Charlie Daves BBQ

The service was lacking some. The food was alright but not much variety at a good price. The cowboy cup at the farmers market was awesome though!

My wife and I have tried this place about half a dozen times since it opened, nearly always because our fellow diners chose it. Without exaggeration, I can say that we have never had a good meal here! Tonight, only because my wife was given a gift certificate, we ordered a carry out meal: full rack of ribs, baked potato, green beans, and salad. I have eaten lots of ribs in my life, but none so awful as these. In fact, I’ve never not finished an order of ribs, until tonight. There’s no excuse for tough ribs, and these were like shoe leather. The baked potato looked and tasted old and stale. The garlicky green beans were undercooked. The salad looked too unappetizing to even cause me to try it. What a horrendous meal! I’ve given this place enough chances to prove itself, and I’m now resolved to never eat there again, unless forced to. I am reluctantly giving this place one star; I actually think that’s too high. If you want excellent BBQ in Highland, I highly recommend Randy’s BBQ. As opposed to Charlie Dave’s, I’ve never had a bad meal at Randy’s.

The restaurant is nice and clean and I luv the horseshoe bar. Service is friendly and prompt. The food is just alright and a bit overpriced. They’re apricot sauce and cherry sauce is delicious. The ribs weren’t bad but the pulled pork was cold. The sauce really makes the meat good so keep plenty on hand. The cole slaw is the best I’ve ever had! I would come again.

Hole in the wall joints are usually where you get your best barbecue (and this is not one of those). But this place in Highland is actually decent. I live in Highland and I’m glad to finally have a barbecue place in town.
Refined barbecue folks usually like baby back ribs. Of course in this area most prefer St. Louis style ribs. But I (a purist?) prefer hole in the wall joints in St. Louis, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, North Carolina etc. where spareribs are King.
This place in Highland has a very decent St. Louis style spareribs that is extremely tender (ribs being the first criteria when I Judge a barbecue place). The side dishes aren’t bad and the changing monthly steak is also pretty good. Although I don’t think they’ll make it, saying their food’s bad is an unfair assessment.
If you’re in Highland driving through Highland or even close to Highland it wouldn’t be a bad choice.

The staff is friendly, the place is super clean, the owner visited every table himself and the food is delicious! I really can’t say enough good things about the service… Our waitress was adorable and really on top of things. I had the kabobs, which are new on the menu paired with bacon wrapped asparagus and sweet potato fries. Truth be told, I like any place that wraps their veggies in bacon as the side dish but the bacon and the asparagus were perfectly seasoned as was the pork and beef kabob. Next time I’m going for the shrimp kabob too. The chipotle sauce, a Charlie Dave’s original, was my favorite sauce with the pork but neither meat really needed it. We eat here as often as we can and its always great! Keep up the great customer service and awesome food Charlie Dave’s!!!

Very disappointed. I tried the ribs, as I think this should be the premier dish at any BBQ restaurant, and they were awful. I expected a smoked dried rubbed rib so that I could experiment with the provided sauces, and instead I received a 5 bone ½ rack that tasted like they were baked in an oven with a putrid sweet sauce on top. I could not get past 2 bones. When the server asked how we liked the food, I told her the ribs were awful and all she could say was «I understand»…It was almost as if she knew what I was talking about. Oh… and no beer on tap.

I love BBQ and I really wanted to like this place – actually I wanted to LOVE it because there is no BBQ in Highland. This place is brand new and the owners are about to lose a LOT of money. They did a lovely job redoing the inside of the dump called Yogi’s that this «restaurant» has replaced, but that is the only bright spot as the food is TERRIBLE. Unilocal really needs a «no stars» setting because 1 star is WAY too many for the horrible food here. I ordered pulled pork which was the WORST PULLED PORK I HAVE EVER TASTED IN MY LIFE. Bar none. It was dry, stringy, served at barely room temperature and tasted like gasoline. I took a bite and spit it out and I was starving – I hadn’t eaten all day. The brisket they brought me to replace it wasn’t much better but I ate a couple of slices and had the rest put in the box for my pets because my husband said he wouldn’t eat it – and he loves brisket. We gave it to the cats (who eat dry food) and they wouldn’t eat it. Not a good sign. The meat isn’t smoked on premises, which is a huge problem as both plates of meat I tried as well as my ALL my husband’s food were served WELL BELOW safe serving temperature and if they are refrigerating it and reheating it then hopefully no one will get sick – but if not, they are holding it in a bain marie at 110 degrees which is the perfect temperature for food-​borne pathogens. I hope the Health Department is on the ball because the first time they drop a thermometer in the food, they’re going to lock the doors. On the second-​busiest restaurant day of the year, they were half empty at the dinner hour and the owner’s wife didn’t have time to address my concerns because they were «very busy». If 31 customers slams a restaurant with 12 employees standing around. then there is no hope for this place. These people are clueless on how to run a restaurant and will be the next victim of the «Everyone thinks they can run a restaurant business» disease that they caught when people (politely) told them their food was good. It’s not. It’s terrible. 6 tiny trophies in the corner for 2^nd and 3^rd place finishes at tiny BBQ cook-​offs are also not the basis to think you can run a restaurant and this place is going to go under as soon as the owners run out of money to pour into it. They are totally ignorant about the business aspect of running a food service establishment – and I mean totally. The menu is a confused mess and $ 12.99 for a pulled pork sandwich is ridiculously overpriced – which is apparently how they make up for underpricing other items. Their food costs have got to be close to 80% and I’d say they are losing 5 – 6 thousand a month which will soon be 10K a month when word gets around about how bad the food is here. The service was friendly but excruciatingly slow – we waited nearly 20 minutes for a sandwich and some pulled pork that was so bad it had to be sent back and another 14 minutes for some sliced brisket to replace it and then they took a full 10 minutes to take the money for the check and another 10 for change – and I paid cash. Unbelievable considering there were 12 people «working» and maybe 35 customers in a 135 seat business. Where is Gordon Ramsey when you need him? He needs to come in here and teach these folks how to run a restaurant and proper food service procedures in a hurry – although the food is so bad, it’s not really worth his time. The tiny shining light here is that the Apricot BBQ sauce is original and delicious. The rest of the sauces suck – and I mean REALLY suck. The red sauce is 2 parts ketchup 10 parts vinegar and about five parts cumin and is the worst sauce I have ever tasted in 50 years of eating BBQ. The Cherry sauce was absolutely repulsive and tasted like artificially flavored jello and ketchup. Nauseating! The had a 4^th sauce too that was decent but I can’t remember the name. These sauces are bottled by the restaurant (with label printed on their home computer – very professional?) but judging from their total lack of knowledge on food service and that the bottles are unrefrigerated, I’m worried about consuming them and these people are obviously amateurs who think running a restaurant is easy. It’s not and these folks are going to learn a very painful and expensive lesson in the very near future. What a shame. Bottom line: Drive to Collinsville and eat at Bandana’s for BBQ because this place totally sucks. I wanted to love it because I love barbecue, but the terrible product they are putting out made that impossible. Someone is going to get a really good deal on a beautifully refurbished restaurant at their bankruptcy sale. Sad.