Charlie Gray’s Rib Crib

This hole in the wall is a family favorite: that’s right, we drive 20 minutes to get their delicious ribs and BBQ sauce for takeout! If you want fantastic food from a truly family-​run small business, you have found the perfect spot.
The ribs are perfectly cooked in an open brick oven on site, and the collard greens are a good side. The BBQ sauce, however, is what makes this place stand out: it’s tangy and tasty, without being syrupy/​sweet. It’s the PERFECT blend.
The staff is friendly and remember repeat customers. The décor– newspaper clippings, old photographs and bright orange couches — give you the true atmospherics of a local, family-​run Philadelphia spot. This is a must-​try take-​out restaurant!

This place is a Philly GEM! Go for the amazing «you’ve found the secret place!» atmosphere, sit on the orange vinyl couches with your deli number waiting for your take out, try not to eat it on the sidewalk outside as you leave.
We had a full rack with spicy sauce, which had a tang and a zip but wasn’t too hot to enjoy. It came with two sides and WHITE BREAD, as all respectable BBQ should. The spicy and the sweet sauces are simmering in cast iron pots next to the butcher block worn into gentle hills by decades of use.
The slabs are all cooked in a two-​tiered charcoal brick oven manned all the time by one of the expert rib ladies. Charlie raised his girl right, and she does him proud with amazing collards, mac and cheese and the freshest cole slaw. FORGET THE CHEESESTEAKS. If you want to eat classic Philly (with the same no nonsense attitude as all the family owned shops, no more, no less) go directly from the airport to the Rib Crib. Philly people drive from all over the city to get this food.
(Ps: how do you know a pretty safe block in an unfamiliar part of town? Count the day care businesses and relax.)

Have been looking forward to ribs for several days so today I drove over to the rib crib and bought a half a rack. It was about 5:15 pm, Friday, June 2015. Cost about $ 17. I was home eating the ribs about 30, minutes later. I didn’t care for the sauce being dumped all over the ruins, spilling out when I opened the package. Should have been in a separate container. The ribs were awful. They were VERY DRY and chewing them I found that at least half of the meat was so dry I had to be certain that it was not bone that I was eating. The sauce was good but I will never eat from there again. My thought was that I was eating what was left over from the night before, so the time that you buy your ribs may make a difference. Still never again, wasn’t worth the money, not a good experience. One more thing, when the woman at oven pulled my order, my half rack was in pieces and not whole. Also the woman who took my money was miserable.

Been going here since I was a kid growing up in Germantown. The sauce is top notch, the meat is sometimes hit or miss, but overall Rib Crib is great comfort food. Plus it’s iconic in Germantown. I do miss the famous good evening number…

The staff was friendly and the food was very good! Take out orders are two weeks in advance or something like that. will do that because I can’t wait in line that long anymore but it was my first time in austin so I guess it was worth it!

This is my go to place for ribs, their spicy sauce is perfect and in 15 years I have yet to be disappointed with the ribs. Greens are also pretty good but the meat is where its at.

ribs. yes.

I’m not saying it wasn’t good. The ribs were pretty good. I ordered a rib sandwich. And that’s LITERALLY what I got. About 6 ribs, bone and all… between two pieces of white bread. So… I just dipped the bread in the extra bbq sauce (and that actually tasted pretty good. Nevertheless)…Do we need to redefine what we mean by the word «sandwich»? Is this the future of sandwiches? Or is this a throwback to the Barney Rubble era, when diners would pull up to the rib crib with calloused feet from running and braking the car, so hungry they didn’t care about the presence of HUGE BONES IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SANDWICH?

Was pretty excited to have some «real» ribs but was slightly disappointed with more fat than meat on them. The greens were a bit too salty for me and the mac was tasty but didn’t blow me away. The staff as great though… very friendly. Not sure if if go back though.

So, being a southern boy, I «loves me some ribs”(it’s a southern thing). Since I moved to Philly I am always looking for good ribs. I always try to hit a place twice before I add a review. So after my recent trip to «the shack» i give them 3 thumbs up. It’s what we would call a «hole in the wall» but that makes it authentic for me. Let me put it this way, the ribs are awesome. Really all you need is the meat and some white bread. Crazy enough this is based on my 3^rd visit, but when i showed up the 2^nd time, there was a sign on the door saying, «we are all out, come see us next week». You may look at that as a bad thing, i see it as a «sign» of how good the meat is. Now, i can only give four stars because I’m not a real fan of the sides. They’re okay, but that’s about it. The staff is cool; i had an extremely cute baby in my arms and they seemed to be really into him. So maybe that’s it. Here’s the truth, grab a number, order some ribs, take them home and CHOW DOWN!!! I’ll be a regular. Pork is healthy isn’t it??? Yeah, go with that. Don’t eat all the ribs, save me a couple of bones.

My go to spot for Ribs… you know when they are open and you know they have ribs that are grilled and smoked. This week I got a ½ slab– bread in… mixed sauce. Meat and sauce flavor is what makes the ribs and they’ve been pretty consistent for the past several years. Value for your money. Collard greens and Mac and cheese was decent… glad they added hot sides… Go in, say hi, take a number, place your order, sit down and wait for your # to be called! say goodbye and leave??? Brown bag with smoked BBQ ribs in tow…

Darling husband and I drove all the way from Delaware at the last minute to grab some ½ rack sandwiches. Got there about 4 minutes after the closing time. They opened the doors and let us order any way (even after we walked away to get back into our car.). That was so nice of manager. Meat was was so tender and delicious.

The sauce at the rib crib will stay with you. Someday after you first have it, you’ll be reading a particularly boring passage in a book and realize that for the past 10 minutes, you’ve actually been thinking about the sauce at the rib crib. I had these ribs growing up, and went back again recently– it’s still the same. I don’t know what they put in there, but it is something special. Just don’t forget to take a number.

I love this place, well really I love the ribs, they are addictive and very tender. I always buy a whole rack of ribs. The sides are wack but they come with the ribs, but the coleslaw is kool. Im going there today, thats a fact. Can only do it once every two weeks, too much red meat will kill the body lol. There isnt a place to sit down and eat, its a stop n go to its very definition, thats why I give it four out of five stars. The ladies are very nice once they get used to seeing you they open up and chat more with you, uf you want bangin ribs, this is thee place !!!

Bad food & bad attitude.
I had such high hopes for this place. Black-​owned business, great Unilocal reviews, & close by! Those hopes were dashed rather quickly by the surly counterperson (an older lady) whose demeanor was that of a prison cook.
We ordered pulled pork sandwiches. It was awful. It tasted like microwaved pork chops smothered with generic BBQ sauce.
I’m sure Philly has much better BBQ joints to enjoy!

My family and I have been going to the Rib Crib since I was a little kid and I hope to be able to continue going to the Rib Crib throughout the rest of my adult life… That’s how good the ribs are! The BBQ ribs and the sauce are truly the best I’ve tasted on the East Coast, and the staff is always efficient with service and friendly (or at the very least just as friendly as you are to them!) The sides, admittedly, there’s room for improvement here, especially with regards to the freshness. But they do offer more of a VARIETY now than they did years ago. Overall, the Rib Crib, its staff, and its owner (s), both past and present, are consistently the best. My only wish was that there was a Rib Crib in Washington, DC where I live… people would go crazy down here if there was!!!

These are by far the best ribs in the northeast. I have been coming here since I was nine years old and even after moving away, trips to Philly were planned around whether we would be in town during open hours at the rib crib. Its a hole in the wall and possibly the best kept secret in Germantown. The staff is caring and dedicated. i have never been disappointed — except to see a rack of ribs not deemed to par thrown out. Keep it up rib crib, I want to be able to share your food with my kids one day!
PS Do not go here expecting an eat-​in experience. This is a grab for you and the people you love to eat with and go somewhere you love to chill with it. Great for groups but not because you can eat there — because everyone will be beyond satisfied.

Lord, the sauce on these ribs make me happy. I didn’t even mind getting messy, they were that tasty. I tried the long ribs, short ribs and the chicken. Highly recommend the short ribs as there was more meat on the bones and it was easier to eat. But really any kind of ribs here will be dee-​licious.
If you’re craving meat, you can do no worse than Rib Crib. I will say that the prices seemed expensive and I’d probably not want to pay if I had to pay or myself. With that said, I think it’s good to support African-​American and locally owned family businesses like this one.
I’d skip the sides and go straight for the meat tbh. Priorities!

Ok so the folks that work in this place are rude. I didn’t expect that on my first visit and inside the city of brotherly love. … The food was just ok, small portion and overpriced. Although I will say if I need to fulfill a rib craving — they will do.

The Rib Crib is a basically a hole in the wall little storefront in Germantown that serves southern comfort food, primarily Ribs.
I was first directed to it by one of the Dining Hall Cooks at Philadelphia Univ. when I commented to him how much the BBQ Rib’s they were serving sucked while I waited for him to grill me a burger. He told me to go over to the Rib Crib if I wanted good BBQ, and he was dead on.
When you want great BBQ Ribs and/​or Chicken, I would definitely recommend going to the Rib Crib. Quite honestly however, I didn’t find any of the sides to ever be all that good.
So my recommendation is, don’t order anything else, just go in, get some ribs and leave. Take it home and enjoy.