Neelys Bar-B-Que

BBQ nachos, some heavy down and dirty grubbing. definitely recommend this place as I’m sure ⁹⁄₁₀ fat people agree.

Great meat… did not like the sides and use of margarine on breads and dessert! Come on — you have to use real butter!!! I have had much better.

In Memphis for a conference, my friend and I walked 0.8 miles to have BBQ at Neely’s… only to find a darling French establishment has now taken its place. However, I would definitely give 5 stars to Monsieur deMarcus, which has a lovely assortment of crepes (savory and sweet) and salads, from $ 7 – 15. We should have tried the ten-​veggie soup; our waitress raved about it! Apparently this place is brand new: cash only until Monday (tomorrow). Great atmosphere, with white tablecloths and French music. I’m a fan!

Closed for renovations… both locations. Really!!!

Wow, what a disappointment. My wife was excited about going after watching the owners on TV. We took the trolley and walked to the location.
My wife’s beef ribs were tough, my pork ribs were okay. Baked beans were marginal. French fries were soggy. Service was at best mediocre.
Really not worth going out of your way.

Okay, it’s a dive. The place could use some beautification… BUT I also appreciate the original look. This is the place that helped earn the Neelys the house hold name status. Nonetheless, Memphis BBQ… and it’s amazing!!! My mom and I split at large pulled pork plate with BBQ beans and Mac and cheese… that came with four rolls. Everything was great! We also shared a piece of peach cobbler… yummy!!!

On our recent tour of BBQ restaurants in Memphis, Neely’s was high on our list of places to visit, since we read and heard so much about this establishment primarily from word of mouth and the Food Network. I ordered the pork rib dinner, which is a ½ slab with the mild sauce, baked beans, coleslaw and rolls. The ribs were tough and tasted like they were smoked the day before and reheated. The bbq sauce and beans were just ok. The coleslaw was «spicy», which was nothing more than coleslaw with cayenne pepper sprinkled in it… not tasty at all! The service was decent, however the server «warned» us that people don’t particularly care for the coleslaw. I should have listened.
I’m a firm believer that this place rides off the notoriety of the Food Network show and gets visitors by default, not because of food quality and service. Neely’s was a MAJOR disappointment on our Memphis BBQ restaurant tour and I wouldn’t recommend this place to anyone. I’m not a stickler for fancy dining establishments, however this place is like eating in a dark dungeon. If you’re looking for «ambiance» this place lacks that all around. Don’t believe the hype… this place is awful.

Visiting Memphis, one of the most highly anticipated items to do on my checklist of must-do’s, was dinner at Neely’s world-​famous barbeque.
This barbeque restaurant, which has a reputation for having one of the all-​time best Memphis-​style barbeques (plus boasts that it’s owned by the Neely’s — who we love to watch on the food network!), I must say that sadly we were incredibly disappointed.
Let me interject by saying that the service staff were amazing; warm and friendly and extremely inviting, so this review is not really indicative of the service staff. They were wonderful, and if it were not for them, this review would not even merit the one star that it did receive.
The food was, to put it bluntly, quite lousy. Very poor quality cuts of very fatty meat, and highly unpleasant to even attempt to eat.
We ordered the pork ribs, which were «OK» but rather lackluster, and the sauce and flavoring was not anything to write home about. Frankly, I have tasted better BBQ sauce from a bottle, and this really did sadden me.
However, the BBQ Sliced Beef Brisket was horrendous. Fatty, horrid cuts of meat with chewy «tubes» (arteries perhaps? Ewww) running all through it was practically inedible. We had to pick through very carefully to get the few morsels of meat that we did actually try and eat.
The side dishes were nothing to write home to about and frankly very subpar. The Mac n Cheese was something you would just swear came out of a blue and white box from the market, and their «famous» BBQ spaghetti was just OK,. if you like gluey, over-​cooked spaghetti pasta tossed with terrible sauce and served lukewarm. The green beans — were, in a simple word, disgusting.
IT IS A VERY SAD COMMENTARY when the very BEST part of the meal, were the store-​bought warmed dinner rolls with butter. At least we were able to get somewhat full from eating the bread, thank goodness.
Now — on the positives — once again, the staff was exceptional — VERY hospitable (even going so far as to meet us at the curb with an umbrella as it was raining and helped us into the restaurant!), so if this rating was for a staff, they would be TOPS. However, it is not, it is for the food. Also, the «sock it to me» cake was quite delicious, moist, and flavorful.
Overall, can I recommend this restaurant? Absolutely not — I am sad to say, that the BBQ that was served at a commercialized concessions stand at Elvis Presley’s Graceland was FAR SUPERIOR IN EVERY WAY to the BBQ that was served here, which frankly and quite honestly, I would not serve to my dog. I hate saying that — truly, but it’s the truth.
I hope this in some way reaches the Neely family so that they can take some positive steps towards improving this experience for future guests — and perhaps having the food be anywhere even remotely like the wonderful BBQ on their TV show!

Dont let the exterior (or interior) of Neely’s fool you. The food holds its own with the best of BBQ. I had some of the juiciest, thickest, most flavorful ribs I have ever eaten here. Sides were wonderful and who doesnt love BBQ spaghetti? On top of the wonderful food the service was stellar. Those are some of the friendliest, most genuine servers I have ever come across.

Some of the worst BBQ I have ever eaten
Slow service, tea was so sweet could not drink. Rolls hard and sweet, sauce sweet.
If you are going to run on Sunday make it fresh and servers should act like they want to be there.
Got to say there is better places big thumbs down

They’ve got really good sauce and spice rub and use a good quality of meat: you stick a plate of their ribs in front of me and you better pull your hands back quick lest you pull back a stump.
As good as their food is, they’re a little too «pretty» (for lack of a better description). Real, Memphis-​style ribs should be a bit grubbier. Neelys feels a bit like they’ve let theyve let the Food Network mentions go to their head.

Hot damn, that’s some sweet barbecue. The tea was sweet, the sauce was sweet, the rolls were sweet, and the waitress was sweet.
I asked for a tiny piece of turkey to try and the kind woman serving our meal brought me a plate of it for no charge.
I’d still rather get some chopped shoulder from Tops, though. Or the Interstate in the airport.

As I searched for the proper star to assign, I knew I could not say I’d had better. Let us stick with «A-​OK». I have ALWAYS bragged on Memphis bbq and Neely’s has always been on my list of bbq restaurants I love. Still, I hadn’t been in a while and I wanted to hold off a review until a day when the bbq was fresh on my breath. I needed to be accurate. Imagine my surprise when I drove hundreds of miles for bbq and received, at best, a lack luster experience.
I visited the downtown location this time. I thought, «This does NOT look like a spot that made the Food Network but hey, it DOES look like a bbq joint and I am sure heaven on a bone awaits inside.» Here are some things I found:
–Several workers chillin
–People moving from the front of the house to the kitchen with ease and without hair nets or uniforms. «Do you work here or not?» I asked one guy.
–Spaghetti served in a plastic bowl on paper to which it stuck! So I scraped and ate paper until I was fed up. :-/​
–A server who waited until I had been there 30 minutes to tell me they didn’t have the rib tips for which I had come.
–Spicy, delicious spaghetti with overcooked noodles
–Spicy, delicious cole slaw
–Spicy, sweet, delicious baked beans that made me scrape the bottom of the Styrofoam
–Rolls that looked perfectly buttered, soft, and shiny but left a lot to be desired
–Green beans worthy of serving at Thanksgiving dinner instead of your grandmom’s
–Beef ribs that I had intended to get dry but came out wet because they didn’t ask and I forgot to specify. They were huge and good but not special.
–A female server who was funny and fun to chat with in between service
–A guy who only worked there on weekends, asked me for a hug, was denied, and responded to the rejection with, «So! I don’t care. I’m goin home.» BWUAHHAHAHAAAAAAA! I had to put him on blast just for that terrible response! (TeeHee) Man up.
When all is said and done, I will go back and try again. I don’t understand why the entrees were so lack luster and I want Memphis bbq to reign king so I will try again. To be continued …

I haven’t been to Neely’s since my original review over a year ago. It’s one of those BBQ spots that isn’t mentioned too often and since this location is off the beaten path, you just don’t tend to think of it that often.
When we walked in, it took about 5 minutes before any of the wait staff bothered to head over and seat us, and yes they all were very aware we had arrived. As we were waiting, we noticed an inexcusable amount of flies inside the glass stand full of BBQ sauce, cookbooks and other goods for purchase. Some dead, most alive. Regardless, this is not a sight you want before you are going to eat.
Once we were sat and ordered (2 pulled pork platters and a rib tip basket) I noticed a couple of dead roaches on the floor near my feet. Roaches freak me the hell out. Like hyperventilate, I want to die– freak me out. My husband made some excuse about how they were dead so we should be okay– when in reality I think he just didn’t want to call the wait staff over and make a scene.
The food came and it was no better. Both my friend’s and my pulled pork was SWIMMING in water. There was a good ¼ cup of water sitting on the plate in and around the pork and BBQ sauce. It was disgusting. Not sure what causes this, but I’ve never had it happen anywhere else and I could only pick at the meat on my plate. My husband liked his rib tips well enough, but given everything else that had transpired we were over it. Given how much good BBQ there is to be had in Memphis, this will not be a place I will return to until the Neely’s decide to step in and fix the issues going on here. The place seems to have fallen to the wayside as I know it wasn’t this bad when I was here a year ago. In fact, I clearly remember loving it when we were here last.

I first learned about Neely’s on the Food Network, and was excited to be passing through Memphis this past weekend, as it was the perfect opportunity for me to experience Neely’s firsthand.
Unfortunately, I had built my expectation too high, as I thought the food was good, but not spectacular. Two things on the menu really appealed to me. The first was the BBQ smoked turkey breast as this was definitely cooked to perfection. The second was the baked beans, and these were also perfect.
The shredded pork was just ok. However, the beef ribs were dry and kind of small. No disrespect to Neely’s as perhaps this was an off day. However, 1^st impressions are usually lasting impressions.

My friends and I started joking about how nice everyone in Memphis is. It’s just unreal and call me big city jaded, but every time I was surprised. We showed up at Neely’s to a mostly empty restaurant with a long wait. They apologized profusely saying they only had one waitress working so they needed to space us out a bit. I appreciated the honesty. Just minutes later though, someone who I think might have BEEN a Neely brother, seated us and took our drink orders and checked on us frequently. I got a lunch special which was a pulled pork sandwich with a side and drink for $ 4.99. Unbelievable! It was DELICIOUS. My side was green beans. What do they do to them? I love my veggies, but I wanted to lick the bowl these came in. One of my friends got the BBQ spaghetti which I tasted and it was also delicious, the HUGE and a little spicy for me.
I love a place that really focuses on the food and cares less for the atmosphere. The Food Network is on, it seems nonstop, and there are photos of the Neely’s and various celebs on the walls, but otherwise it’s worn out booths and chairs, and again, styrofoam plates and plastic cutlery. The food speaks for itself since once again, several people recommended Neely’s.

Dark paneled wood walls, low budget booths and tables, families enjoying great BBQ; it’s all at Neely’s. If you’re looking for glitz from the Food Network, this place isn’t for you.
Ribs sauce was nice and dark, smoky and sweet. Cole slaw was nice and beans smoky, just how I like ‘em. I was left mostly to my own devices, but a few people checked on me now and again, nice touch! The ribs were great, but I never did find one «best rib in Memphis» on my short trip.
Heard some lady at Sun Studios ask about Neely’s Interstate, which is foolish, this place is just around the corner from Sun! Why go anywhere else?

Eh… you want the best? Probably not going to find it here unless you’re talking about the baked beans. The rolls were pretty damn good also. Unfortunately, the ribs left a lot to be desired and they were the whole reason we walked into this place. They were dry and the rub had been rubbed to the point where the meat couldn’t hold anymore seasoning. The overall effect was more like seasoned pig jerky than a half-​rack of ribs at what is reputed to be one of the best places in Memphis.
Service sucked, too.

I know, I know, a vegetarian should not give a review of a BBQ place, especially the Neely’s because everything on the menu, save for a few sides, is meat.
HOWEVER, I was here with my very carnivorous cousins for a weekday lunch. Being a first time Neely’s patron, I did not know that the spaghetti was going to be as full of bbq pork as it was. To make a long story short, I ended up eating meat for the first time in a long while and thought, what the heck, I’ve come this far, WHY NOT. So I was able to try the sampler platter along with most of the sides. Maybe my expectations were too high or I’m not accustomed to vinegar-​based bbq sauce, but I wasn’t blown away. The ribs, pulled pork, and brisket were well cooked, but the turkey was too dry. Besides the spaghetti, I enjoyed the sides, especially the bbq beans. The peach cobbler was just okay (canned peaches), but I think after the heavenly cobbler in Texas, my cobbler standards have been set high.
I give this place 3 stars because it really was just A-​OK. I wanted to love this place, I really did, I even broke my vegetarian oath to try this place, but I cannot lie, even for Food Network royalty. It’s definitely worth the trip just to sample what vinegar-​based bbq sauce is all about.

Oh yes, Neely’s was good BBQ. The pork ribs, although they were a tad drier than I like, where still tasty, and the meat fell right off the bone. The potato salad and the coleslaw were soooo good! The portions of everything were really big. I barely put a dent in my plate before I became so stuffed that I needed a nap.
Our waitress was super sweet, and started off on a good note, but later in the meal we had trouble finding her, and had to ask a couple of times for her to bring things to us. I’m not sure if she had other tables or not, so I don’t want to pass judgment from one visit. Plus she threw in two free pieces of «sock it to me» cake. I think she knew she neglected us a little bit, so any type of redemption/​apology is okay for forgiveness in my book.
I have to give big time props to the chicken nachos. My friend ordered them so we all took a bite off the plate. Holy hell those were so freaking good. The chicken tasted smoked, and it was delicious. The cheese looked like cheese whiz, and the chips looked like regular round tostados, but the flavors all came together with the chicken. If I’m ever back in Memphis I’m all over those nachos!!!