Mr Cecil’s California Ribs

service was good, the hush puppies were yummy, beef ribs were good but not the best I’ve had. it’s not falling off the bone yummy. carrots were yucky no butter sugar glaze flavor, just a slight hint of cinnamon

they’re closed down folks. went there today and they were all boarded up like a crack house in the ghetto.
mr. cecil’s even though you’re closed down, i’m gonna give you a five star rating cause you’re better than most other places even while you are closed down!
good bye old friend. sad day for me and my friends…
go with peace!

Hmmm… perhaps it’s the mentality that the place is moving to another location at the end of December, but tonight, service was just off.
The wait staff just seemed tired or something (hey, I know that feeling of a work week), so the one that took our order didn’t pay attention to when my hubby asked for a specific but and so was not what was requested. Mis-​communication or lack of caring? Who knows.
Anywho, the ribs were fine, the green beans were mush this time on top of the brisket sandwich not presented in the way it was requested. Oh well, what can ya do?

It was a Tuesday night, craving some ribs and found this place! The place was pretty dead, only 2 or 3 tables along with us. Good ambiance, nice that there were flat screen TVs all around. It would be a great place to watch a game during their happy hour. And they do have happy hour specials!
Anyway, all I have to say is get their baby back ribs! Meat was tender and tasty. It was full of fall off the bone yumminess! Pair that with green beans and corn and you have one awesome dinner!

My girlfriend is from texas and she was telling me how texas has the best BBQ food, and how LA’s sucks. Yea sounds about right, LA’s everything sucks, but it got me craving some BBQ so I came to good old Mr Cecils again.
This time around I got the Tri Tip sandwich and my gf got a basket of ribs.
In retrospect I should have gotten those ribs, my sandwhich was kind of bland. I also asked the waiter if its good, and he swore by it, moron.
So this review is about her delicious ribs that we ended up sharing.
There wasnt that much fat on them, they just melted off the bone and I loved every bite, esp with their hot bbq sauce.
I could have done without their hushpuppies as well, they were very dry.
I’m sticking to what I know next time.

Highlight of the night:
Bumping into the Benjamin Bratt near the parking meters.
Oh, you thought I was going to say the bbq was the highlight of the night, did you? Well, that wasn’t the case.
I ordered the bbq pork sandwich because you usually can’t go wrong with a pulled pork sandwich. Also, the idea of having the bbq served on toasted brioche bread really sounding appealing. However, the bbq lacked flavor. Good bbq should stand alone without you having to add any bbq sauce to it. I found myself dousing my sandwich in their sauce. Moreover, my brioche bun was burnt on the bottom. :(I opted to add the grilled corn as my side and even paid $ 1 more to include such item, but the corn lacked any flavor as well.
So all in all, was visiting Mr. Cecil’s worth it? Maybe. Benjamin Bratt is even more handsome in person and seems like a really nice guy! Heh.

Sorry, I hate giving bad reviews… but its just not a good spot.
The meat is dry. The barbq doesnt even taste good. My food was cold. Cold and dry? Thanks a lot! I got buffalo wings and my friend got some ribs. Both were dry and just didnt taste good at all.
It sucks because Im trying to find great BarBQ in the valley and Im just not having any luck…

Gross! This place is bullshit. You suck Cecils!
Firstly, place was only 3 tables busy (outside on the patio) inside was flooded with thick smoke. So yes, we sat outside. I ordered the BUFFALO chicken wings, and a vegetable skewer. Sadly disappointed. My wings were terribly small, dehydrated and DRY. oh Goodness these wings were dry! I don’t think I’ve ever had more dry wings. I think I’d have rather eaten them undercooked… lol
Next — my vegetable skewer came out COLD. How does it come straight off the grill cold? After eating the first bite of eggplant realizing it was nearly chilled cold, I sent it back. The waiter took it (by itself) by the skewer stick. (Gasp!) How unsanitary. Then brings me back the SAME exact skewer (missing the first chunk of eggplant.
Bottom line: this is NOT food that makes you feel good after you eat it. Save your money. Don’t dine here with big expectations. Matter of fact, don’t eat here at all.

My dad and I love good BBQ. Wait, let me edit that, we LOVE AMAZING BBQ. We were driving back from San Diego, neither of us felt like cooking when we got back, so we decided to go out to dinner. I had heard about Mr Cecil’s, but hadn’t had the opportunity to try it, so we decided to give it a shot. We stopped at the door and browsed the posted menu first, dad’s hard to please, and he said «this looks great.» We went in and were immediately seated. The place was dead. It was the Saturday of Carmageddon weekend, so I wasn’t surprised by this. We were helped immediately and had attentive service the entire time, which always makes me happy.
We each decided to get a rib dinner. I ordered baby back and dad ordered St. Louis. When they got to the table, we cut our racks in half and shared. On the menu, it states to please try the ribs before adding sauce, so I did, but I don’t see what all the hype is about the unsauced ribs. They tasted like charcoal. I first tried the sweet bbq sauce and then the spicy. Then I combined equal amounts of both. The combo was my favorite.
Pros: decent prices, prompt service, good BBQ sauce, yummy cornbread.
Cons: the ribs aren’t cut and they only give you butter knives, this means the ribs are WORK to cut. The baked beans need some help.

One star? I know, sad. This is perhaps the single, most accurate star I’ve given, though. Imma try and be as objective as possible:
Can we all agree that this is not a barbecue restaurant? It’s got the word *California* in the name of the place, for chrissakes. So if you’re like «oh man, I could really go for some friggin’ BARBECUE RIBZ», don’t go to Mr. Cecil’s — easy.
If you’re like «oh man, I could really go for some charred hunks of kinda warm teriyaki jerky on bonez», then yeah, Mr. Cecil can hook y’all up.
And I promise: that description is not exaggerated. At all.
So I got the chicken and ribs combo — a piece of dark or light meat chicken, half rack of ribs (beef, baby back, or St. Louis style), and a choice of two sides. My meal was light meat, St. Louis, hush puppies, and french fries (for a dollar extra). With some homemade lemonade.
Besides the charred island jerky/​ribs, the chicken was NOT smoked (srsly? Just smoke the damn chicken) and dry, the hush puppies were fine

Came here for lunch…
Great impression for my first time there. I had the Tri-​Tip sandwich on a long roll with a side of coleslaw. Man it was BOMB! The portions were perfect for what I was looking for (not too big like a Cheese Cake Fact.), and everything was tasty and fresh. Ill be more than happy to give this place another star or two once I become a regular. Also, by the look of the bar… this place looks like it can become a real happening joint at night. I DO recommend. :D

Went here for dinner…
Luckily I had fro yo a few hours before or I could have really cheated in this place. Instead I had ala carte chicken and a side wedge salad. But the ribs and sandwiches looked great!
The ambiance was okay but with a bill for over $ 120 + tip for four… and considering what I ordered (mine without margarita) was a little pricey but my food was great and my hubby said that his ribs were really tender!
My daughter and her boyfriend ordered sandwiches and everyone seemed happy with their food.
I think with well drinks and tip… it was a fair price but the ambiance was more of like a bar atmosphere… everyone else was hungry and tired & felt like either Sushi or BBQ so since this was the first place we passed on our journey we stopped. And in the end I am glad we did!
I think like Timmy S. describes… the ribs looked great! NOW I wish I had tried at least a sample of one! lol… but you know the old saying … «Nothing tastes as good as thin feels!»
But if they have the best ribs around and they are all about ribs and BBQ… they have done their job~ right?
I would go back but maybe for lunch…

I am a firm believer that service is just as important as the food (⁵⁰⁄₅₀) when it comes to judging a restaurant.
I ordered a (in two weeks advanced notice) 10 lbs fried turkey @ $ 5.00 per lbs plus two sides (corn bread dressing & sweet potatoes) @ 10 each, for a total of $ 93 (includes tax) to be picked up on Thanksgiving. As the weeks progressed, things changed and I had to pick up the turkey a day before Thanksgiving. So I called them a week in advance to let them know that I would like to pick up a day earlier which seemed to be okay.
I got there on Wednesday (before Thanksgiving) only to find out that they hadn’t changed my pick up date as I had requested, but that wasn’t the problem. They didn’t have the 10 lbs turkey that I had ordered, and they just gave me a 14 lbs-​er (which would have come out to be more because its based on weight.) Then, they rang me up the total came out to almost $ 140! When I questioned the guy that was helping me and he had explained that the owner had changed the cost of the turkey to $ 5.50 per lbs AND the sides are now $ 20 per item! How do you initially quote a price then go and change it?!? Not only that, but ring a customer up without even informing the customer that there’s been a change in cost?!? That’s almost scam status!
Finally, after we had paid, we asked about reheating info but they had ran out of reheating instruction paper (which we had to ask for.) How do you run out of this when it’s not even THE busiest day yet??? And how hard is it to make some copies???
Well the guy that was helping us out, only charged us 10 lbs for a 14 lbs turkey but it still came out to more than what I had anticipated. Overall, this place seemed very disorganized and dishonest.
On a good note, their fried turkey (although they don’t make it themselves) was moist and the sweet potatoes were both good. Their corn bread dressing was dry and not so tasty but I would have gone back either to try their BBQ or get their fried turkey again next year but how they did me on the cost really bothers me so I’d have to let that idea simmer a bit.

I always get so excited to try new BBQ and it almost always breaks my heart. But this time I just left totally confused.
The Good
We had baby backs and st louis ribs and seriously folks these are in the running for the best ribs I have ever had. What I really liked about them was that they were so darn tender. It was hard to split them off from each other because the bones just slid out. They tasted great without sauce but the sauce added some depth and was delicious. I liked that they cooked the ribs long enough to render down most of the fat, so the ribs were moist and delicious, but did’t have a huge layer of gratuitous fat on them that so many places leave. It made the ribs taste really meaty without making them complete fat bombs. Seriously some of the best ribs ever. Based on the ribs this would be a 5 star review, but atlas there are other considerations.
The Bad
The sides were not great. We ordered Corn Bread, Green Beans, Hush Puppies, and Corn of the cob. The Green beans and corn bread were ok if uninspiring. The corn bread was a little dry but was somewhat saved because they served it with honey which gave it an interesting flavor. The corn on the cob was burnt and not the lightly caramelized charing that some of the pictures show but rather completely black on the outside. And the hush puppies were hard little nuggets that you would need gopher teeth to bite into. Kudos to the staff for having the balls to serve that crap, I know if I owned a restaurant I couldn’t server burnt food like that.
The side dishes had the ability to raise the bar from a place with great ribs to BBQ nirvana, but atlas they failed miserably. Total score for the restaurant after factoring in the sides is reduces to 3.5 stars.
The Ugly
In a word the service. No they weren’t rude to us, no one said nasty things. They just militantly ignored us. When we arrived the host at the door had a hard time looking up at us from his cell phone and could barely stand to seat us. Then the evening progressed as we watched 2 of the 3 wait staff argue over who had to serve us. Eventually we got our order taken by our server and that was the last time that anyone would speak with us. Yes our waiter never said another word. They did not check up and see if the food was ok, and if you read the past part of my review you would no it was not.
There were only 5 tables and 3 waiters in the restaurant, so they weren’t exactly slammed with business. And it wasn’t that they ignored everyone. We watched our waiter bring the other table he was waiting on 2 refills on drinks and box their food up and get them their bill. I know he was capable of doing his job, but for some reason with us he flatly refused to.
I asked the waiter who delivered our food if we could get a refill on our sodas and he said he would let our waiter know. We asked the waitress if she would get us refills on our soda and she said we would let our waiter know. I yelled trying to get our waiters attention and he refused to come over and give us any service. Eventually I got up and went behind the bar and refilled our sodas. Our waiter saw me and didn’t come over and apologize and really no one said a damn thing, because the staff there just couldn’t care less about their customers.
I couldn’t even leave because I couldn’t get them to bring me a bill. Eventually I asked for the manager with the intention of giving him a piece of my mind before I paid, but he wasn’t there. There was no management personnel on site on a Saturday night where there were only 5 tables in the building. That right there should tell you something.
I never did get our waiter to help us. I had to tell the waitress that I was prepared to leave without paying if they didn’t bring us a check. I had to tell her in order to get paid you must bring us a bill. If you do not want to do that I am ok with leaving. Its entirely up to you. Eventually we got the bill for this meal and it was $ 58 for 2 people and with the groupon I had that brought it down to $ 43. Paying the normal prices for the food here even if we had good service would have been highway robbery. The price I did have to pay even with the groupon was still too steep to go back. Needless to say the waiter got 5%. I wanted to make sure he knew I didn’t forget to give him a tip but that I certainly wasn’t giving much for the nothing we got for service. Frankly I shouldn’t have had to pay for that meal at all.
The only reason I didn’t give them 1 star was because I had some of the best ribs I have ever had. Eat here at your own risk. Make sure you have lots of time and patience and for gods sake please don’t being a gun in here because you will have to kill someone if you do.

I wanted to give this place a great review, but… sorry I just can’t. We had the two types of pork ribs and both were kinda dry, one was a bit tough.
The flavor without sauce was nice and I enjoyed both their sweet and spicy sauces.
The interior is modern and nice… I was kinda expecting a more funky décor based on the name of the joint. Inside None of us could smell any aroma of meat/​ribs cooking. My guess is the bbq was either cooked a day before. The kitchen is open and modern looking, but I was far away, I wished I’d taken a walk back there to check it out. I dunno, I’ve had leftovers that were more moist than my bbq. The hush puppies were hard on the outside and dry inside. I don’t know much about these puppies, but they seem crappy to me. It’s a sad meal when I have 2 types of pork ribs, tri-​tip and the favorite part of the meal was my BBQ beans which I really liked as it was sweet and smokey and loaded with yummy bacon. Oh, my fries… not so much… cold and the waiter never delivered the Tabasco sauce I requested that I like to use on fries.
Service, the staff was very pleasant, but it was a little disorganized and the place was not at all busy. A little slow as well.
I tried the tri-​tip which we ordered medium (I know, I wanted Med/​rare but I was sharing and she wanted med/​well so we compromised at medium) however, the meat was well done, cold and very tough as well as very dry. All the ribs were barely warm as was the fries. So either the food was not reheated enough before serving or it sat at in the kitchen ignored by the wait staff, either way food 2 stars. Service 2 stars.
I’d normally give this a 2 star rating, but I’m bumping it up to 3 stars because they let us use 2 groupons at our table of 3 as they agreed to it when we made the reservations.

Was hankering for BBQ in a bad way. What is it about National holiday weekends that just make being in America want to eat some sort of BBQ meat?
Either way, got my craving sort of satisfied in the way of Mr. Cecil’s. I have to say, it was pretty average BBQ at best. The claim to fame is the sauce. They have a spicy sauce, which simply is vinegar heavy and taste like your average South Carolina/​Texas style and not really that spicy, to be honest.
Then they have a very sweet one that is a bit too sweet for my liking, but you should def. use one of them as the whole claim that the ribs are flavorful on their own seems to be a complete let down. In short, you need some sauce on these things.
The Hush puppies, which I’m sure got their name by someone stuffing some bread into someone’s mouth to shut them up, were dry. I mean, these were rocks. Scones would be less hard than these puppies.
Also ordered some catfish nuggets, simply because they sounded interesting. My take was that these were probably the strangest and best part of the meal. They were like crunchy pork skin and the tartar sauce was really good on it.
Over all, the place had a mix of a crowd for a weekend afternoon, service was pretty attentive but the best service can’t make up for average ribs.

Hit up Mr. Cecil’s last night after seeing a movie at the Arclight. It has been a while since I had ribs and I was craving them. I had a full slab of baby back ribs… they were good. Mr. Cecil’s serves them dry… and I am used to my ribs being slathered in sauce. They serve the ribs with two sauces, sweet and spicy… both are tasty… but I prefer my ribs to be slathered in sauce. The hush puppies were a bit dry. The french fries were pretty good. Their tap selection is limited… they have plenty of bottled beers, and a full bar. The service staff was very friendly, and the head chef (or owner) was extremely nice and helpful. He even gave us a sample of their St. Louis baby backs… I would definietly return to order them… yum.
Don’t let the three stars fool you… Mr. Cecil’s is good… but I have had better.

This place was just alright. Ribs are served dry with 2 sauces available-​a sweet one and a tangy pepper sauce. I got the baked beans and the fries. The baked beans were a bit too sweet for my liking. Both sauces were good but the tangy one was my preference.
If I had to choose between Lucilles and this place, I’d pick Lucilles. Ambience and service was good.

I can’t rate the ribs because I don’t eat meat… but it sure smelled good!
I ordered a lettuce wedge with blue cheese dressing. While this is a very simple salad, kudos to the fresh crispiness of the wedge and the quality of the dressing. Their catfish nuggets (sure it sounds odd) was pretty good as well. Not greasy and cooked just right.
Farah the bartender was very friendly, attentive and skilled. She muddled my mojito just right and gave it just the right touch of sweetness.

I went here for the first time today and was so surprised.
Being from the south I am very critical of all bbq food that I eat.
Mr. Cecil’s baby backs were amazing!
It was quiet but that could have been bc its the sunday before x-​mas and hanukkah.
The waitress we had was friendly and helpful with the menu.
The wait for the food was not long at all.
The meat on the ribs seriously just fell off the bone. YUM!
My bf had the chicken and it tasted amazing too. I usually hate chicken at restaurants bc it usually turns out dry. But not here.
I totally recommend mixing the sweet and spicy bbq sauces together!
They have a full bar, although I did not partake in any of the beverages.
Also they had a list of Mr. Cecil speciality drinks that sounded super good.
This is not a place for those who are not carnivores, the menu does have salads however most had meat in them.
The ambiance was perfect for the type of restaurant it is.
It has a cozy southern feel.
I loved it.
Roll up your sleeves, grab some wet naps, and get your face dirty while you enjoy the best ribs I have eaten in LA.