The Blue Duck Barbecue Tavern

I have never had anything bad on their menu.
I’ve had the dollowing:
Bahn mi sandwitch,
Brisket sandwitch,
Ribs,
Chicken salad sandwitch,
BBQ baked potato,
Wings (AWESOME!!)
My girlfriend and I love this place and it is a must goto in the peoria area

We decided to try Blue Duck Tavern tonight (Friday). We arrived around 5:45 and had a small wait but it was shorter than expected and well worth it. The food, drinks and service were AMAZING! We started with drinks from their large selection and the brisket poutine. The poutine is a must try! I had the pulled pork torta and warm bacon potato salad — both delicious! My partner had the full rib tips plate, fries and slaw — also delicious. All the food items were fresh and full of flavor! We never had empty glasses or plates sitting on the table — our server was friendly and efficient. I would say give this place a try if you are looking for something new and different. We will definitely be going back!

I’ve been here 3 times now, and each time has been a really good experience. The food is fantastic, and I leave feeling full and satisfied. The flavors are top notch, and they offer a menu that ventures a little off the beaten path, which is a place I like to travel. Their Asian Tacos are phenomenal, although I like the sauce on the side. The Rib Tips were cooked perfectly, seared on the outside with tender, juicy meat on the inside. Lastly, the sides they offer are unique and flavorful, with things like Red Cabbage Slaw, Elotes, and Warm Bacon Potato Salad — all excellent. I look forward to my next visit.

Super good bbq for central Illinois. Everything my husband and I ordered was very delicious. We ordered the fried dill chips and they came out hot. My husband ordered the half rack of ribs which were ah-​mazing! I ordered the brisket chopped which was very tender and delicious. The sides were also very delicious. Awesome bbq, great prices, and they also had a good beer selection!

The brisket is simply amazing and you don’t need to drown it in BBQ like most around this area :)))

We ordered the one pound brisket chopped with baked beans and Mexican corn for our sides. Everything was delicious. The barbecued brisket was smoked over oak which added a depth of flavor you don’t get with other woods. The sides were both delicious and obviously prepared from scratch on premise. Add to that outstanding service at a very economical price point and all I can say is OUTSTANDING!!!

Nice place. I don’t eat a whole lot of meat, and no beef or pork, so the menu is a little challenging for me. They have one vegetarian sandwich (caprese). It’s solid, if uninspired. I also sometimes go for the baked potato with pulled chicken, and that’s pretty great. The sides are fantastic, though, and the meat-​free or meat-​limited know how to make a meal out of sides, so that alway works in a pinch.
I can’t speak personally for the barbecue, but my husband loves it. We’re from KC, so he’s not easy to please on that front, and Blue Duck does it. He usually goes for the ribs. If there’s someone there to split it with him, he loves the chicken wings appetizer.
Waits can be long here, and the climate control is not great (cold when it’s cold out, stifling when it’s hot out… this has been the case on each of the 8 – 10 times we’ve eaten here, and our first time was opening week, our most recent time was within the last month). But the staff is very friendly and knowledgeable, and the bar is extensive. There’s always an interesting beer or whiskey to try.
This is a great place to try if you haven’t.

Great food, great atmosphere. Wish it was a little bigger!
I’ve had quite a few items and have enjoyed all of them. Poutine is amazing! Brisket is delicious too. I have been getting the wedge salad a lot recently. It’s HUGE, covered in their smokey bacon, and costs less than $ 5!
I would highly recommend this place. But it gets packed quickly during peak times. The wait for seating can take quite a while.

We stopped in for drinks and an appetizer. We ordered the brisket poutine. It was yummy. We like the atmosphere including the houseplants and the industrial rustic feel.

If you take nothing else away from this review, heed these words: THE POTATO SALAD is otherworldly! Seriously, it’s like no potato salad I’ve ever had. Any explanation won’t do it justice, just go try it.
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A buddy and I were itching to grab some food at 9pm one night before heading out on a night bike ride. Just about every other restaurant in Peoria closes at 8pm, but not Blue Duck. I had been interested in trying them out and so the opportune time had presented itself.
Blue Duck has a pretty cool vibe to it, a step above feeling like a bar, but not quite towards «fancy», which I really liked.
I grabbed a brisket sandwich with the potato salad as a side (which you already know is freaking legit), and my buddy got the lorraine burger. I wasn’t blown away with the brisket, but it was good. My buddy thought the lorraine burger was really good.
In all, they are definitely a spot to check out if you’re looking for a new place to grab some good food.

Phenomenal BBQ. Good beer/​whiskey selection. This place doesn’t try too hard to be something it’s not.

Had dinner there last night. There were 4 of us and we all loved our food. I had the Mexican pulled pork tacos and they were great. I am gluten free so loved the labels on the menu. Others in our group had the fried potato salad and raved about it. Service was very good too. I also love the building. I have always loved that location and am so glad a good restaurant with staying power has moved in.

Great beer selection, and the Asian beef brisket tacos were very good! That little bowl of dark stuff in my pic is the most crazy delicious crunchy weird potato salad I’ve ever tasted.

What an absolute treasure! I spent one night in Peoria and flipped a coin and ended up here. Very small, cozy tavern. They have plenty of craft beers on tap, and super tasty cocktails. The food is really reasonably priced and the portions are huge. Everything was so good, I had to order two main courses. Really cool old building and it is walking distance from the main downtown area of Peoria. I have made sure to tell everyone I know about this restaurant and will certainly be back next time I am in town.

Another eatery struck by the Peoria poor service curse. As with most other places in town, the longer they are open, the worse the service gets. I’ve written this place off as even good food can’t overcome how irritated I get by service people who act like they are doing you a favor by performing job duties. You would think they are rationing the fountain drinks by how studiously the staff avoid getting you a refill. They are also still very unfamiliar with the menu, I wanted to try the homemade pickles so I asked if they were a side and she said yes. Then I see on the menu that they are complimentary with each meal so she just cheated me out of a side. However, did I ever see her again to ask about my missing side? Hahaha, take a wild guess. Time for this place to clean house and hire all new staff to get their customers back. No BBQ is worth putting up with such poor service.

I don’t know about you, but I go to restaurants for the quality of food and not so much for the service. Places that excel in both categories qualify for 5-​star ratings, no brainer, right?
The interior of the restaurant was kept very clean and the wait staff were attentive even when submerged in the hustle and bustle of a Saturday Night.
Perhaps I didn’t order the right items but my most recent visit was a solid disappointment. The food was lacking in everything but salt. Our group of 5 tasted a variety of items ranging from Rib Tips, Pulled Pork, Bhan Mi with a side of Mac & Cheese, Slow-​Cooked Chicken Thigh, and the Smoke Brisket Poutine. I wanted to order the ribs, but they were flat out (by the time I ordered, it was 8:30pm). The bbq meats were cooked as expected without any surprises nor fireworks and served with a tangy bbq sauce. Items are priced on a reasonable scale for the amount served.
At this point, I’d like to make a PSA:
Avoid the one item that wiped all appeal of this restaurant away from me – the Bhan Mi.
I was personally offended by this establishment’s interpretation of the sandwich.
Visualize this: On the left is a circle containing the ingredients of a traditional vietnamese Bhan Mi, similarly on the right is a circle containing the ingredients of Blue Duck Tavern’s understanding of what a Bhan Mi sandwich. As the two circles converge, synthesizing a Venn Diagram, the area formed in the center containing shared ingredients is solely pork, but cooked in a despairingly misconstrued manner – crocker pot. How does this embarrassment of a sandwich even qualify for the same name as a beloved Vietnamese delicacy? Absolutely not ok. This sandwich is more closely related to a pulled-​pork sandwich. The fact that the meat is doused in their ‘signature’ Goku sauce, feeble and salty, was not a redeeming factor. If this sauce is going to remain unchanged, Goku will never become Super Saiyan.
Seeing I was clearly unhappy with my sandwich, the waitress offered to take it off my bill and replace my original order with another item. Enter: Slow-​Cooked Chicken Thigh. As stated, it’s a slow-​cooked chicken thigh.
Her kindness had me reconsider my rating from a 1-​star.

I am a fan of the food, some of the things are really really good. The Smoked Wings, the BBQ popcorn, the poutine. The mac and cheese is pretty good, the house pickles are nice.
The Elotes is an awful twist on a mexican dish, this time it’s served cold, and is kind of a gross congealed mess.
I have gotten the Bahn Mi sandwich twice now, the 1^st time it was pretty good, and interesting. The 2^nd time it was all gristle and fat, very disappointing.
The pulled pork and the asian tacos are both really good.

I loved the down home feel of this bbq restaurant. It’s located next to the Illinois River Walk which I think is the popular bar area, so if you park in the public parking area by the river walk, it’s about a half mile up to the Blue Duck Tavern.
The entrance is located in an office building lobby. Once you go in, the surroundings transform and you suddenly enter a bbq joint and sports bar. This seems to be a very popular place, and even at 8:30pm on a Fri night it was full with a 10 minute wait. They have a very good beer selection and fun menu with very appealing appetizers (bbq popcorn, fried pickle slices, bbq style poutine, etc) and main dishes.
I came here specifically because I wanted to try the ribs, which had received really good reviews. Unfortunately, they had only half a rack left, which was fine as my other friend didn’t want to order ribs anyway. The half rack only comes with about 4 ribs, though, and I was hungry. Fortunately they do give you decent sides, which also has a good variety, and I got the mac and cheese and corn salad. The corn salad was amazing!
The ribs turned out to be really tender and meaty. Unilocal didn’t steer me wrong here and it really scratched that itch. While I wish I could have ordered a full rack, I got enough to know it’s a good place to go and their food is great. Would recommend.

Really great food. The Brunswick stew was off the chart. Pulled pork was very tasty. Loved the hand cut fries and the red cabbage slaw. Oddly, the cabbage slaw tasted identical to Cracked Pepper’s Orzo Salad.
Décor is hands down a bar. Service not overly friendly, but prompt. Expect long seating times on the weekends.
Co-​worker complained that the Mac n Cheese was too dry.
Would definitely come back.

Overall I was really impressed with this place and think it’s probably the best place I’ve had BBQ in Peoria. I went with a group of 8 to try this place down and overall we really enjoyed the food and our experience here.
poutines with brisket: highly recommend. Brisket was cooked well and gravy in poutines had a nice flavor.
Brisket: melted in my mouth and had a nice smokey flavor.
Fried chicken: huge pieces, loved the dipping sauce that came with it, nice and crispy.
Mac and cheese, Mexican rice, and corn: pretty average, nothing special
Biscuit: average
Potato salad: awesome, they fried the potatoes and put a slaw over it. Not a huge fan of potato salad but enjoyed this one.
My friend had a chicken sandwich and didn’t really like it, said the chicken was dry.
Apple crumble: didn’t really like this dessert, was basically sliced up apples with oats mixed in and it wasn’t even warm when it was served to us. Disappointing.
Banh me: my friend didn’t really like it but the waitress said it was one of the more popular things people enjoyed from the restaurant.
Beers on tap were pretty reasonably priced between $ 5 – 6 dollars and bartenders were pretty knowledgeable and gave good recommendations.