Danny’s Bar-B-Que

The manager of this location is very rude and could take a few lessons in customer service 101.

Danny’s BBQ is quite tasty! I suggest you get here a little early for lunch because it can get quite busy at noon, a good sign. You order at the counter, choose your meat of choice in a «small» or «large» portion, choose your 2 sides (baked beans, coleslaw, etc.). They serve it with a slice of Texas Toast. Shimmy to your left as you wait for your order to come up. Pull the slots on the fancy plastic silverware dispensers and catch them where they fall. Think about the sauces you may want to try: sweet, hot, mustard or vinegar, or how about all of the above? Grab some napkins, pickup your tray, find a table, and prepare to eat some delicious BBQ, Florida style I’ve been told. I’ve had the beef brisket, pulled pork, and turkey, and all are delicious! Mmmmmm Bar-​B-​Que!

Food quality: I tried the large pork platter with two sides. The pork comes dry and there are a litany of sauces so you can do as you please. The BBQ is lean which is a staple of this place. It’s still BBQ, just not super fatty. I had baked beans and potato salad. Baked beans were average and the potato salad is phenomenal. Whatever combination of ingredients that go into the potato salad makes it worth a try.
Price: my large bbq plate and drink came out to about $ 11. In my opinion for the quality of food it’s a good but not great value.
Atmosphere and location: restaurant is in a strip mall area with lots of other restaurants. The inside seats around 50 – 60 and gets crowded for lunch. There is no outside seating.
Would I go back? Definitely!

Excellent BBQ — pulled pork, brisket, sausages. Sides are good, although I think their corn is cooked to death. Fast service.
I wish they were open more… Just lunch during weekdays.

Great Florida-​style BBQ, and welcome deviation from vinegar-​based Eastern NC BBQ. (They have vinegar sauce on the tables for those that prefer it). All three locations are good, but this is consistently the best. I usually get turkey or brisket sandwiches, but the ribs and smoked sausage specials are good too. Good fries, baked beans, and Brunswick stew. We always get corn nuggets at the Cary location.

Very solid barbecue place. Everything is good but I wouldn’t say there is one thing that is the best at that specific item in town. If I want the best BBQ or the best wings I will go somewhere else. But everything is solid. It is consistent. I love that they put all their sandwiches on Texas toast.

Great place for lunch. Not NC BBQ, so don’t be disappointed if you are an east/​west fanatic. But very good all the same.
My favorites are the St. Louis ribs and the catfish. The fried okra is also excellent.
I’ll be back.

Brisket and chopped pork plates are awesome. The line for lunch is long but they are prepared and normally have two order takers working. This location is only open for lunch but the one in Morrisville is open in the evening.

The best bbq in Durham! Get the ribs. You won’t regret it. My only beef with this place are their hours of operation, weekdays 11 – 2? Why? They are always packed so maybe they know something I don’t know.

3.5 is accurate, but no halvsies so I play the game of rounding up for this one. No Carolina-​style bbq as it’s Texas-​style instead. Got the chopped pork, potato salad, and brunswick stew. Prices are pretty reasonable (~$ 7/​plate combo), skip the brunswick stew, and buttered toast is pretty good. Two sauces here, a sweetish one and a spicy one that’s not very good (monotone flavor profile that’s predominantly chili pepper). Lines can get long but move really fast. Another RTP institution.

Spectacular food! The chopped pork was perfectly seasoned and it had a great smoky quality to it. You get to sauce it yourself, which I like (I’m from the north), so I was able to enjoy the sweet BBQ sauce they offer. They also have your NC vinegar-​based sauce and SC’s mustard-​based.
Décor is lacking a bit, but they make that up with their food. Definitely recommended!

By far the best smoked barbecue at a great price. My go to is the pork sandwich, fries, and iced tea. Yum.

I eat a Danny’s a couple times a month. The food has great flavor and the sauces are right on time.
I usually order chopped BBQ with green beans and brunswick stew.
Being from eastern North Carolina this is a nice change of pace from our vinegar based BBQ.

Second lunch visit to this busy RTP-​area lunch spot. They had excellent brisket & chopped pork, very nice sauces, cole slaw & potato salad. Brisket was tender and moist, and chopped pork was not at all greasy. They are hopping at peak lunch hour, so go at 11:00 or wait until 1:00; but, it’s definitely worth the trip, as the brisket is well above average for the area. Gotta return to try other things; but all customers appeared happy!

There are 3 locations in the triangle area, so there are folks who like what is done here, I’m just not one of them. This particular location is in a relatively new strip center in RTP. Upon entry you are funneled to the front, where your order is taken, as is your money, and you are assigned a number that you are expected to remember (jk, it is on the receipt).
You slide along an area in front of a steam table type setup where the various food items are in metal containers. Your food order is put together, you collect your plastic fork, spoon, and knife, and advance to the sauce area, where you may fill as many little plastic containers with unstable lids as you would like. There are several sauces — one is a red, made in house I guess, «hot sauce», which will need to grow into the actual status of hot. And there is a «vinegar sauce», which is pretty much just vinegar, something sweet, and a red pepper flake or two — nothing like a traditional vinegar based sauce from any region I’ve been in.
The Brisket is relatively tender, with a smokiness to it, but not much more, and unsauced. What was on my sandwich was a little dry, though the quantity was nice. Unfortunately it was served on Texas Toast, which is always, always soggy — Shane’s Rib Shack has demonstrated this for years. The hot sauce helped a little, but I was not impressed with this sandwich. The side of fries was crispy, but not properly salted when removed from the fryer, thus no salt would adhere, ever. Cost was $ 6.25.
The Chopped Pork Sandwich had a nice quantity of pork, which also was fairly smokey. It was tender, moist, and also unsauced. Unfortunately, it also was served on Texas Toast, with a similar level of sog, not my kind of sandwich. Putting the vinegar sauce on it did not help the taste, but did add to the sog. The side of Brunswick Stew was small, and resembled vegetable soup with the stray bit of meat in it. Cost, $ 5.75.
Overall this was not a meal I enjoyed, or would order again. The food here suffers in comparison with Smokey’s down the road.

I’m no expert on the differences between eastern and western Carolina sauces.
I do, however, consider myself a well-​traveled eater of barbeque. The barbeque at Danny’s was subpar. I had the 3 meat combination. I chose pork, beef brisket, and cod. The meats tasted dry, I had to load up on sauce (which was average). Drowning in sauce is a sign of bad meats. The cod had a lot of batter, but it was okay.
The sides sucked. Seriously. The potato «salad» that I had was the worst potato salad I have ever tasted. It tasted like the recipe called for the potato salad to swim in ranch dressing. The baked beans, another staple of any quality barbeque place, wasn’t as bad. The beans tasted like they came straight from the can, with Danny’s adding only more sugar to the beans.

Give a man dying of thirst a drink of water and he will think this is the best water He’s had.
That’s kind of what I think of when I come to Danny’s. I’m a Kansas City BBQ boy stuck in eastern NC.
They know what brisket is, and they know how to cook it and that you don’t shred it you slice it. There sauces are ok, I like their hot sauce it isn’t traditional Kansas City style (not as sweet) but it is really good.
Their Turkey and Ribs are good as well, and they have a good variety of traditional side dishes from baked beans, green beans, and many others. Place is packed during lunch and only open 11 – 2 but there are other locations that are open in teh evening.

I asked them if they served NC style, and she said no, we do Texas-​style. So naturally I ordered brisket. (Naturally.)
And I gotta say, the brisket was well executed. Cooked dry, it was tender with just the right amount of smoke, and sliced perfectly. Sides (slaw and green beans) were perfectly acceptable.
The sauce, available at the table, was good but of no discernable provenance (e.g., they didn’t say they make it according to their momma’s recipe).
Also, they were busy at lunch, which is an indicator (if not a guarantee) of quality.

Good pulled pork with hush puppies. The chicken was good but good be more moist. I was ehh about the chicken leg. The potato salad was also very good. The sauce was good. vannilla pudding also was standard. Nothign was amazing but it was a go to place if you want standard bbq. We ordered dinner from there so I’m not sure about the atmosphere.

Danny’s is my go to for barbecue for lunch. Perhaps there are better places (if there are, someone please clue me in), but Danny’s is the default for my coworkers, so it’s become mine as well when I’m visiting the Triangle.
They are always packed at lunchtime. The line is often out the door… and you get the cruise the tables, waiting to find someone who is leaving. We were smart this last trip and left about 7 minutes earlier than normal… the line was only approaching the door at that time, and there was one table left. You wait at the counter for them to call your number and then you can take you tray to your table, and you bus it yourself at the end of the meal.
The barbecue isn’t your standard Carolina vinegar barbecue… this is a smoky barbecue (almost Texas style) with sauces on the side: mild/​sweet and hot. They have a mustard as well that I’ve not tried. I stick with the hot. It’s tasty. I normally alternate between the turkey sandwich and the chopped pork sandwich. The turkey is the better choice if you go sauceless, but with sauce, I prefer the chopped pork. Sandwiches are served on buttered, grilled Texas toast. Most of the sides are yummy… though I’m boring and stick with fries and applesauce. The hush puppies are good as well, but I feel guilty hitting more fried food after the buttery grilled bread on the sandwiches + french fries.
Soda/​tea + sandwich = $ 7 to $ 8. So a bit pricier than fast food, but it’s tastier.