Boars Nest Bar-B-Que Gets Two Stars (Business Lunch)

We had high hopes going into the Boars Nest Bar-B-Que because the parking lot smelled of sweet wood smoke. The new brick building that houses the restaurant doesn’t look much like a boar’s nest or a Delta dive, but we figured what the place lacks in ambiance it gains in cleanliness.

The counter, however, was made of fresh-cut cedar. It looked a bit more like a barbecue shack, and the cedar smelled great too.

We ordered at the counter and headed to the drink machine. Instead of the usual choices between Coca-Cola and Pepsi, Boars Nest sells RC Cola instead. It was a nice touch. We didn’t even know you could get an RC anymore.

For lunch, one diner at our table had the jumbo chopped beef sandwich ($6). The beef brisket was good but not great, he said. The sandwich seemed to be mostly hamburger bun, and the bun was particularly crumbly for some reason. Fissures erupted through the bun as he was eating, so it was difficult to hold the sandwich together to eat by hand.

Another reviewer tried the jumbo chopped pork sandwich combo ($7.30), which includes two side items but no drink. The sweet tea cost extra and caused a hold-up at the register while we pondered why they call it a combo and don’t offer a quencher.

He tried the baked beans and the coleslaw for sides. All three items were at best mediocre, he said.

Another diner tried a quarter slab rib platter ($7.30) with included sides of mustard-based potato salad and coleslaw, plus an iced tea ($1.29). The potato salad was excellent, and the ribs were O.K.

The sauce was too sweet, he said, tasting like the genre that flows from too far up the Mississippi River to count as real barbecue sauce.

Overall the food was so-so, but the tables at the Boars Nest tipped the scales — literally. A heavy-elbowed diner kept tipping the table elevating everyone else’s food at the wrong moment. Also, the backbreaking benches that force diners to recline while they eat helped lower our opinion of the joint.