Backyard BBQ & Booze

Catfish tacos, cheese curds, Atwater on tap, Mac and cheese. These are all good things. This place has earned a second look

Great service. And while the food might not be worth writing home about it would be a great stop when looking for a spot for a beer and some snacks. Plus they did treat our large group wonderfully! Fired pickles were my favorite! Thank you so much to the staff.

Great atmosphere good place to hang with the guys or take the girl for some good eats. Friendly staff and great food with decent portions modestly priced as well

Good time. Fried cheese curds and Mac and cheese are on point. Plus they have Kentucky bourbon ale.

Solid BBQ with creative deviations from the standard BBQ entrees and sides. Ribs and fried chicken were great. I like the décor and layout as well. We recently brought a group from out of town and we had a great time.
My only complaint is with the terrible servers. They are slow and obviously not trained on the menu, and definitely not on the beer. I know it’s just a BBQ joint in Toledo, but get with the craft beer program. If you’re going to have beer specials, make sure your servers know what they are. I’m trying not to be a beer snob but when you are told something is an IPA and you get a Winter Wheat, and then the server’s only response is «oh yeah» it’s not a good sign.

Gave them one do-​or-​die chance, hoping the food was back to par. Happy to report the BBQ was great, and the green beans outstanding. Still have an issue with the spicy coleslaw – it was chewy and brown. Too bad, as the idea is good.

Second time here and we have liked everything we have tried. The brisket is too fatty for my taste but my wife loved it. I have had the pulled pork twice and it is very flavorful. It could use more time in the smoke but the meat was moist with a good «crust». Fries were great and the three choices of BBQ sauces were awesome. I was tempted to put two of them in my wife’s purse!
Service was excellent and as others have said the décor and TVs are what you would expect in a contemporary sports bar.
If you like BBQ you will be happy here.

Service was a little odd. Bartender seemed like she had an attitude. Ordered our drinks but had to ask for a menu. I had the picnic salad. Odd combo but not bad. Hubby had The briskett. Not bad but fries were not good. All in all not a wonderful experience. Great TV ’ tho.

I live this place. Great selection of BBQ food. The décor is awesome. The wait staff are a bunch of cute and friendly girls who always do a good job.
They have nicely price lunch specials and often have live music on the weekends.

Ok food. Slow service. Big tv’s and servers with big boobs. Guess it’d be ok if you are a man but that’s about it.

I have had many meals here and I love it! I’ve had the smokey rolls, nachos and fried pickles and peppers and they were delicious! Also had the appetizer that was flat bread (forget the name) and it was fantastic. My husband loves the ribs and said they were so good they didn’t need sauce although the sauces are awesome. I’ve had the smoked turkey dinne and the sandwich for lunch and it was mouthwatering. We seriously have never had a bad meal or even so-​so meal. The service has always been super friendly and fast.

I REALLY wanted to like this place! It’s so close to my house and I LOVE BBQ but honestly I think the food was kinda gross. The Mac & cheese taste like it came frozen & they reheated it poorly because it was room temp when it came out. Also the chicken on my salad was dry & didn’t taste fresh at all. The chips were homemade but REALLY seasoned. They had a nice drink selection & I love country music so I may be back to drink but not for a meal. I tried the nachos not a big fan nobody else at my table seemed really into their food either. I am giving it 4 stars because I feel bad & I want the business to succeed but the food I would give 1 star.

Nice setup. Good beer selection (when its not flat). Never ate there except for some really gross fried pickles. Even the dipping sauce was bad, tasted like flour or cornstarch or something. My friends love the nachos. Service needs a kick in tha azz. But patio is nice.

I am not RAVING by any means, but it was decent. The food took a very long time to come out to us, but the drinks were great.
Not my absolute favorite BBQ in Toledo, but there is a patio and bands on the weekends, which is nice considering I live down the street. Decently priced with decent food– thats why its an «A-​OK» rating and not any higher.

This place was loud and packed on a friday evening! We showed up at 7:15 and had to wait about 40 minutes to be seated which is not something we usually subject ourselves to. It offered us some opportunity to people watch, and this joint certainly affords some great views.
There are tvs EVERYWHERE if you’re looking to keep up with whatever sort of sports thing you like. I am not a sports guy, so the tvs were a weird distraction.
They’ve done a really nice job with the build out, and everything feels clean and new. Every hostess and wait staff we interacted with was super friendly. The young man delivering food to tables was full of smiles, as was our waitress Anissa.
We started out with an order of the «smokey rolls» and boy oh boy were they smokey! Deep fried egg rolls filled with smoked chicken and some beans, corn etc. Clearly homemade, and seriously, the chicken was really smokey. We used the rolls to try out the 3 BBQ sauces offered at the table.
Skip the sweet sauce (the one with green sticker) and focus on the other two varieties. One is more tangy, and one more spicy. Both are really really good. Most of my food points go to the sauces.
As for the main entrees… things were just ok. My wife ordered the cold smoked mini filets. Interesting concept, and might be awesome if ordered rare… but we ordered it well done because, well… my wife likes her meat dead. These little super lean steaks couldn’t handle the heat and they were served leathery and tough. The topping of fried onions and blue cheese was nice but the meat was basically inedible. I blame both us and the restaurant for that.
As for her sides, the mac and cheese was sadly served room temp and the «smoked» cole slaw was funky. Both of us distinctly tasted something that reminded us of sea food. I’m ok with that, but my wife hates fish. It was weird. I didn’t eat mine either. Really odd dish.
My ribs were … dry. You can order them wet or dry (sauced or just dry rubbed) but my ribs were just really dry. Not sure whether to chalk it up to over cooking, or a lower quality piece of meat, but the meat was just dry. The rub was liberally applied but didn’t have much flavor. The meat’s flavor was, as many other things we tried, smokey.
And I have to say… the strong smoke flavor on all the smokey dishes was just a bit off. I smoke meats at home, and have had a lot of experience consuming smoked meats acrossed the country… I know it’s supposed to smell and taste like smoke but this stuff tasted slightly burnt. Less like smoke, and more like soot if that makes sense? It wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination BAD, it was just actually campfire smokey flavored.
Once again, the sauces were delicious enough that liberally adding them to the ribs fixed the smoke flavor. And I suspect if you ordered them «wet» you may not notice the flavor issue.
As for the corn muffin we both received, after we agreed it was basically a «deconstructed» cupcake, we loved it. It’s suuuuuuper sweet, with a sweetened butter that resembled more of a buttercream frosting than whipped butter.
All in all, this place is pretty great. The welcoming staff and atmosphere are a positive touch. But the food we tried just wasn’t what we were looking for.
Knowing the previous lives of this location, as rowdy sports bars /​night clubs, and seeing how busy it was tonight makes me think the next time we visit, we’re probably better off during a week night. As they expand their outdoor patio this place is going to get NUTS.
Interesting side note, for as much smoke flavor thats imparted in the food, the restaurant had ZERO smoke or BBQ smell. Totally weird. You walk into Shorty’s on Monroe and you’re smacked in the face with smoke smell. At Backyard BBQ & Booze, there is zero smell. Gotta wonder what process they use to make the meat.
Anyways, we’ll be back, but my wife will probably try a burger, and I’m going to focus on the catfish. I’m happy to see the BBQ scene grow in Toledo. it’s been a long time coming.

not that great. the ribs were burnt and not at all tender. Its not rocket science when it comes to cooking ribs properly, but you cant just throw a raw rack of ribs on the grill and in 15 minutes try to serve them to your customer. the nacho appetizer has potential, but generally the cheese is melted. the con queso is a bland bowl of watery cheese — another appetizer with potential but very disappointing.
the beer selection is good and it is a novel idea to have a bourbon flight, although not worth the $ 15.99 for 4 shots of unidentified bourbon.
the place is new and still has many many kinks to work out in order to survive in the already over-​populated restaurant scene in Toledo.

Stopped in for dinner on a Friday night and had a short wait (about 30 minutes) considering the large crowd. Passed the time with a beer at the bar — they have a pretty good selection of beers on tap.
The bartenders and wait staff were friendly and very attentive, so the service is definitely off to a good start. Our food came out really fast, but I suppose barbecuing is done well in advance.
I had the Picnic Salad, which seemed like an odd combination (pulled pork, fries, baked beans, and coleslaw on a salad) but it totally worked. My husband had the half rack and he liked the ribs but was really impressed by the sides.
The meal was fast, tasty, and inexpensive. We will definitely go back in the future! This place is such an improvement from what has been in this location in the past and I hope it stays around for a long time!

Although BB&B has five star potential, at this point in time, it’s still only a three to four star outfit.
To be fair, many aspects of this cool new place, located about a mile west of «Downtown West Toledo,» are already «five star.» But not the food. Not all of it, anyhow; a few very serious kinks need to be worked out.
RIBS: Serious kink number one. Frankly, I was very disappointed by the ribs. I ordered mine dry rubbed. Now, intense smokey flavor is the name of the game when it comes to BBQ, and the rib meat was just not particularly smokey, or flavorful. On one of two occasions, the ribs were actually a quite burnt. The other time, they came out «wet,» even though I ordered dry, and saw the waitress write «dry» on her pad.
An interesting item on the menu: the mini tenderloin filets. I’m not sure if I’ve ever eaten «cold smoked steak» before, but this item is exactly that, and, it’s quite delicious. It’s topped with a bleu cheese cream sauce. Yum. The mini filets were cooked to a perfect medium well, which is fine for me. (Unfortunately, they were ordered by my wife for herself, and she ordered them «medium rare.») She wasn’t happy.
APPS AND SIDES: The homemade BBQ chips with spicy queso dip was and excellent appetizer. I tried, and liked, both varieties of coleslaw; their flavors were nothing revolutionary, but both were quite good. Same for the mac and cheese; good but not mind blowing.
BEER: Here we go. Everybody knows that BBQ and beer go together like BBQ and beer. BB&B has a very nice selection of draught beer. If you like IPAs, consider the Frankenmuth Tornado Black. (It’s still nice and hoppy, but has more body than your typical IPA). Also cool were the beer flights one could order. Even cooler, were the whiskey and bourbon flights; I’ll try these sometime when I’m not with my kids. The wife liked her sangria.
ATMOSPHERE: Clean. Lots of TVs. Country vibe. Fun and comfortable.
WAITSTAFF: Friendly, fast, accurate and cute… my seven year son is still gushing over… ah, I probably shouldn’t use her name here.
Although I wasn’t happy with the ribs, and although they don’t have beef brisket, there is enough potential at Backyard BBQ & Booze that I’ll keep coming back.
And, I’ll probably be bringing my boy once in a while.

Great atmosphere, unbelievable food. I went there during their first week of being opened and was very impressed. Beautiful design and the BBQ is on point. They also had a huge selection of beers.

Edit: This place was good the first couple of weeks it was open. My wife and I will not be returning. The BBQ pork nachos turned into eh. The ribs are more charcoal then smoked. There’s too many other good smoke diners to revisit this one. Sorry.