Ralph’s Barbecue

Great BBQ spot in North Carolina. They have a delish buffet or items off the menu. Very well priced and nice folks that work there!

What a wonderful place! Delicious food — great fried chicken, 2 kinds of pulled pork (NC and TN), beef stew, chicken and dumplings, vegetable soup. Everything homemade and very fresh at a super price (lunch buffet $ 9.40). Banana pudding, strawberry shortcake, and hush puppies especially good but everything was outstanding.

Good chicken but wish there were more options for sides. I guess it’s a southern thing I didn’t like the potato salad but the chicken was awesome and the hush puppies were the best I’ve tried

I stop by this place because it looked good, little disappointed. Food was bad, the fried chicken was to dry, it was not much choice to get, I did not see seafood like they advertise. Well people there were nice.

Decent bbq place, the sauce on the table was almost straight vinegar (I enjoy Eastern Carolina sauce) however this was not my favorite. Pork didn’t have much of a smoke flavor. Decent dinner buffet at $ 11.95 however they do not accept AMEX. Hush puppies were probably the best item of the night.

Very friendly staff. Clean. Didn’t get the buffet, because they’re usually bad, but my husband did and he liked it, went back a second time. I got the regular BBQ, and it was pretty good, I felt satisfied afterwards. Fries a little soggy — you’ll have to ask for them cook them extra crispy. Good place for Roanoke Rapids, which is frighteningly devoid of decent restaurants. My husband has been a member of a local hunting camp for the past year — we have been stunned at the shockingly bad food we have encountered. Jaw dropping at times. Approach every meal expecting it to be dreadfully disappointing. Then when it’s decent, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Hush puppies have ZERO taste! Kind of amazing how they managed to the achieve that, I mean, NOOO taste.

I have experienced Ralph’s many times. The barbecue is usually good and very little ‘fatty’
Fatty pork: However, today… my mother bought a total of 4 lbs of pulled pork barbecue and other items, totaling more than $ 55 (take out). I received 2 lbs of pulled pork barbecue and out of that, each pound contained approximately ¼ pound of fat (large chunks without meat). Pictures are included.
Barbecue ‘sauce’: It tastes like 100% vinegar with a few red pepper flakes (for looks)…and, each container of barbecue sauce was inconsistent in the mixture (color, texture, flavor). [I know NC style barbecue sauce is very thin and made mostly of vinegar… but, most of these types of sauces have more flavor than Ralph’s version.]
Employees: They were not friendly… they were very ‘robot’-like, they did not smile at all.
In summary: quality control should be improved in the area of ‘qualifying’ acceptable pulled pork product that will be sold to customers; the barbecue sauce should be improved; and, the employees should try harder to smile at times.

Just sort of stumbled across Ralph’s while traveling and delighted that I did. There isn’t anything really special about it, sort of big cafeteria like buffet, but the food is good and the prices right. The BBQ pork is most typical to that of North Carolina being and pulled in longer strands instead of being kind of mushed up in a style more typical to that of South Carolina.
Considering that it’s a buffet, it still has a table service for eating utensils, coffee refills & etc. which I found polite, friendly and really on the ball in keeping up with customer needs as well as helpful suggestions as to which of the buffet foods are best.
Another food thing about Ralph’s is that it has a huge parking lot, one that you don’t have to get cramped into wherein others tend to bang or chip the paint of your car when opening the doors of their cars.

After trying a few places in my short visit to North Carolina a friend suggested I try Ralph’s.
I was initially hesitant to go because the few places I tried did not deliver that authentic Bbq punch I was looking for.
Not only did Ralph’s deliver a first round knockout but the assault on my taste buds continued long after the culinary referees rang the bell.
Am I crazy to drive 8 hours from NY again to come here? You damn skippy! I’m planing the next trip.

Nice friendly people. The resturant is really clean. the food itself is okay. I ordered the chicken dinner plate. I wouldn’t recommend it. the hush puppies have no taste, all I tasted was the oil. so far I tasted the fries, hush puppies and banana pudding. All of which was average. I haven’t tried the chicken yet. the lady said it was baked chicken in a vinegar sauce. I ordered the «red sauce» on the side.
I spent around $ 13 for just myself to eat, ordered my food to go.
the lemonade is REALLY good!

For a lunch at 995 not a bad buffet the fried chicken is pretty good the pull apart ham is good nice salad The only negative is nothing is labeled so you dont know what you’re eating I had the fried chicken which was good the macaroni and cheese not bad in the pulled apart ham

Enjoyed a wonderful meal at Ralph’s. Our waitress Anna was excellent. She was very helpful with explaining the different dishes on the buffet for us and she kept checking back with us to see if we needed anything. The food is delicious. We loved the barbecued pork and cole slaw. The banana pudding
was really delicious and the fried chicken and Brunswick stew were the best we have had anywhere. We will definitely return.

Anyone who gives Ralph’s a poor rating appreciates neither Eastern North Carolina,
vinegar-​based BBQ nor Southern cooking. This place is excellent if you appreciate either. We stop by for the buffet whenever headed South on I-​95. Our entire family loves it. Not to be missed are the pulled pork, homemade coleslaw, Brunswick stew, or the best fried chicken you’ll find anywhere. If you prefer minced pork or tomato sauce BBQ, Ralph’s has you covered there, too.
All that said, there is room for improvement. The vegetables are not as fresh as they were here some years ago. For example, the present canned collard greens are nothing like the fresh cooked greens Ralph’s once served, and the same could be said of other offerings. The banana pudding is made with canned pudding, which should never happen in a good Southern restaurant. And buns should never cost extra at an NC BBQ place. Ralph’s caters to the mass market as it once did not, and it shows sometimes.
Nevertheless, if you’re on the Interstate and tired of Cracker Barrel and other mass fare, Ralph’s can’t be beat. Recommended!

This was my first time coming here and I was pretty disappointed. I was with a group of 12 and almost all of us were not very impressed by the selection, taste, or quality of the food. Definitely not worth the $ 12 charge per person. In addition, there weren’t any signs to indicate what each dish was — Something I think every buffet should have!
Although my stomach and taste buds left dissatisfied (after trying most of the food I ended up resorting to rice and salad to get full), I will say that the hush puppies were pretty tasty. The fried chicken (although a bit dry), Brunswick stew, baked beans, pulled pork, and dessert were okay but nothing to write home about.
If you’re looking for a decent BBQ buffet, I would try Carolina BBQ and Chicken (although I can only account for one located in the South Whitakers, NC area).

We love this place!!! I picked up to orders of chopped BBQ & 2 orders of the stew to bring back to friends in new York. Ralph’s never disappoints. It was a Sunday afternoon & the place was crowded. They have two separate sides, eat in or take out. Take out was a 10 minute wait, but I didn’t mind at all. I had the stew and it was awesome like always. Will always pay a visit to Ralph’s BBQ whenever I am visiting family in that part of North Carolina. They had a sign up advertising fat back grease that really puzzled me, I still don’t know what to make of it. Next time I will ask questions.

The best items we sampled were the iced tea and the salad. Waste of time and money,$ 60. I have been trying to experience food places off the beaten path that are not major chains, but in this case I wished I would have played it safe. Greens tasted out of the can, like Glory greens, fried chicken was dry, rice was soggy. The okra was good. The pulled pork was cold.
Our server was busy cleaning empty tables and not busing and servicing our table. She never picked up empty plates nor did she refill glasses of tea. Typically I thought this is what is done at buffets to justify the server’s tip. She refilled all ketchup bottles and hot sauce bottles including ours though we were still sitting there eating. I would have prefer we she done every empty table around us and wait until we were gone to do tat. Bad form
I hoped dessert would save the day. But unfortunately that did not break this underperforming trend. The cake was mushy, and the banana pudding cookies were soggy as well.

Hands down my favorite place for bbq. I love the vinegar based minced pork with slaw and Brunswick stew and hush puppies. Add sweet tea and I am in heaven. My Uncle Henry used to work here for years and years quite a while ago. He would never tell me the recipe for the slaw and I’ve tried many recipes and I cannot find one like it. So good. I think I liked it better before the buffet existed. Then there were leftovers I could take home.
The restaurant is right off of I95. Big parking lot. Has little neon pigs running across the roof. Or at least it used to. Oh, and Will Ferrell eats here too.

The chemical smell was so bad I insisted we leave without ordering. It is very rare for me to leave a restaurant so my wife who asks we do on occasion was surprised. I can normally eat almost anywhere. This wasn’t in the almost bin.

I went to a small elementary school in North Carolina and the buffet at Ralph’s is the closest I’ve come to experiencing school cafeteria food since my youth. Not necessarily in a good way, either. The pork BBQ is fine (and the obvious crown jewel of the buffet) and it comes in the shredded or chopped varieties. While a drink is not included, a basket of hush puppies and a friendly smile from your server is complimentary.
I cannot say that Ralph’s BBQ buffet is responsible for the rampant obesity and diabetes crisis in America however, based on what I saw, I do accuse them of being accomplices before the fact since 1941.

Love stopping by Ralph’s for that good Carolina BBQ pork (pulled & minced) & slaw when I’m down in the Roanoke Rapids area. Definitely the best eastern NC BBQ place I’ve been to. I’ve never dined in. I just usually get a take out tray or containers with BBQ & slaw to take home, then throw them on a bun for one hell of a sandwich.