecue. They could have put in there tofu, green stuff, or any other thing that does not involve a animal dying, but barbecue is sorta of a give away. Second while we are close to Huntsville, a very different Alabama city, we are still In the country at 306 and inside of Alabama. So that all you vegan’s know, Alabama is not a vegan state. We will eat nearly everything outside of humans and armadillos. We just have one rule for most southern foods add butter. 3^rd going to a BBQ place and wondering about vegan foods is like going to a vegan shop and wanting to know about the meat they serve, crazy. Wings are good here, BBQ sauce is good, Mac and cheese looked great. Eat lots of meat at 306!!!

Great bbq! The staff was very friendly and the food was decently priced. They even toasted the bun for the pulled pork sandwich! Only downside was that they only have brisket a few days a week.

Great BBQ. The place is clean and the people are very nice. I ordered a ton of food and it was all excellent

A friend and I stopped through during a long drive from Nashville back down south. Looking at the Unilocal photos had us excited for a half rack of ribs and some Mac and cheese. We were initially disappointed to learn on the busy Sunday they’d run out of most meat items and had pork and a few sides left.
We couldn’t be happier that we chose to stay. The pulled pork was delicious, and every imaginable sauce was available: hot sauce, a one-​of-​a-​kind hot BBQ and BBQ sauce, and some ranch. The brown sugar green beans were a small wonder in themselves, and the potato salad was great.
Don’t worry about a long wait time, less than two minutes after we ordered, piping hot food was set down in front of us. We will be stopping again.

The ham on our Ham Loaded Potato was not pulled barbecue ham, but was like diced or cubed water-​injected ham. Still good, but seemed a little over-​civilized for a BBQ place.
The outside picnic tables are all in the sun, apparently due to a recent parking lot repaving. I hope some of these tables are moved into the shade under the awning.
They are on Facebook and Twitter.

Best ribs I’ve had outside a BBQ competition. They even beat some I’ve judged. I got a half rack. They were super tender without falling apart. They had a little sauce on them and were perfect, but I kept adding the red sauce to it because it was sweet and tangy. They leave the bottom membrane (common for most restaurants) on the ribs which may have block some of the smoke penetration, but once again, they tasted great!

I would love to give this place a higher rating. My first time in, ever. I stopped in for a to go order, as I was on a last minute biz trip to Atlanta. I ordered the grilled chicken plate. Comes with two sides. Trying to be a good little boy, I ordered a «half chicken with a side salad and Brunswick stew» Chicken was moist, but… soggy…throw away skin. Also… I got a ¼ Chicken, not a half. But what a brotha going to do 10 miles down the road when he finds out? Brunswick stew was ok, but reallllllly greasy. I only ate a few bites. Salad, was a salad. This place has all the tools for GREATNESS! I hope they will strive to be such.

A big hit for the BBQ enthusiasts. If you are a sometime meat eater this can be a real treat. Friendly fast service. Not for the vegan diet as their vegetable dish consists of potato salad, cole slaw and beans. My husband is a BBQ aficionado and said he would go back. I tasted one of his ribs and it was falling off the bone tender and tasty. He also had BBQ chicken which he said was smokey and good. This was a stop-​over on our way to a vacation destination but we may make it a yearly stop.

Okay, I’m a pizza guy, but I’ve lived in Bama for 5 years now and this has become my favorite BBQ place.
1) $ 0.45 wings on Wednesdays. I love the wings, smoked and then fried. Seriously fantastic. However, you should not go on Wednesdays, go some other time.
2) I got the pork plate my first trip, and it was very good. My wife likes Lawler’s better, but she’s not writing the review, I am — and I like their pork better.
3) The sides — okay this is where they do the business. Broccoli casserole — in what world am I a lover of broccoli? When it’s served by 306, Holy Moly! This is the best broccoli ever. Cheese, broccoli, and maybe some other stuff, I don’t know, I don’t care I just want to eat it.
Macaroni & cheese — Well Hello! This is not Kraft Dinner, this is homemade stuff and it melts in your mouth. I had to stop getting the sides because I’m trying to lose a few pounds and the wings are loaded with protein ;-)
4) In Alabama you have to have Sweet Tea, pronounced by some locals as «Swee-​Tee». Sweet, but not so sweet as to make me need a glass of water as a chaser.
5) The little bread you get with your meals is a nice piece of bread. I like to dip it in the BBQ sauce and eat it like dessert.
How many times have I been… did I mention $ 0.45 wings on Wednesdays?
Edit: Décor — I don’t care about décor when I go to BBQ place as long as its clean, has bathrooms so I can wash my hands. I don’t expect anything fancier than tables & chairs.
I do wish they had free wi-​fi.

Having been back MULTIPLE times since my first review, I must repent for robbing them of a star previously. My wife swore off ribs for years until I finally convinced her to try one here, and now she orders them herself. According to her, this is the only place that gets them to fall off the bone in an acceptable manner, and the sauce complements the dish amazingly well. The bones are soft enough to give to our dogs without being so mushy that you accidentally bite through them as I have experienced at other local places.
We have also used them to cater twice now, and their bbq pork is a huge hit! The white sauce isn’t as good as Big Bob’s in my opinion, but the pork is so much better than anywhere else that it just doesn’t need sauce.
The sides are all spectacular, but the banana pudding is the perfect side to help mellow out the meat sweats!
Last but not least, the service has only ever been good here. The staff are all friendly and know their menu well, and we’ve not had a single request that caused them to pause in their willingness to make it a good experience. Good bbq is fairly common in this area, but good service at a bbq restaurant is almost unhead of. I hope they keep up the great work, and I also hope they have a presence at Whistle Stop this spring!