Duke’s Bar-B-Que

All you can eat for $ 10.50. Really? I’m glad I don’t work near here because if that was the case, this would be a regular spot that I would go to every week. What can I say about this place? It’s all you can eat BBQ. So this is what I got from the scoop:
Here, they have a rivalry between Duke’s and Carolina’s. I personally, biased, am from NC, and a UNC fan. So naturally we went to Carolina’s first, but sadly I have to say that Duke’s just won it overall for me. The selection is just more enormous and just has a bigger variety of side dishes as well. From fried chicken, baked chicken, pulled pork, all you can eat ribs, and greens, corn, hash, it’s just never ending. This place will definitely be the place for me to go if I am ever in town and craving for BBQ and trying to find a place for lunch.
Let’s say for a low carb diet person, this place was perfect for me. I ate to my heart’s content, but I didn’t eat as extremely as I did compared to when I went to Carolina’s BBQ because well, I wanted to save space for dinner! If you’re in the area, definitely check this place out and if you’re a BBQ lover, try both and decide for yourself! For me though, this place won it hands down.

I am from England but now live in Aiken, SC. You can go and spend $ 100 on a meal in downtown Aiken or you can go and enjoy great food and great company at Dukes. How many places can you take a 2 year old and have them eat a hearty and healthy meal, toddlers new favorite is chicken with lima beans, collards and rice. Now that beats PBJ or nuggets or burgers that you have as choice for kids at basically every other restaurant. Thank you Dukes for teaching my son about «real» food not junk food.

Wonderful food! Love the home cooked vegetables. Friendly atmosphere to take family and friends. They are now open on Sunday’s. Give it a try. You will be satisfied.

I’ve been to most of the BBQ places in my neck of SC. Duke’s is definitely the best (not Carolina BBQ, as Southern Living will tell you).
The buffet is $ 10. The buffet is full of all kinds of amazing sides: hush puppies, corn fritters, collards, rutabagas, rice, hash, macaroni and cheese, fried okra, sweet potato, coleslaw, etc. There are ribs (RIBS!) on the buffet as well.
The pork is delicious. Three sauces are available: mustard, mild (mustard based), and pepper. The mild is my favorite: Orange, sweet, tangy. I love to get it in a cup and pour it over the meat.
Desserts include peach cobbler and banana pudding.

I know, I know, everyone raves about this place but Im just not on the same page. I found the food bland, at best. I have had better bbq pretty much everywhere else ive ever eaten bbq. Not for the discerning palate.

Excellent place to go with family or friends. Great deal and Great food, everyone has to experience Dukes at least once a month.

I dined at Dukes restaurant and I can say that I truly enjoyed it. I enjoyed the country atmosphere which was very friendly. The long tables which were obviously intended for families and lots of friends were kept sparkling clean. The barbeque ribs that I had heard so much about were finger licking good. The meat was so tender and flavorable. I enjoyed the potato salad and collard greens as well but I was especially impressed with the great big pan of peach cobbler. I did enjoy my meal there and I will return with family and friends

Between the fall-​off-​the-​bone ribs, fried okra, sweet potato mashed and fried chicken it was hard to pick a favorite. Absolutely fantastic BBQ. Hash over rice wasn’t bad either. The best $ 10 spent all week. We drove a while to get here and it was totally worth it. Next time we’re in town we will come again.

Go for the food folks.
The cold slaw is spot on, not too sweet, and not pulverized into that strange sawdust texture I’ve encountered before. Their potato salad with some dill pickles and sprinkling of pepper was also really good. The fried okra was «go back for that 3^rd serving» good as was the pulled pork w/​o any sauces. Never tried any of their sauces actually. The ribs are served with some BBQ sauce on them. Well these babies were luscious and meaty and proved to be bone suckin’ fine! Rutabagas corn nuggets and the stewed apples were okay.
For $ 10, at all you can eat, I don’t have the heart to P&M about the décor. Simply a friendly place with allot of earned devoted following, for a reason — or two, or three, or four perhaps.

A friend of mine and I recently went on a BBQ tour of the CSRA. One of our stops was Dukes. And let me say, it was… OK. Probably my least favorite of the 8 or 9 places we tried, but nevertheless not terrible.
The ambiance is interesting, it feels a bit like a restaurant straight out of the 1950’s. The gentleman (perhaps Duke?) was very friendly, as were the other employees. The place was clean.
The food was… Ok. Not great, it felt a bit dry, a bit tough. I expect bbq to be moist and a bit juicy, this was not it. The BBQ sauce we were provided was good, but overall, if I was in New Ellenton and wanted BBQ, I would definitely go to Carolina Bar-​B-​Que instead.

Duke’s is one of those places best described as a «joint;» there’s nothing fancy about it, whether décor or food, but it’s incredibly good. It’s described as a barbecue place, but I would describe it more as a Southern buffet with a couple of barbecue dishes. The only real barbecue they had was pulled pork, which is very good, and ribs, which were decent. The best thing about the place, though, are the sides. This is a real Southern down-​home cooking place, the kind of food your grandma (well, I don’t know about YOUR grandma, but MY grandma) cooked: sweet potato casserole (with marshmallows on top, of course), squash casserole, fried okra, fried chicken, fried cabbage (do you sense a theme?), greens, and so forth. I can practically feel my arteries hardening just writing about it, but it’s worth it.

I like Southern food and should have stuck with that rather than an import from the Midwest which did not translate well. I was dragged here for a wedding reception so I did not have a lot of choice but I will never think of the relative who chose this place in the same way again.
I could not tell what was what. It literally all looked like dog food. No, that’s unfair. I have seen much better looking dog food and dog food which smelled better. Troughs of substance which looked days old greeted us. The display made me long for food I had in Calcutta. At least there I was able to get spicy lentils and feel relatively safe.
I sat with other relatives who were also looking over the offerings and wondering. We had our conversation come around ultimately to «What is that?» and the inevitable answer of «I have no idea.» A relative who lives in the area told me later that this was undoubtedly the worst food he had ever eaten.
Hey, I could have gone for a bowl of grits with a pat of butter melting into rivers over it and a big spoonful of huckleberry jam on top. I longed for that while held captive at Duke’s. I can’t in any way compare the food at Duke’s to anything from Kansas City. In KC they throw out stuff that looks better. This is a plant out of place. Bring on the fried okra, grits, fried chicken, butter beans and cornbread and leave this stuff alone.

For me, this place was simply unremarkable. We show up and see the parking lot packed, people standing around outside, and people migrating toward the door. All good signs. It was not to be.
Once inside we were greeted with a series of picnic tables, that is family-​style seating. It normally doesn’t bother me too much, but this is an all-​you-​can eat, low-​cost buffet. This seating arrangement just doesn’t appeal to me.
The buffet had a bit of everything. Mashed potatoes, corn fritters, corn, baked beans with chopped hot dogs (they tasted just like canned beans), green beans, greens, fried okra, bbq and fried chicken, ribs (for an extra dollar on top of the regular $ 9 buffet price – these were tough as leather shoelaces!), pulled pork, potato salad, coleslaw, and quite a few other things. Dessert was peach cobbler and they had a soft-​serve ice cream machine. The cobbler was made with canned peaches, and the ice cream came out of the machine looking like a milkshake. I’m not normally so picky, but I couldn’t finish my dessert.
Most of the items in the buffet just weren’t