Sweetfire BBQ

Banging ribs. I love there wings too. Owner is also super nice guy. Best BBQ in the area for sure. I go all the time.

tasty food, reasonably priced. have eaten here several times and always enjoy the meal. gluten free options are delicious.

After a doctors visit in Lincolnton, I decided to try this place as its a stones throw form my doctors office rather than drive to my go to BBQ place Bar-​B-​Que King.
I ordered a big pulled pork sandwich which lived up to its name. The sandwich came with slaw, pickles and sauce.
The slaw is a white mayo based slaw which I was not fond of. I prefer the red Lexington vinegar slaw which is not offered.
The sauce is a ketchup based sauce, which was not to sweet as some can be. It also offered a little heat and smoke that I liked, but I prefer the Lexington hot vinegar dip which again is not offered.
Side was Cajun skillet corn which was basically creamed corn with some heat. Not that it was bad, just not what In was expecting based on the name.
Service friendly and attentive. Bill came to just north of $ 11 with tax and tip, which I thought was a little pricey.
A few suggestions: In this part of NC at least offer Lexington style red slaw and hot vinegar dip as an option for those of us that don’t like and didn’t grow up eating mayo based slaws or ketchup based sauces.
Also I think a few hush puppies should be included with any bbq sandwich or plate and not the only way you can get hush puppies is as a charged side order.
Overall it was ok, but I think I will stick with my go to Barbeque place in Lincolnton, Bar-​B-​Que King.

The pulled pork sandwiches are excellent! Although I am not sure you can tell the difference between the «big» and regular. And the fries are very tasty! However they tend to bust you off on the fry portion… Sometimes a good portion and sometimes lacking. When the Mac and cheese is fresh and not all dried out it is also banging! Beware the sticky floor… It may gross you out and it is ALWAYS sticky…
All in all this is a good BBQ joint with both vinegar and sweet sauce options. If they get their consistency nailed down and fix the floor they would bring some serious pain!!! I give them a out of 5 review!

Excellent BBQ! Good portions, sides are delicious. Only downside is they have been out of brisket the two times I’ve gone and the service is very slow for lunch considering BBQ and the sides are pretty much already cooked. Otherwise awesome!

Amazingly great BBQ!
Moist, flavorful pulled pork, & the best pulled chicken I’ve ever had anywhere. Never thought I’d recommend a BBQ joint bc of the chicken, but this is the place.
And omg, try the skillet corn. What a creation!
Service was fine. Friendly & welcoming. Inside feels a little cold & sterile & could use warming up.

Very good food. I love the smoked chicken. Nothing bad, The brisket sells out quickly,

I have been here with two different groups and I must say, the staff here took very good care of both groups. Everything I ate was good and I heard only good comments from others in my groups! I had BBQ pork, okra, & slaw – a child-​size portion was enough for me as I am not a big eater. It’s a very nice place to eat and the staff are friendly and helpful. I think they’ll be around here a long time!

Pork is very good, slaw is great, Brunswick stew leave something to be desired.
Good overall experience.

They make the most delicious potato salad !!! The building is clean and neat
The staff I’ve met are very friendly and willing to make your meal joyful
The barbecued chicken was delicious as well, the kids meal are enough for an adult … And my son loves the fries

The best BBQ around. Hands down. Love their fried okra and potato salad too! This place is great & the people are super friendly!

Awesome! Some of the best BBQ around! We really like the sauce, hush puppies, cole slaw, beans, onion rings, and that delicious corn! My husband has also tried the ribs and loved the flavor. So far we have liked everything we tried.

AMAZING FOOD! Great service, too. Worth the detour (driving from Asheville to Charlotte). Thank you, Unilocal!I would never have found this place without you!

Sweet Fire BBQ is «Pulled Porkfection» tender and delicious. It is served with a slightly sweet, thick sauce that has a bit of a kick. The servings are very generous. The hushpuppies and slaw are my favorite sides.

Returned for a second visit to see how the new location was responding to new location problems. Service has improved and wait staff are very attentive to customer service. Food arrived in about 15 minutes and was of high quality-​hot and properly prepared.
The BBQ is excellent and the customer service is acceptable and should only get better with time.
Thanks for adding paper towels at the tables. Sweetfire is own its way to a becoming a «go to» place for good BBQ.

Wow is all I can say. I’ll be a regular here! As I have tried bbq and homemade baked mac and cheese many times I went with the grilled chicken. So juicy it melted in my mouth!!! Can’t leave out great hush puppies and fresh cut fries. Not frozen here! They recently moved again to a bigger place and I couldn’t be happier. You gotta try this place. Im so glad I didn’t take the turn into fast food on my way through. Thanks to Unilocal I stop here every chance I get! One of a kind gem! Friendly service and ice cream too. Wow!

We typically hit Hannah’s BBQ on the way to tai chi camp, but the location on our route closed. Kinda glad it did cause we found this place. Attentive service. Excellent sweet tea. Had 4 St. Louis style ribs. Good mouth feel on these. Nice crust and just tender enough but not too tender. I don’t like fall off the bone ribs if they’re smoked.
Sweet sauce was very good. Ask for the vinegar sauce as my traveling companions liked it.
Sides are what completes a BBQ meal. i enjoyed baked mac and cheese-​done right. Creamy inside with a brown layer of cheese up top. Green beans and peas are smothered, slow cooked with meat and the peas are black eyes!

Best BBQ around by far! Love there new restaurant. The staff are always friendly and the wait for the food has always been good. I highly recommend it for BBQ lovers!

This is great North Carolina BBQ. It is easily the best pull-​pork and sauce for miles around, including Hickory too. It is well worth you time detouring to the place (it is not far from the 321). I cannot recommend it enough, simply delicious BBQ that is highly pleasing to the senses, especially the smokey spiced taste and smell.
In addition, the hush puppies are very crisp and the onion rings juicy.
Staff were friendly and very helpful too.

Friendly folks, good food! I enjoyed the sweet tea quite immensely, as well as the chicken. It was goooooood chicken! The ribs were good as well, still learning my way around the NC-​style of bbq ribs, but getting the hang of it, the sauce was served in very generous portions, tasty!
Hush puppies are very fun, onion rings and mac and cheese were also good.
Very easy to order, I got takeout and the receipt came with a fact of the day. It was a neat outing.

Excellent BBQ sandwich! The full pulled pork was perfect size with slaw and the sweet tea was fantastic! Also it was very cheap prices for amount of food! I will definitely be back!

Was really happy with the service food came out quickly and had a pretty awsome pulled pork sandwich and. It was a good amount of food for the right price.

Best BBQ we have ever ate, you will not leave there hungry, your plate is piled full and the
sweet tea is wonderful.
Great service but be prepared to wait, on that great food cause they are always slammed, need I say more
lots of great sides, and their fries are hand cut not those frozen crinkle ones
Give them a try you won’tregret it YUM!!! YUMMY!!!

To begin: a little friendly advice, these guys are popular, and have a limited amount of food each day. My first time out, we had to leave without BBQ, though they did offer burgers and fries to us… As we came to know on our second trip, the burger is quite generous and tasty! We could not have gone wrong with that.
They were packed when we hit the door that day.
Point: If you plan to drive a little ways, like we did, you might call ahead. And it is worth it.
I enjoy the quality of the smoked meats they offer, and quite honestly, they have better than usual side items, likely because they are making home-​style foods, like they’d make at home.
I’m picky about my iced tea, and it is very good, too. (Not brown water that many places serve.)
Over-​all, it’s a family-​run place, with family quality food… If your family owns a smoker, and knows how to use it :-)

Sweetfire BBQ recently opened to solid five star rave reviews. I was skeptical at first, but then I saw that one of the reviewers was from Ohio, and objective, so that piqued my interest.
The best analogy that I can use is that Sweetfire BBQ is like trying to put ten pounds of potatoes in a five pound bag. What the H**L do I mean by that? Another reviewer, Brody L., commented that the place is perpetually slammed, and that isn’t the half of it. Mercifully, a lot of their business is call ins/​take out.
The restaurant is miniscule inside, a Lexington BBQ, «Mini Me.» I counted eighteen chairs at three four tops and three two tops — they need a seating capacity of at least sixty to do the place justice and to handle the traffic.
PROCEDURE: One approaches the register and places one’s order by reading the menu hanging overhead behind the counter. Basically, the selection is standard barbecue fare: pulled pork, beef brisket, chicken, and ribs. Sides are: fried okra, fries, coleslaw, baked beans, Cajun corn, baked mac ‘n cheese, etc.
Pay. Receive a number. Look around for a place to get out of everyone else’s way. Grab a table IF there is one available. They will bring you your food when you acknowledge your order number.
I was fortunate in that there was ONE four top table open when I arrived, and it stayed unoccupied. Every other seat was full. The restaurant was full. The parking lot was full. There were cars waiting in the parking lot for others to leave, so that they could park. People pulling boat trailers were double parked, and eventually diners started parking alongside the adjacent street on the side of the road.
Is all this due to new restaurant buzz? Yes, partially. The main reason is that the food is JUST that good.
— PULLED PORK BARBECUE? ⁴⁄₅.
Four out of five barbecue is damned good. This is easily the best BBQ joint in Lincolnton, OR Hickory for that matter. It’s better than all but the most famous, sixty year old, barbecue places in Lexington and Shelby, I kid you not.
The pulled pork is lean, tender, juicy, sweet, and there is plenty of it. Price for a BBQ plate was $ 8.99, which is reasonable. It comes with two sides and hush puppies.
— BARBECUE SAUCE? ⁵⁄₅.
There is currently only one selection available, and it is the Western NC variety. Think Kraft BBQ sauce with ketchup, brown sugar, red pepper flakes, and a touch of vinegar and cayenne, and one would be fairly close to the taste. The spiciness accentuated the BBQ perfectly. They provide an adequately sized plastic container of sauce, and it worked out perfectly. If you are getting the impression that I liked this BBQ, you would be right.
— FRIED OKRA? ⁴⁄₅.
Fresh. Crunchy. Non-​greasy. A generous serving. Really delicious!
— WHITE COLESLAW? 3.5÷5.
Not the absolute best that I’ve eaten, but pretty darned good. They did NOT overdo the mayonnaise, so I liked this «slaw» a lot.
— HUSH PUPPIES? ⁵⁄₅.
Five or six, hot, brown, superbly crunchy, golf ball sized pieces of fried corn bread perfection. Home run!
— SWEET TEA WITH LEMON? ⁴⁄₅.
— CLEANLINESS? 97.5%
— PRICE? $ 10.50. There is no table service, so tips are optional.
— SERVICE? 2.5÷5.
My order was taken by a smiling, cheerful lady, who was clearly embattled by the horde of people who had descended upon the restaurant. She seemed pleased that they were doing such great business, and she SHOULD be pleased. The made from scratch, fresh, hot, food came out surprisingly quickly. ⁵⁄₅.
It took the young, acne faced boy, five minutes to fill my cup of tea. He was causing a severe bottleneck. How $%&@#$% long does it take to fill a Styrofoam cup with iced tea, especially when EVERYONE is waiting to be served. Get you ass in gear, Bubba! ⁰⁄₅.
I enjoyed the meal immensely — the food was really delicious.
I bussed my own table, and… stood in line for a refill, which never happened. Finally, I said «oh well» and left.
— RECOMMENDATIONS.
Put one or two of the Bunn beverage dispensers where you have the ice cream counter, and let customers get their own drinks and refills. Waiting on «Junior» is not getting it done. Everyone in the restaurant was busting their butts to get the food and drinks out, but this was causing a bottleneck.
— Consider moving to a new location… soon. This place is not half large enough for your traffic.
— OBSERVATIONS.
I overheard one local at the next table say that «you can’t even get into the place during the week!» I didn’t get French fries, but they had a basket of fries on their table that would have choked a horse, it was so large of a serving. And the fries were brown and crispy… kudos.
The table on the other side of me ordered ribs as part of their meal, and they looked GOOD!
I’m very particular about barbecue in general, and this place impressed me. Sweetfire BBQ in Lincolnton is a winner!