Critic's Review
Another Bad Bob's bites the dust. There are only 3 locations now; I guess that the strategy of giving a franchise to anyone who can come up with $20K isn't a very good one.
***
Bad Bob's BBQ is a franchise operation based in TN. When I was researching them, it was really hard to believe that anyone would buy into this operation. Bob has closed more locations than he's opened; there are 7 nationwide locations and it appears that 14 or more have closed. There's a $20K buy in and then Bob gets 4% of the net; Bob offers no marketing and an amateurish web site done by someone who doesn't have any knowledge of CSS. Since this is the only location in Florida, there's no name recognition (like you'd get opening a Chipotle or a Red Robin). So my expections were very low; so low that I contemplated picking up something else if I couldn't eat this stuff.
The restaurant is manned by a nice couple that seem very excited about owning a business. They gave me a sample before I ordered; it was a dry rub which I didn't plan to order. The rib was good but I didn't care for the rub; it was as if they put it on after cooking. I'm not sure that they have the dry rub procedure mastered yet.
Their menu is a little strange; each location has a different menu. You can get a half-rack of ribs for $9.95 and order your sides separately, or you can get a "Plate' which includes 2 sides for $13.49. What's strange is that you only save 24 cents on the combo at most; it costs more for the combo if you have corn on the cob, and there doesn't seem to be any way to get the curly fries unless you get the combo.
When they handed me the container I thought it was pretty heavy. When I got everything opened it didn't look half bad.
The menu description touts their peach-sweetened baked beans which didn't sound too good to me. There were a couple of peach pieces in the beans, but also some pork, and the beans were surprisingly good. Not as sweet as I expected, not too saucy. The cole slaw is "Tennessee Style", which means no mayo. Usually its flavored with mustard and black pepper, but this was just like a cabbage salad. Not bad; certainly better than overly sweet mayo-based slaw. The ribs themselves were very good. The sauce was well balanced and the meat was firm and pink with just enough smokey taste. I like that they give you the ribs unseparated; when they come separated I always think that they're giving me some leftovers from a lunch plate. They threw in a slider bun for some reason but I had no use for that.
I was going to try the "squeelers", which are either pulled pork or pulled chicken sliders which you can get for $1.49 each, but I forgot to order them. Maybe I'll pick some up next time I pass the place.
It's likely that Bob doesn't discriminate who he takes his 20 grand from so the franchise closings are probably due to inexperienced franchisees who didn't have the cash to weather a recession rather than the food. You could run a successful business with this food. I'd go here before I went to East Coast again; the beans are better and they have babyback ribs.