Bill Miller Bar-B-Q

Had some B.M. recently and the meats were okay. The sides were so-​so. The pinto beans were really good but the potato salad was nasty. Rudy’s way better. For that barbeque hole-​in-​the-​wall experience I’d recommend Donn’s in Oakhill.

Here’s the deal with Bill Miller. Everyone gives this place a bad rating for being a bit too generic or not good enough when compared to the numerous other BBQ restaurants throughout the Austin area.
And, for the most part, I’d agree with them. Bill Miller is not as good as most other places. The BBQ sauce is, well, how do I put this lightly – horrible. The consistency and taste is more like watery ketchup, yet it isn’t quite offensive enough to be inedible. Sides? All are pretty bland and otherwise unspectacular. Meats? Average – at best.
However, let’s not just be Debbie Downers here. Bill Miller does have a few things going for it.
For starters, it’s pretty darn cheap. If you’ve eaten BBQ before, you know that for such a blue-​collar meal it can sometimes be moderately expensive. One advantage to Bill Miller’s more fastfood approach to BBQ means you can eat pretty well for a Lincoln.
Another bright spot is the fried chicken. I know, you’re thinking fried chicken from a mediocre BBQ place? Try it! It’s actually quite good and, dare I say it, better than a certain recipe from Kentucky’s most famous resident!
Most importantly, though: A drive-​thru. As far as I’m aware, Bill Miller might be the only place in Austin that serves drive-​thru BBQ. So what, you say? Well, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve craved some BBQ, but I didn’t have a lot of time or didn’t feel like standing in line somewhere for a sliced beef sandwich. Those are the times Bill Miller got my business.
So let’s review. Is Bill Miller the best BBQ in Austin? Not a chance. But if price and convenience is important to you, Bill Miller will serve your BBQ needs in a pinch.

What happened this place use to employee young kids ,
Now the food is really bland its not the same place,

Love the marinated onions, but the WORST breakfast tacos in town! I wouldn’t serve them to my ex.

Ok, my pops told me when he went to San Antonio and my sister and her family took them to a B. M’s he did’t like it. Too Vinegary he said. I didn’t go for a long time b/​c of it. Then one day, my roommate and I decided to bite the bullet and get some BBQ! This location is closest to our house and it looks pretty much like the rest. When we got inside to our surprise they had a special called the «roper». One meat, two sides, sweet tea, and dessert for $ 4.99! How can you beat that??? Well, i enhanced mine with a sausage link. I got brisket, hash browns, green beans and dutch apple pie. I got sauce on it but, only to discover their «hot» sauce, which i thought was tasty! The green beans were delicious, the hash browns were tasty and both meats were GOOD! For five bucks, hells yes! I don’t understand the Rudy’s love here, their sauce is awful yet the meat is good. I say, for $ 5 you get a full meal that’s not fast food and tasty! we find ourselves going 1 – 2 times a month to get this sweet deal.

Im a Texan born and raised and im not crazy about BBQ, either it was the year I worked at the BBQ Pit up in Lewisville or its the fact I dont like getting my hands dirty. In either case after living on the East Coast these last 8 years, I found myself craving some BBQ.
This place is right down the street from me so I gave it a shot. Ordered two of the chopped beef sandwhiches, home fries and a piece of Pecan Pie and some Sweet Tea to wash it all down it.
It was nasty, the sandwhiches had just a dollop of chopped beef on it, just enough to let me know it wasnt worth having more anyways, then the big chunk of onion and pickles on stale buns.
Then the fries, totally frozen, fried to quickly soggy and greasy and not even a crisp crunch, just a soggy mess of mushed potato mixture.
I love Pecan Pie, I can never never turn a piece down, so even know I dont need it I bought it anyways, the filling was blah and the crust was so hard I almost chipped a tooth. It was the worst pie I ever had.
The sweet tea, it was sweet it was tea and thats all I am going to say. I gave this place one star because they were slow that night and service was fast and they had Pecan Pie, it was nasty Pecan Pie but at least they made an attempt.
I wish I had read these reviews before going! Sorry Mr. Miller but you aint no BBQ joint!

The only thing good about this place is the «Sweet Tea»!

This location has gone way downhill since it opened… and I remember when. The staff is indifferent, borderline rude, if you can’t figure out which way the serving conga line goes today. You might think those are «sample pies» in the open air at sneeze level and with flies around; only then do you discover the pies become yours to keep when that’s the last one. It is hard to find something on the menu that’s actually good. For a BBQ place to fail at brisket is unforgivable, but this one pulls off failure with reckless abandon. As another reviewer pointed out, Bill Miller’s sweet tea is a winner. Get it at the drive-​thru, and keep on truckin’.

BBQ is a little bit ‘bizarro’ when you compare it to other food experiences. Much the same as Tex Mex spots, often the food is better when you’re chomping into something that looks like it was smoked in some sort of third world ash pit by a guy who may or may not be a blues legend on the down-​low. So what, then, to make of Bill Miller’s, which takes a sort of homogenized approach to the BBQ genre?
Well, if you read most reviews around here, not much.
I can’t rightly say that I blame anyone for not getting into things here: it’s a little bit of a BBQ cafeteria meets out of towner take on the good stuff, and in fact they don’t call a BBQ sandwich a BBQ sandwich here. You get Po Boys with poppyseed buns. The sides look pretty similar, but it’s definitely (and again, weird to say this talking about BBQ) cut rate BBQ experience.
I was having an addict’s jones for some BBQ sauce and meat today, and this place was close: and even while I was able to scratch that itch, I couldn’t help but wonder about the kind of sloppy experience I’m used to, more of the slab of white bread piled high with brisket, slathered in enough sauce to choke a rhino kind of experience.
I can’t get steamed enough at these guys to drill them with a one star, but I’ll definitely be drumming up my next hearty bite somewhere else.

The problem with Barbeque, is that you either like your sauce sweet, or you like it vinegary, and anything in the category starts off with a strike against them. Such was the case when Lea and I went to this Bill Miller’s for lunch. I like my barbeque sweet, and theirs is vinegary, but I thought it was only fair to give it a try and see how it lay on the taste buds. I have to say, it wasn’t too bad for that type sauce. It wasn’t overly sour, and I could actually taste the BBQ rub in the background. We had ours served over slices of nicely tenderized brisket, but I have to say it isn’t going to make me a regular customer.
Nothing we were served was notably tasty, with the possible exception of the iced tea, and the general feeling was that it was just «okay» with nothing that really stood out.
This is definitely a franchise, and you can see it in the care-​less way the building and dining area are maintained. The mop marks are four inches high on every stick of furniture, including the home style condiment bar with bread, onions, pickles etc. I could just visualize the bacteria crawling up the side of that thing, and didn’t go near it! I would be more inclined to do a drive through next time, rather than going inside to eat, to reduce the odds of getting food borne illnesses. I usually check the bathrooms to get an idea of how well the restaurant is maintained, but didn’t feel I needed to in this case. What I saw in the dining room was enough to tell the tale.
In summary: The meals are over priced for the quality level, and there are cleaner places to go for a better value. I’d recommend that you keep on looking at reviews for better choices.