Cartwright’s Famous Bar-B-Q

location closed

The worst BBQ I have ever had! Ribs were cold and fatty. Brisket was tough and dry. Onion Rings were good but they said the ran out of catsup? My wife also liked the fried okra. The blackberry cobbler was burned. The guy cutting the meat was friendly but the cashier was rude and unhappy to be there. I can’t believe that with all the good BBQ places in town that this place can remain open.
I will never return and also spread the word to beware of this place.

Just moved to Austin and stumbled on this place while shopping in the center. The sausage & chicken are amazing! The mac & cheese is my favorite side. Haven’t had a chance to really try anything else yet. Their location off of 290 is cool too.

Loves me some BBQ. This is a good establishment, very friendly staff. They also have a giant flat-​screen tv, which is always a plus when there’s a game on. I find myself stopping by before a trip to the movie theatre, so I can get some of their delicious sausage, then I sneak it into the theatre. (Oh come on, everybody sneaks food into a movie!) I find people looking over their shoulders at me, wondering where that aromatic BBQ smell is coming from.

It’s hard to give a fair assessment of food when your starving and everything taste decent just as long as it’s edible and going into your mouth as fast as possible. Lucky for me my dining companion shared some of her opinions with me to add into my review since she wasn’t famished like I was.
Cartwright was offering a standard lunch special on Sunday which included 1 meat and two sides for $ 6.95. Too many good meat choices to make up my mind, the server behind the counter said that I could get half sausage and half brisket. Good customer service moment #1. My companion had brisket.
Thumbs up on having lots of sides to choose from, but still made it hard for indecisive me to select just two. Broccoli salad and mac cheese were the winners. Companion had broccoli salad and scallop potatoes.
Let’s start with the meat. The brisket was dry and sliced really thick making it tough to chew. I let mine marinade in the BBQ sauce labeled spicy and sweet while going to work on my sausage which was pretty good.
Cartwright’s definition of broccoli salad included lightly steamed broccoli which was still pretty close to its raw state along with chopped tri color bell peppers topped with ranch or Italian dressing. It felt like I got veggies from a veggie platter at a party with my ranch. Still edible but not pleasing to my dining mate.
Finally, the highlight for me was the creamy mac & cheese, but the worst was the crispy burnt scallop potatoes. Basically it was a hard solidified pile of plain fried potatoes. No cheese? Really? The scallop potatoes from the box at HEB would have been better. At least one of the servers from behind the counter let her order a new side without charge which was average potatoe salad. Good customer service move #2.
Sadly, I don’t think my dining companion will ever eat here again and it will most likely be a long time from now for me as well.

I just tried out this place for lunch today and was hungry going in, and disappointed coming out.
First off, I wasn’t very happy that I couldn’t order a small sandwich with 2 meats on it. So I had to resort to the $ 5 «Large». When I finished ordering, for one side and a drink I practically spent $ 10 on my whole meal, not what I was wanting to do.
The price wasn’t even the biggest predicament I had with the experience.
The sandwich it self was not «hot» or «juicy», more like no flavor, except the taste of the vinegary sauce, and chewy. I actually TRIED to cover up the taste of the meat with the sauce it was so bad. But that didn’t help much. The potato salad was very bland and obvious it came pre-​packaged so you could tell that it went straight from the big container to the plate.
The only thing that enlightened this experience was that I was able to eat out-​doors and my A&W.
Sorry Cartwright, you lost another customer.

With so many BBQ choices around, I can’t recommend Cartwright’s. They do deliver and they do have a 12.99 meal for two deal right now which are probably the only two positives I can name. The sweet and hot BBQ sauce is the best of their two choices if you just must try the place, but it ain’t winning any awards. The brisket is bland and unexciting. The real travesty here is the sausage. It looks like a dry shriveled up mummified boner possibly unearthed from an archaeological dig at Giza.
Our friend did enjoy the chicken. And I see on Unilocal that the chicken at another Cartwright’s received good comments. So, if you just must eat here, perhaps keep the chicken in mind.

They’re unfailingly nice here, which is always appreciated, and it bears mentioning that I love BBQ so much in general that I’m hard pressed to turn up my nose at nearly any BBQ experience that doesn’t include someone behind the counter taking a swing at me. And suffice it to say there was no ducking going on at Cartwright’s today.
Why the three star call then? Well, my lunch was good, but with a few small tweaks could have been appreciably better. The brisket sandwich I ordered arrived without sauce (which is fine, I was able to doll it up myself), and the bread, while fresh, wasn’t much to write home about. There are the usual assortment of Big Reds and grape sodas and cold brews available and those things always warm my heart. But at the end of the day, the cold bun on top of dry meat left me wanting more (and no clear bussing area. if you’re Cartwright’s and you’re reading this, if I knew where to take my tray, I’d have bussed it myself… I don’t mind).
I’m sure I’ll be back if for no other reason that I know the skinny on these guys now and they were extra friendly. But I’m not running as fast as I can. Yet.

Here’s the 411 on this place:
When I first wanted to come here, I decided not to and went somewhere else. And this time, actually eatin here… I should have grabbed that burger instead.
The ribs are tender, but nothing to talk about, very boney and not a lot of meat.
The sauce is spicy.
The brisket is bland.
And I absolutely hate the scalloped potatoes.
I would rather eat their bread with the sauce than their actual meat with sauce. That should say something.
It wasn’t my favorite place at all. Overall the sauce was ok, a little runny, but ok. And honestly, the people working were mixed. Between an asian, a white, and a mexican working, I don’t know who the hell was making this food.
Between the bland food and the overspiced and over vinegared bbq sauce, nothing stands out in a good way.