Tustin RoadHouse

The pulled pork had a lot of fat/​skin it (ugh). The beans and bread were both good. The service was running around like crazy. Seems like they need to hire a few more servers or something.

Not good, not good, not good.
The décor is great. The service is pretty good. The problem: the food.
I came here with my family after buying a groupon, so we were able to order quite a bit of food. Safe to say, nothing really worked for us.
The brisket was dry and did not have any real smoked flavor to it. The chicken was also very dry. The sides– mac & cheese, baked beans, fries — were nothing special. Pulled pork tasted like it just came out of the crockpot with liquid smoke added. But the worst were the ribs.
The ribs were «fall of the bone.» That would be a good thing, but for the fact that the ribs were boiled for a long time leaving virtually no flavor left and taking away any semblance of a meaty texture to them. Instead, we’re left with a soft meat-​like protein with cartilage and tendon with bbq sauce on top.
Save yourself some money and go to Lucilles. Go to Costco and buy a rack of ribs. Make some at home. I’m pretty sure as unappealing as some of these options may be, at least it won’t be a total waste of your money.

The Roadhouse is no more. It has been closed for a bit and is being remodeled and will open as a seafood restaurant in the not too distant future (by the look of it).

My office ordered lunch from this place and thought I’m not a huge bbq fan I thought the food was really good. I had the pulled pork sliders with mac n cheese, both were great especially with their bbq sauce.

First, I have to say the building this place is in is awesome. Look up and the ceiling is fascinating! Lots of structural engineering.
Having said that, there were very few people in there (we got there at 5pm). The Japanese place next door had a line out the door. The quality of the food was okay. The sides, cole slaw was horrible, and the baked beans were all right. The only thing that was good was the BBQ beef sandwich. Good as in «good,» but not great. The service was Excellent (they don’t have waiters — just employees that asked us if we need anything). They asked like 5 times if they could get us anything. As far as clean, I didn’t notice anything as dirty.
Overall, I give this place a ²⁄₅ stars. I will not be back, and it looks like other people learned that before me.

**Attention**: No longer honors groupons that you already bought.
I never thought the food was that great. This place has changed names a few times… and styles. Order and seat yourself to full service order at your table back to order at the front. Menu changed a few times too and now they don’t have tri tip anymore, which is standard barbecue fare.
Even though my dad loves the food (for some reason) we obviously won’t be back after they decided to give groupon customers a big middle finger and stop taking the vouchers they sold. I have only ever had to get a refund from groupon for a place that closed… never for a restaurant that is still open and flat out not taking them anymore. Even if offering groupons turned out to be bad for business… this is probably worse.

Meh, probably three and a half stars. Rounded down to three cus I’m pmsing and no one is safe from my scrutiny.
This place used to be WAY busier when it was Beachpit and that combined with the fact that the food bible that is Unilocal only gave it three stars left me entering the situation with low expectations.
Big place, very casual, cute southern décor, tons of seating both inside and on the front patio. You order up at the counter (I was looking for a hostess when I walked in) and they bring your food to your table, so it’s a lot more casual and a lot less of the BBQ experience than Beachpit was.
The lady who took our orders had a bit of a sassy attitude (maybe we’re cycling together, aw) and wasn’t very helpful at all. We asked for suggestions and she just kept saying «it depends what your taste is…» or «it depends what you like»
…look lady, it takes me fifteen minutes to pick a pasta sauce at the grocery store (WHY ARE THERE 77 MILLION VARIATIONS OF ROASTED RED PEPPER)…clearly I don’t know what I like or what my taste is.
Anyway I eventually went with the BBQ chopped salad with brisket (you can pick between brisket, pork, chicken, etc) and my dude ordered the brisket sandwich with mac and cheese, coleslaw and blueberry cornbread.
The food came out really quick (they forgot the cornbread) and sassy lady was less sassy and more friendly when she came out with our food. Presentation on both was absolutely horrible, but that’s ok… don’t judge a book by its why does it look like a toddler made this salad.
Anyway the ingredients were all really fresh, generous portion of well cooked brisket and the best part of the salad was the dijon vinegrette which was really just perfect. The salad had tomatoes, corn, black beans (standard Texmex style salad) and blueberry cornbread croutons which I thought was inventive. My dude liked his food but was by no means blown away (I swear his sandwich looked like a McRib… mmm McRib, I love you come back to me).
I don’t know that I would return, but the lunch was satisfying enough and the overall experience exceeded my initial expectations.

If I could give them 0 stars I would do so but since I can’t I will say this much; the service was horrible tonight with the exception of the bartender. On top of that, I was yelled at by the bleached blonde waitress after expressing my displeasure at my plate sitting at my table for well after 45 minutes of me finishing my meal. She tried to tell me that I was in the bar area and that cleaning our table fell on the shoulders of the bartender. If that is so, why did she and the other runner, whom I have never seen before, clean other patrons tables in the same area?
As someone that is a business owner in the hospitality industry for over 15 years, that is NOT how you respond to an irritated customer.
The food used to fairly good but lately it has gone down hill and I seem to become ill then next day after eating it. I understand that the place is up for sale and no one, besides the bartender, seems to care about customer service which is very sad to me.
I have been a regular for well over a year and if that is how they treat regulars now, I shudder to think how they treat new customers on their first visit.

No waiting go to the back section and order and pick your own seats.
Food was fantastic.
We had it all, Calamari, pulled pork, salads, nachos, burgers, etc…
Amazing banana pudding.
Food was great! I didn’t hurt that they had a awesome groupon deal going.

We ordered the roasted chicken and rib combo, beef brisket, shrimp po’boy and wings appetizer. Plus sides of sweet potato fries, BBQ beans, and fried okra. Everything was just ok. Not terrible, but nothing amazing. However, the blueberry cornbread was very good. And the homemade banana pudding was delicious. And it was free by checking in on Unilocal.Service was very nice. Atmosphere was casual and comfortable. Even though the cornbread and dessert was good, the main entrees weren’t good enough to have me go out of my way to go again.

Wheeled into the remnants of the Beach Pit BBQ. Brought my family, brother, mother, wife and kids. Walked into a restaurant that was in total disarray. All of the inside tables were dirty, the plates had been picked up on most of them but none had been washed off.
We asked for a menu, and the woman behind the counter dug around and found one. We tried to order but were told that they didn’t have the stuff on the menu only the items on the chalk board. About a third of the items from the menu. So we regroup and try to order again. This time my daughter orders something off the chalk board. Once again, the woman behind the counter tells her that they don’t have that item until 4. It’s about 3:20 in the afternoon. So once again she places an order, something she didn’t really want, but the order went through.
I ordered a couple of appetizers for the table and a slab of ribs. I picked fries as it seemed they could handle that. Everybody else got there orders in with a few more hiccups.
We sat outside in a covered little patio on the street. Walking past the bar I notice two fellas hunkered down at the bar. I see the same woman who was waiting on us, is now the bar keep. She also appears to be perhaps the only front end employee in the place.
After about a 20 minute wait, the same woman delivers most of our food and the appetizers at the same time. Maybe it’s just me but when someone orders an appetizer they generally want it before there meal.
The food is dropped off, not too impressive of a presentation. I can’t say that the the food tasted bad, it just wasn’t good. My ribs were tasteless, devoid of any taste. That could have been because of the large amount of fat that was on them.
My brother ordered an order of banana pudding. About 20 minutes the woman from the front counter shows up. She tells us that she had forgot the banana pudding and would bring two servings.
She never showed back up with the pudding. To top everything else off I stepped in chewing gum inside the roachouse. It looked more appetizing than most of the food. You can bet this place is going to be short lived, we won’t be back.

Let’s get straight to the point: the BBQ here is not as good as other places. (I would much prefer Phil’s BBQ or even Lucille’s instead). I don’t think the rub is that flavorful, which was a little surprising. The cornbread was really dry too. I love a crunchy, refreshing coleslaw to pair with my BBQ, but the one here was really bland. I was even looking for salt and pepper at one point. The cobb salad we had was pretty ordinary and unremarkable.
On the plus side, I liked the street corn and the deviled eggs. Both of those were very flavorful and good. I just don’t know what happened between the appetizers and main entrees… Either way, you would be better off elsewhere for a good BBQ.

I am flip-​flopping between 2 and 3 stars. On one hand, the brisket and the pulled pork were surprisingly good. I wasn’t crazy about the BBQ sauce, but at least they put it on the side. On the other hand, we were trying to order food to go and it took forever to get the bartender to take our order. And then when we got home, we were missing our sweet potato fries (and I HATE paying for food that I don’t get). I also thought it was interesting that when the bartender handed us our food, he said, «I put extra corn bread in there for you.» When we got home, there was no extra corn bread (we didn’t care — we didn’t want extra). The mac and cheese wasn’t really worth eating and neither was the coleslaw. The blueberry corn bread was okay, but kinda dry.
The restaurant atmosphere is pretty blah — I wouldn’t want to eat there. Basically, I wouldn’t bother coming back here.
Clarification: This is the same restaurant as Beach Pit — the only thing that changed is the name. So, if you didn’t like Beach Pit, don’t come here to see if Tustin Roadhouse will be better — it isn’t. It is exactly the same.

Great BBQ place in Tustin. Its very loud though on Fridays nights cause they have a guy singing live. Love that our drinks come in cute mason Jars. Service was good. We ordered a bunch of food between the 6 of us. My favorites were the Pulled Pork, Beef Brisket, Fried (Boneless) Chicken, Blueberry cornbread, and the Mac n Cheese. Don’t get the ribs or the Smoked Chicken. Everything else like fries, sauteed spinach and coleslaw was fine. Definitely would come back for some more brisket and cornbread!

Good times again
I used to be a big fan of Beach Pit BBQ — I would visit the old orange location at least once a week. Then the bad times hit. Food quality and consistency went south and Beach Pitt closed their doors and many of their other locations. Tustin Roadhouse (A rebranded beach pit) and the Costa Mesa locations are the only two left.
I was very happy with my visit. Food was very good — exactly like it used to be at other locations before it went downhill. Roadhouse is table service location, which is odd seeing that I’m getting the same food I would get at the other quick serve locations, but it’s not the worst thing. They have a bar and plenty of TVs and if the Angels are playing, they’re always on.
Nice atmosphere and good food make this a must do when I pass through Tustin.

I’m giving this place 3.5 out of 5 stars, hovering closer to 4 only because I had a pretty pleasant experience!
I hadn’t been back to this location since it was a Beach Pit BBQ, which to me, was underwhelming. I like that they decided to re-​theme it to The Roadhouse and provide more dinner options. During the day, you can order from the counter and then they switch over to table service.
David S. and I came right before the dinner rush and we seated ourselves at the behest of our server. We glanced at the menu and decided to try the deviled eggs as an appetizer. I think they had a good yolk filling-​to-​egg white ratio and the paprika or whatever make it «cajun» gave it a good kick. The centers were a bit creamier in consistency than I prefer, but good on taste.
Based on the Unilocal reviews, I decided to get the fried chicken with the thyme butter sauce, which came served with a side of sauteed spinach, mashed potatoes, and blueberry cornbread. You can get this dish in a large or small portion, and I decided to get the large — there were two pieces of chicken that didn’t look like much but combined with everything else it was a solid meal.
I have to say, I really enjoyed the butter thyme gravy — probably the best part of the meal. The cornbread was good and moist, and the mashed potatoes were so buttery. I also liked the garlic spinach too. David S. enjoyed his chicken and ribs plate as well.
We also redeemed the Unilocal check-​in offer, a giant mason jar of Banana Pudding topped with whipped cream and lots of surprising slices of banana and vanilla wafers to send anyone overboard in fullness.
Overall, we had good attentive service, the food was decent, and the atmosphere was friendly.

Okay, I’m a regular at this place and you’re probably wondering why I am only giving it 2 stars. Well, first off I came here a lot when it was Beach Pit BBQ and had no complaints whatsoever. In fact, I would tell all my friends and family about it and brought them there on a couple of occasions.
Well, now that it has changed to Tustin Roadhouse I’m no longer a fan. The food, service and overall atmosphere is no longer inviting or leaves me wanting to go back like it used to. The first time my husband and I ever went there (back when it was Beach Pit BBQ) we had an amazing server who offered to bring us samples of the brisket so that we could decide on what we wanted to order, refilled my blueberry iced tea which she suggested, and even brought us a complimentary banana pudding! We tipped her well and hoped we would get her as a server again. I guess they have a high server turn-​over because we never saw her again.
The last couple times we’ve gone, after it’s changed, we’ve been so disappointed with the service and unfortunately, also the food. We waited for over 10 minutes for anyone to even greet us at our table since the sign said seat yourself, and finally got a server to take our drink order. My husband didn’t get his drink, meanwhile, the lady that sat down next to us 5 minutes before already had hers (she had a different server) and when our food finally got to us my salad was missing half the ingredients it was supposed to come with! How does the chef forget what ingredients go in what? Oh, and the dressing was all wrong, way too much horseradish, it changed the entire salad.
We were kind to the waitress because we assumed she was new, that was really the only logical explanation we could think of as to why she had no idea what she was doing. She was nice but just not any good at her job. She didn’t apologize for my order being wrong, instead blamed someone else – she did the same thing for forgetting the drink.
I thought she would comp at least the drink or maybe my salad for it being so wrong but instead she brought us the check. Wouldn’t she want to ask if my husband would like another drink first or if we wanted any dessert? If anything, for the sake of having a higher tab to get a better tip? Obviously, she had no idea how to handle that.
All in all, I ended feeling bad for having spent money on going out to eat, which is a feeling I do NOT like to have. I want to be satisfied with the food and service I pay for, not left with a bad taste in my mouth as I leave. We won’t be coming back here again and it’s truly unfortunate for us and them.
***Update: We got an invitation from the general manager to come back and have a complimentary meal in order to correct the service and have a better experience. My husband and I each got a meal, he got ribs and I got the salmon. The food was good, we were both satisfied with our meals. We had a great server who offered appetizers, brought drinks right away and refilled mine at a steady pace. We had a relaxing dinner date which was great because it’s nice to talk instead of focusing on how bad the service is, like last time. It was nice of Danny to want to correct our bad experience and have dinner on the house. We felt better about dining there once again.

Friend had the Groupon connection so I thought I’d give this place another chance. Sadly it was about the same as before. I ordered the Chicken & Rib combo and our waiter said it was a half chicken. Wasn’t. The plate was hot but the food not so much. For example, when the cornbread arrives and you immediately put butter on it, the butter should melt. Didn’t. The St Louis ribs were tough so I didn’t much finish it.
Note: EVERYONE was using the Groupon special. It’s sad that this place is trying to get more bodies in and not focusing on great food. First a name change, then begging for great reviews with cash towards next purchase and now Groupon.
Yes, the manager will hit me with a negative comment but then he probably doesn’t eat here either. Just saying. Look at all of the other low scores. You’re doing something wrong (BTW, the table next to us kept calling the waiter for refills… they too were using Groupon).
I’m saving my BBQ needs for Lucille’s.

Groupon strikes again! We had one for TRH, which used to be Beach Pit BBQ (some of their stuff still says that!) so we wandered on over for some BBQ goodness. The bad: No brisket — they were out. No sweet tea — just the regular unsweetened stuff. Good, now we got that out of the way. I wanted the brisket, of course, but hey c’est la vie.
So we settled on root beer, though they have an extensive list of cocktails and a full bar. With BBQ, root beer is more my speed, though an underwhelming substitute for sweet tea, dammit.
After looking at the menu again, we decided on the buttermilk fried chicken plate. It came with two fried chicken breasts with a light, crunchy batter, and oh-​so-​tender chicken, to my surprise. Chicken breast is so often overdone and as dry as the desert. Country gravy was poured very lightly over them, and I have to admit that after tasting the gravy, I really wish there had been more of it.
The sides were all delicious! The yukon gold mashed potatoes were creamy and wonderful, and the spinach was expertly sauteed and seasoned. We both forked up every last bite o our plates. The real sides star though was the blueberry cornbread. Moist and slightly crumbly, TRH gives you a substantial cut to dig into, with butter, of course.
Rarely have I ever eaten such good cornbread, and I think I’d go back just for that. But what really sealed the deal for my return was dessert: Banana Pudding. I know, it sounds a bit plain, but order it and dig in! They bring you two spoons with a mason jar layered with bananas, Nilla wafers, pudding, and whipped cream. We ate every last bit of it, despite being stuffed from dinner.
Our server was super nice, if slightly busy trying to take care of us and other patrons. This is a cozy little place that I can see myself coming back to again sometime in the near future, though I think I’ll call ahead to confirm the presence of brisket before I go ;)

I have a groupon for this place so I went. I got the full rack of ribs! They were a bit pricey but it was a LOT of ribs! Thank goodness I got it to go. The meat just fell off the bones! Very good! Sauce was good as well b/​c I like a lot of sauce. I had the side of sweet potatoe fries which were also very good!
My friend got a chicken sandwhich I believe and it was huge as well. The cole slaw I thought was just ok though and I can’t remember what her side was. But it’s worth trying.
They have live music on fridays so I’d like to go back! We were there at lunch during the wk & we were the only ones there for awhile.

AOK
We came here specifically to fill a brisket craving. It is the closest place around with four stars, that we haven’t tried yet, and is not all the way in Los Angeles.
They were out of brisket :(
Ribs and Pork Chop-​3 Stars
Ordered ribs and the pork chop. Ribs were AOK, as was the Pork Chop.
Corn Bread-​2 Stars
Blueberry Cornbread was super dry. SUPER dry. I can imagine it being tasty if it were not so dry.
Corn on the Cob-​5 Stars
Amazing! Buttery and spicy goodness. The kernals fall right off the cob and are super delicious. This is a must order!
Service-​3 Stars
Our host was not really attentive. The food wad brought out and we had no utensils or napkins. We were told the brisket was the best thing on the menu, only to be told about five minutes later (after we ordered) that they were out. There was live entertainment and the guy did not even thank the little one when she left some $$ in his tip jar. She even asked me why he didn’t say thank you or acknowledge her.
Overall, an AOK experience.