OC Food Reviews

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We all decided to trek down to Costa Mesa on Friday for lunch and ended up at Beach Pit Barbeque on the corner of 17th and Tustin. Our first impression was that seeing how hard it was to find a place to park, it had to be good. We drove around the corner and parked on the street. As we approached their cute little beach shack we could smell the smoke and we started getting excited.

The restaurant itself had a great atmosphere and layout, except of course for the lack of parking. They have an outdoor area with sections for you to leave your dog and a kids play area that’s gated. They also have a fire pit with benches. As I walked in I noticed what several of the people were eating, the food looked excellent and the portions generous. Overall this looked like my kind of place.

We went inside to order and I was quite happy with their menu, very traditional as barbecue goes and reasonable prices. Most of us settled for the lunch special, I had the beef brisket. We found a place to sit and waited for our orders to come. While we waited I noticed that Beach Pit Barbecue has a real local hangout atmosphere, almost like a coffee shop. People hang out, bring their laptops and work or bring their kids or dogs.

After such a huge build up we got our food and immediately dug in. Overall we were really disappointed with our food with such high expectations. The meat was a little dry, the rolls tasted store bought and the sides were underwhelming. Everything looked better than it tasted. We actually had to send the mac and cheese back for being stale and flavorless. It’s really hard to mess up mac and cheese!

When it comes to barbecue though, I can almost forgive all of the those things. I’m the kind of barbecue lover that believes it’s all about the sauce, and I really did not care for the Beach Pit’s sauce at all. It’s very vinegary and the hot sauce has very little kick to it. It was really a shame overall.

If you’re down in the area, the Beach Pit Barbecue is almost worth checking out just for the atmosphere. Their prices are reasonable and you get a good amount of food. Just don’t expect earth shattering barbecue.