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| - The most fantastically average barbecue in the Valley is at Lucille's.
It started out promising: they brew their own beer! Yes please! But like everything else we ordered that night, flavor was lacking. Like a similar chain restaurant that rhymes with "Blame Bumper", there's plenty of everything, but nothing you'd describe as "delicious". Nothing you remember, nothing you crave.
The high notes were the deep-fried pickles, the hot and spicy sauce and the banana pudding. As many, many others pointed out, the meat was dry.
I really hate writing this sentence, because our server was an absolute sweetheart -- but if you take a customer's drink away to refill it, it needs to come back to the customer within a minute. My server forgot my refill and I was left without anything to drink while my mouth was on fire from the hot and spicy sauce. I know it's all "teamwork service", but I couldn't find anyone to help me with this during my entire main course.
Here is how Lucille's can improve:
1. More servers. If you spend money on just one thing, make it more servers. They were stretched thin.
2. Better ingredients. If you're going to invest in an enormous indoor smoker (and yes, folks, they use real wood, I watched them stoke it) then invest in some quality meat.
3. Smaller portions of better food wouldn't disappoint me. There are only one or two places with really outstanding barbecue in the Phoenix area, plenty of room to compete on quality.
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