Rack Shack BBQ

Tasty BBQ (I like the turkey), with a wide variety of hand crafted BBQ to spice up your meal. The amount of smoke is good on the meat. The BBQ beans and corn bread are my favorite sides. The ambiance of the joint isn’t anything special (stainless steel tables); and the price seems high for a fast food vibe (you place your order at a cash register).

This place is lacking quite a bit. I’ve eaten here on 3 separate occasions and the first 2 times, the food was good. This time around, I ordered the ½ rack meal for $ 20. The ribs I got were incredibly dry and chewy and lukewarm by the time I got them home (less than 10 minute drive home). The cornbread, same, very dry. The people that work there, they hate their job. I don’t see this place lasting much longer.

Before sharing my review, please allow me to briefly explain why I think that rating BBQ outlets is more difficult when compared to many other establishments. For one thing, most chains/​franchises impose pretty rigid standards and demand a uniform product be sold across all locations. This is relatively easy to do when selling burgers or assembling burritos. Because BBQ is as much an art as a science, standardization is much more of a challenge. As a result, significant variations in quality between outposts of the same chain (for example Dickey’s) are possible.
Also, training someone to respond to preset timers or alarms that are intended to produce a homogenous output is very different from teaching someone how to manage a BBQ pit. Thus, experience and dedication to craft matters tremendously. Thus, it is possible to have vastly different experiences at the same location (whether a chain or a local one-​off) from day to day depending on the competency of the crew.
All of the above takes me up to my recent experience with this location of Rack Shack (West St. Paul). In short, at least on the day of my visit it was much superior to their Burnsville location. To begin, it looked and smelled more like a true BBQ joint. Muddy Waters and BB King were among the artists playing in the background. The counter staff were all pleasant and professional.
I had the pulled pork on Texas Toast with a Smoked Potato and Claire Slaw. Unlike my previous experience, when I asked for a sample of the Ghost Pepper sauce I wasn’t told I had to purchase a bottle. A generous plastic cup of the GP sauce was included for an extra fifty cents which I thought was reasonable. It had an initial sweet smoky taste that built to a sustained amount of serious heat! I used up every last drop to augment the Kansas City style sauce. Yum! The smoked potato had real character and didn’t have the meally texture of something pulled out of a microwave. The Claire Slaw was excellent.
Who knows, maybe the Burnsville store by now has its act together. If so, together these make a worthy one-​two punch addition to Twin Cities BBQ.

I live in Texas so i know a thing or two about bbq, and I was pleasantly surprised to find such a great tasting bbq restaurant on robert st. First and foremost the meat is tender and tasty, my favorite is the brisket sammie sandwich. They also have numerous different bbq sauces available to try out named after different locations. Inside the restaurant you get to hear some sort of jazzy country music that the kids like to listen to. Overall a great spot to get your bbq fix!

The HOBO was a great BBQ meal!!! Loved it!
The Staff/​Team was very nice. I love the BBQ sauce’s (6+)

Before ordering the three-​meat combo at Rack Shack, I’ve always considered smoked turkey as the least desirable BBQ choice when compared to Pork or Brisket. On my visit to Rack Shack, it was my favorite — and not because they slacked on the beef or pork. The turkey was just THAT good. It was tender, not dry. Subtly smoky and the perfect delivery method for Rack Shack’s Houston Oil Fire sauce. I ate the two together, with my hands, handling the turkey slices ‘cracker style’ topped with their Texas sauce. The turkey was also good naked, without the sauce.
The hunks of brisket were exactly what you want brisket to be tender, fatty and burnt in all the right ways. It was all about savoring the burnt ends and the sweet, rendered fat. Although I tried a flurry of sauces (Texas, Kansas, Memphis, Savannah and Georgia) I found myself eating the brisket ‘mostly naked’ with an occasional dab of the Houston sauce.
The pulled pork, paired with their Georgia Sticky sauce was a sweet, meaty ending to the plate. The slaw and sweet pickles were good palate cleansers, but nothing out of the ordinary. The fries were crispy, hot, and best paired with the St Paulie sauce as a ‘better-​than-​catsup’ option.
If you’re looking for sit-​down dining, I’d recommend trying Rack Shack’s Burnsville location. It’s larger and more inviting. The décor at this outpost is too stripped-​down and metallic for my tastes. Although I’m likely to return to the Rack Shack… it won’t be to eat in. I’ll order take-​out and enjoy the meal at Harriet Island Regional Park, which is a short drive away. I’d also consider pairing their meat options with favorite sauces from other sources.
On my next trip, I plan to order their ‘Hobo’ (and a pile of meats and sides served Hobo style) and hit the road. It looks like a tasty, messy, feast for $ 11-​$ 15 depending on your appetite.
Rack Shack offers 5-​star BBQ meat, with 4-​star star sauces, in a 3-​star venue. :)

Texas Toast Brisket Sammy, you won’t be disappointed.

This place has great food. The menu isn’t too long — but it’s hard to pick. You pretty much have to choose between the greatest pulled pork, smoked turkey, beef brisket, chicken and ribs. I’d love it if they had a platter for a single dinner that had your pick of any 2 or 3. Regardless of what I’ve tried it’s been great.

Stopped in for lunch and had a 4 rib rack special and it was fantastic! Ribs were fall off the bone tender and very flavorful. Service was pleasant and quick. Have also had their brisket which was tender and flavorful.
My only issue was the weak mac and cheese that tasted pasty but the baked beans were very good. I will be back! Thanks!

OVER-​RATED! I’ve been here a few times now and each time I end up thinking the same thought… «that was a waste of money». Portions aren’t very big for the price, everything I’ve tried is always over cooked. Can’t say I’d recommend this place to anyone.

I called ahead and was told they don’t take orders over the phone but it only takes 5 minutes to fill an order. Took almost half an hour. Ribs were over cooked and very dry. Fries were soggy by the time I got home. That was 10 minutes. Very disappointed.

My $ 12 burger should have been charred, juicy and with a nice seasoning for flavor. What came was meat not cooked starting with the outside, no seasoning, and the most bothering; the meat tasted like it was kept raw in the fridge for too long and it went bad. I didn’t have the will to go and complain about how bad it was because I felt like throwing up. Two stars for washing that taste with good fries and good beans.

Gosh, surprised to see some negative reviews below. Just had a fantastic lunch here. All I can say is they must have worked out their kinks. We had a coupon for 2^nd entrée 50% off. We had beef brisket, ribs, smoked potato & beans. The ribs were honestly the best ribs we’ve had anywhere in St Paul, and we’ve been to several BBQ joints. They were super, super tender and the rub was very tasty even without any of their sauces– plus they had lots of meat on them. The brisket was also good. It was blander, so was great for sampling all their sauces, which we thought were the best BBQ sauces at any restaurant ever. We loved the Kansas City and Memphis sauces that both were medium spicy (in our opinion) and had complex taste profiles. The beans also had a unique, complex BBQ flavor.
This is an order at the counter place. When we were there, they were not very busy. Service was friendly and very fast. The place was clean, and we liked the music they were playing (some blues and classic motown).
UPDATE: Went back again, and as I feared, they couldn’t maintain the amazing like the first time. The ribs were still tender and good, but had obviously been sitting around for a while. They didn’t taste so fresh. They are unfortunately inconsistent, so I’ll dock them a star.

Loved the ribs! Great selection of sauces for any taste. The cornbread was great (and a big slab of it) I had the smoked potato as a side and it was tender smoky and moist. I will definitely be back! My wife had the pulled pork Sammie and she said it was fantastic. The staff was all friendly and service was fast.

Unilocal reviews vs Foodnetwork doing a feature left me a little hesitant but considering these super cold winter days and the idea that I wish I could bbq right now made the choice of whether to go or not a little easier. When I think of BBQ I always wish I lived somewhere down south so I could enjoy some of the things I see on tv. Living in MN I definitely prefer to do BBQ at home and never even consider going out to get something boiled smothered in sauce. Seeing as I got my hobo order to go I can’t comment on the service but the guys behind the counter were nice enough, quick, and the place looked clean. Now onto my hobo meal. Boy was I excited that I could try a little bit of everything and two kinds of meat on my hobo. Of course I had to try everything SEPARATE before I ate it together so let me break it down before this post gets too long. The Mac and cheese– was decent, the coleslaw was nice and crunchy, the beans were sweeter than I expected but still good. The corn was not too my liking at all, biggest disappointment to this dish. The meat was juicy and had nice flavor and the smoked potato that was holding this all together was yummy, as all potato things are. Separate, I found the meal lacking but when combined I can attest that food network was not lying. And the Houston sauce was delicious, spicy just the way I like it, though I can’t say the same for my stomach. Will definitely be giving this place another try. Did I mention how ginormous the hobo meal was? Well definitely more than this girl can eat. Oh and the cornbread was really good, not the best I’ve ever had but since anything I make is a dry piece of yellow bread I can appreciate a good piece of cornbread when I get it.

Wow.
I’ve been very hesitant to write this review, truthfully. I’m a reasonable person and fully understand that a business has an adjustment period after first opening, so even though I’ve run into some nasty kinks after my initial review, I’ve been more than lenient.
Never. Again.
I’ll shoot off a quick list of things that made me bite my lip prior to this last visit I’ll be talking about in depth. These have all been consistently witnessed throughout five separate dining occasions.
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— REPEATEDLY running out of food. Important food, mind you, like burger patties and brisket. There was never any signage indicating this and no one mentioned anything at the register. This spawned a lot of interesting register interactions.
«Can I get a burger?»
«Uh… like… oh, like, yeah. We’re out and stuff.»
«…Of burgers?»
«Hahah, yeah.» — Yes. It was that professional. In addition to more important items, they seem to regularly run out of things like pickles, too.
— Terrible and confused customer service. Cashiers that have no clue how to work the register (jumbled refunds, messed up orders) that seem very careless. I understand not loving your job – trust me – but I also can manage to pull rainbows out of my ass when the situation calls for it. This doesn’t seem to be an abundant skill here.
— Unkempt (but not filthy until recently) tables. It –is– an odd setup. Sometimes the employees wander around and ask if they can bring you sauces, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they act like full service waiters, sometimes they don’t. It’s confusing and stupid never knowing what to expect. I assume that explains why some people bus their own tables and some people scratch their heads and just leave.
— Poor quality on some items like stale buns and severely undercooked fries.
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Okay. All that lovely soot and poo brings us to this last Saturday when I suggested to my coworker that we try to bring the guys we work with there again. We’d tried before and they were out of almost every damn thing on the menu. I knew this time would be different.
I’m a lousy optimist.
Red flags shot out of my ass and slapped me in the back of the head when we pulled up on a SATURDAY at 6PM and there was ONE unenthused couple eating in the restaurant. WSP’s finest sit-​down restaurant is a fucking Applebee’s and this place is a ghost town.
I gulped hard.
There was no music playing and the tables were all disgusting (half-​assed, if at all, wiped and covered in greasy smears) even though there were an ample amount of employees working. We ended up cleaning off our own tables with wet wipes.
After gathering everyone’s orders, we went up to grab the four burgers the guys wanted. Two guys from the back looked up and saw us but said nothing and after some time, a girl walked over absently twisting her hair. She almost jumped out of her skin when she saw us.
After taking three of the burger orders, the guy in the back goes, «Uh… yeah, we’re out of burgers, man.»
Annoyed, I revamped the other order for a pulled pork instead.
The bottles of sauces I went to grab that they had sitting out were absolutely cloaked in goo. My coworker, refusing to touch them bare-​handed, grabbed one with a napkin. The napkin stuck to the fucking thing like a fly trap.
The food was disappointing and my coworker who’d never been here said she’d never be back. The brisket does honestly have a good flavor (hence the extra star in the rating) but it was uncomfortably cold. The buns on the sliders were so oily that I could literally squeeze the grease out of them and they were also stale. The fries had the same issues as the first time and tasted just like they’d been lightly blanched in oil without seasoning while the coleslaw had zero flavor. The guys were very quiet about their satisfaction level with their food which is disturbing to say the least.
This bothers the hell out of me, too:
Their tables have the worst design I’ve ever seen in my life. Just underneath the main steel tabletop is another mini tabletop. It’s clear that they’ve never been graced by any sort of cleaning solution and house everything from grease and toddler prints to used, balled up napkins and old food. I ran my hand across the one at our table and my palm was covered in thick, dusty black grease. Appetizing, yes?
This is a joke. I can’t justify spending any more of my time on this place; these aren’t opening jitters or cute little kinks anymore. This is a blatant lack of proper management coupled with a staff that couldn’t give a shit less.
Looks like there will be another vacancy on Robert Street soon.

Ummm, no. Sorry. I had the pulled pork sandwich with corn cake and fries.
First, the sandwich. It’s only pork. I mean, no seasonings, no sauce. Nothing. So okay, there’s a host of sauces to choose from, but unless you love spicy, you’re out of luck. The Memphis «sweet» sauce with chocolate was freaking hot for sauce. Call it «hot chocolate» sauce. I was able to cool it down with some Georgia mustard, though, and the pork was STILL bland and horrifically dry.
Now, the sides. I’m giving this review 2stars for the quality of the fries (even though there was barely any salt on them at all), and the pickles.
Lets talk about their corn cake. We were told it was creamed corn with bread and butter. That was kinda correct. The corn wasn’t sweet. The bread was soggy to the point of gross. I could taste the butter actually, but it couldn’t fix the rest of the bland goo.
My husband ordered the cheesy mac. Sigh. Why, oh why oh WHY do these places think the jalapeño cheese sauce out of a can should be used for mac and cheese? Why?! Disgusting and orange with a skin formed over it.
This is not good BBQ, people. It’s not. Lunch for 2 (2 regular sized sandwiches plus 2 bland sides each and 2 fountain drinks) was almost $ 25.00. You can do so much better elsewhere. Like next door at LeeAnn Chin. And that’s saying something.

I love me some BBQ!!!
We walked in and were greeted by blues music – the good kind. The menu was a tad overwhelming, but loaded with good stuff. They also have sammies and some sides I won’t try, but that’s more me than them. We had ribs, brisket, pulled pork, turkey, corn fritters, fries, and some other stuff. I love brisket and pulled pork and was not disappointed. The ribs were also quite tasty. I didn’t care for the turkey, but my wife did. The fries were good, but cooled down too fast to fully enjoy. Mac and cheese was meh, the corn fritters were lovely.
There are about a half dozen sauce options, which serve their purpose well, and are different enough for most people to find one or more they like.
I will definitely make this a regular takeout option, and will dine in from time to time as well.
Pro Tip: if dining in, smuggle some maple syrup in and ask for some butter with your corn fritters. Don’t judge this too harshly until you have tried it. If you are going home, some ham can be added as an accompaniment as well, to turn these lovelies into a full stand-​alone meal. If management reads this, please consider stocking maple syrup and smoked ham, or offer a ham corn fritter.
The Burnsville location is just as good, with the added bonus of a picture strategically placed on the soft drink dispenser. I wont say what the picture is, but you will likely smile and then wonder why there isn’t another strategically placed picture. In any case, yummy!

I never thought I’d ever say this, but I’ve found the worst barbecue I’ve ever experienced.
I checked out other Unilocal reviews and saw that there was one only with less than three stars. I hate to say it, but I should have taken that as my cue to just go back to the sushi place nearby.
I make some darned good ribs myself and don’t always want to go through all that work to get some delicious smoked meats. Well, I’d rather do that with one hand tied behind my back than go back to Rack Shack.
We got a half rack meal with baked beans and fries, along with a brisket meal sided by macaroni and claire slaw. We also took home some of the Firehouse, Kansas City and Savannah sauces. We didn’t know that these sauces would be the only reason would be able to choke down the meats. The macaroni side is another «why bother». The beans, fries, and claire slaw were great.
The ribs were flavorless and didn’t have any smoke to them at all. The brisket was difficult to swallow even after being covered in sauce. It also had no flavor.
We won’t be back, and are very disappointed that we ate food and are not remotely satisfied. We spend our calories carefully, and we both know that we’ll be eating something later, not because we’ll be hungry. It will be because we’re hungry for more.
One should be hungry for more in life… not dinner.

Recently tried the new Rack Shack in WSP. I thought it was about time that WSP attracted a new, promising BBQ joint! My mouth was watering as I eyed some of the best looking ribs that I’ve ever seen from a local BBQ joint. It had a perfect char on the outside with that classic reddish smoke line in the meat. (Signs said that they smoke their ribs for 14 hours.) I couldn’t wait to take my first bite!
First, without any sauce. What a let-​down. The ribs were tender, but had no flavor! :-(Good BBQ ribs have at least SOME noticeable flavor in the meat just from the long, slow smoking. But, honestly, these were so tasteless, that I HAD to slather them with sauce to even want to eat them.
I revived the ribs with the Kansas City BBQ sauce but, for the price (5 ribs, 2 small sides & reg fountain soda for $ 16+tax at lunch), I expected real BBQ, instead of the same bland-​tasting rib meat that anyone can find at Perkins or Denny’s.
There are a few GOOD BBQ joints not far away in St. Paul. I’m very disappointed to say that, unless Rack Shack starts taking their BBQ more seriously, they won’t last long this close into the city. Good try Rack Shack, but you seriously need to kick it up a notch to compete here. I’m hopeful that you will.