Cheap Eats: Jack's Original Barbeque

The chicken and rib combo (Credit: Andi Berlin/Special to Metromix)

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Cheap Eats reviews

A meal for two under $20

Fourth of July dining

Celebrate your freedom from having to do the dishes

What was ordered: one chicken and rib dinner Wednesday special ($9.75) and the sliced beef dinner ($9.25) with sweet potato fries (50 cents) for a total of $19.50, just shy of our Cheap Eats goal of $20 for two people.

Comments: There are a lot of barbecue places in Tucson, but Jack’s Original Barbeque has a certain homey charm not seen much the Old Pueblo. The restaurant has been a “Tucson tradition” since 1950, and the humble décor suggests as much. While this heritage may not yield excellent barbecue, it does suggest an excellent way to enjoy an American standard.

From the interior, Jack’s is unassuming. The tablecloths don’t match, there are new menu prices taped over the old ones and you can see the large troughs of eats in the kitchen. It’s refreshing, to say the least, when a lot of other places spend more on their accessories than entrees.

Food: Eating at Jack’s is definitely not a see-and-be-seen event. The rich barbecue sauce—slopped over all the meats like a liquid blanket—pretty much forbids that. When we ordered, we decided to stick with the restaurant’s adage and get right down to business. Besides tacos and some fried options (okra, chicken tenders and poppers), they don’t really have much in the way of appetizers, anyway.

All of their dinner entrees come with beans and a dinner roll, as well as a choice of potato salad, coleslaw, fries or onion rings. For the sliced beef dinner, we decided to upgrade to sweet potato fries for 50 cents. The fries were cut thick and battered, leaving bubbly blotches all over the skin. Their girth allowed you to taste the sweetness better than most skinny sweet potato fries. But for some reason they tasted a little too sweet for the rest of the plate.

The beans, which also came on the chicken and rib dinner ($9.75 on Wednesdays, $10.75 normally) were too bitter to mix with the fries and had a canned taste even though they’re apparently fresh.

The beef brisket was delicious, but slightly firm compared to some of the more established briskets in town. It just didn’t shred apart like the best ones do. This was a constant theme with the meat: The ribs were succulent, but not fall-off-the-bone. And the chicken was standard, but slightly bland. The rolls might have been the softest thing there, but it’s hard to gush over a roll.

For the combo plate, we chose a house-made potato salad with swirls of mustard and dots of relish. Although not as delicious as the fries, the potatoes paired better with the rest of the dish and were filling.

Service: You order at the counter and they’ll bring a tray to your table.

Bar: domestic draft beers

Daily specials: Mondays—sloppy Joe ($3.25), barbecue tacos ($1.75) • Tuesdays—barbecue tacos ($1.75) • Wednesdays—four-piece chicken dinner ($7.25), chicken and rib dinner ($9.75) • Thursdays—sloppy Joe plate ($5.25) • Fridays—the super-q, a jumbo sandwich with beef and pork ($6.50), rib tip dinner ($8.75) • Saturdays—pork sandwich with potato salad ($5.50), rib tip dinner ($8.75) • Sundays—rib dinner ($9.75), pound of ribs ($12.50)

Bottom line: Jack’s may not have the best barbeque in Tucson, but their atmosphere makes up for it. With so many pristine places around town, it’s nice to kick back and eat a sloppy Joe without worrying about what gets on your shirt.

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