Shane's Rib Shack

Critic's Review

Shane's is a franchise operation; which means that each location is managed by someone who may or may not know anything about running a restaurant. They have 66 locations nationwide, which may say more about Shane's marketing prowess than his food.

The first impression is that Shane's Rib Shack is a nice place. It's new, which is always nice; there's a lot of wood. But the big surprise is that there's a pretty nice bar with 4 flat screen TVs and some taps, so you could watch a game in here while chowing down.

I ordered a 1/2 rack place which comes with 2 sides; I got cole slaw and baked beans which are the 2 items I usually thing of with ribs.

When I unpacked the food I noticed that they game me just one setup; a knife and a fork and 1 skinny napkin. If I was eating this out somewhere the napkin never would have been sufficient to eat a bunch of messy ribs. I guess they didn't consider the food they were serving when choosing their setup vendor.

Each piece of food was separated with a piece of paper whick kept the ribs and the containers and the bread from getting all intermingled, which seems like a pretty good idea.

Now for the food. The "texas toast" is a slice of Wonder bread that's toasted on one side. There's no special flavoring; no butter or garlic or cheese. Its just a piece of toast. I'm not sure what I was supposed to do with it; I threw it out.

The beans were mush; not too sweet and bacon-y flavored, but they were just too mushy to take seriously. I ate a few forkfuls but they just weren't any better than canned beans. The cole slaw was edible, although personally I'm not crazy about pulverized cold slaw. A "slaw" should be shredded, me thinks. Maybe I'm wrong. It was ok.

The ribs were good; sort of dryish but pink and tender on the inside with a thick crust. Luckily they put the BBQ sauce on the side, because I didn't like it. It was vinegary and thin and just not what I consider good sauce. The ribs don't really need sauce; they're pretty good as they are.

The conclusion is that while the ribs are pretty good, for $14.95 I just didn't get very much edible food. I'm not that up on Boca rib joints yet, but there are quite a few places much better than this in Fort Lauderdale. Of course none of the places in Fort Lauderdale have Big Screen TVs; but the food is better.