1753 Walden Ave., Cheektowaga, NY 14225
Web: Famous Dave's Legendary Pit Bar-B-Que
Phone: 716.892.7427
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Barbecue Cheektowaga Favorites
"Between its St. Louis Ribs, Hot Link Sausage, Catfish, and Cornbread, Famous Dave's provides more than enough justification to eat the occasional very unhealthy meal."
Love isn't a strong enough word to describe our feelings for barbecue: more accurately, we crave it. If it wasn't for our waistlines, we'd eat ribs and brisket once a week, and as is, we still find ways to sneak them in more often than we really should. We can only imagine what might happen if there was a truly great BBQ joint nearby - say, of Dinosaur's, Lucille's, or even Smoque's caliber - but for better or worse, there isn't. That hasn't stopped us from searching: we've sampled meats from virtually every barbecue restaurant within a 25-mile radius, visited local and Rochester-area BBQ festivals, and become accustomed to "good, not great" or "ehh" experiences. The best of the nearby options is Depew's Kentucky Greg's, which sits alongside other options such as Buffalo's Fat Bob's and Lockport's One Eyed Jack's; then there are the national chains, including the not-so-hot Cheektowaga Smokey Bones, the now-defunct Amherst location of Montana's, and one we weren't as familiar with: Famous Dave's Legendary Pit Bar-B-Que, located almost immediately across from the Walden Galleria Mall. As it turns out, Famous Dave's is the first serious rival Greg's has had nearby for our BBQ dollars, and one of the rare chain restaurants with enough strong food on offer to one-up most of its direct local competitors.
Famous Dave's is far from the best-known chain restaurant in the area, but it has all the requisites for greater success: a simple five-page menu with multiple variations on classic, Southern-style barbecue items, a down-home, cabin-style environment with scattered ESPN-focused TVs, very friendly service, and good, cheap drinks - $2 for a pint of Yuengling or other domestic beers, or $2 per great glass of lemonade. Apart from the small selections of salads and burgers, we've sampled much of what the menu has to offer, and with only small exceptions, we're big fans.
If you're looking for a fast way to try more than half of the seven appetizer items in a single plate, you can order Dave's Sampler Platter ($15), an oversized tray with three St. Louis-Style Ribs - an entree, not an appetizer - plus portions of the Sweetwater Catfish Fingers, Onion Strings, Chicken Wings, and Chicken Tenders, each enough to let three people get one item a piece, or enable one person to skip the entree course entirely. An early surprise was that Dave's long, slightly peppered, cornmeal-breaded Catfish Fingers won us both over, a harder task for the one of us who doesn't generally like catfish; the hot, fried exteriors and moist, clean fish meat was just plain good. We split a little on the Onions: one of us loved their ribbon-like slices, slight sweetness, and crispy, peppered batter, which nearly matched the onions in thinness; the other of us found them to be a little too light and thin on onion content.
The weakest of Famous Dave's options are its chicken items, which in our experience - and to some palates, pleasantly - place a premium on meat tenderness at the expense of external preparation. Three lightly deep-fried Chicken Wing variations offered by Dave's differ only in coating, two using hot ("Devil's Spit") or mild ("Rich & Sassy") barbecue sauces that are also found in bottles on the table, while the third has a "Buffalo-style" sauce that we ordered, and found too light in depth and weak in spice. The Wings were fine, but not worthy of the Buffalo name, or ordering independently. By comparison, the deep-fried Chicken Tenders weren't surprising in any way, but good nonetheless, balanced properly in breading and fresh chicken meat. Like the Catfish Fingers, they were aided by an outstanding Sweet Soul Jalapeno sauce that tasted like a gourmet applesauce that had been mixed with sliced hot peppers. We dipped as much in that sauce as we could, and would buy it by the bottle. Seriously.
As it turns out, the last of the items - the St. Louis-Style Ribs - are Famous Dave's signature menu item, and quite possibly the most compelling things we tried in a very good meal. Thick with pork meat, tender, and coated in a thick, caramelized black barbecue sauce that we liked too much to pause while eating, they were just plain excellent; not in need of anything more. We hadn't expected to like them so much, the reason we also ordered an $18.49 entree that combined Dave's other ribs - Baby Backs - with a second choice of meat, here the Texas Beef Brisket, plus a mix of pre-selected and chosen side dishes. By comparison with the perfectly balanced, tender St. Louis Ribs, the Baby Back Ribs were overcooked, their exteriors nearly but not quite crunchy, peeling off from the bones and the rest of the medium-well to well-done meat. They were the only meat item we didn't want to finish.
And there was a lot left to finish on that entree plate. It arrived with some good-sized, thick slices of the Texas Beef Brisket, which were good but not great, every bit as fall-apart tender as we'd expected, but a little light in the flavor and sauce departments. In retrospect, dousing them with some of the Devil's Spit or another of the table's four total included barbecue sauces would have done the trick. We were too busy enjoying the Drunken Apples, a nice little bowl full of sliced, amaretto-caramelized apple slices, as well as the beef- and pork-enhanced baked Wilbur Beans, and a decent-tasting but soggy bright yellow half-cob of corn. The very best of the sides was a Cornbread Muffin, which would have been good enough to fight over if there hadn't been another on the table: it was the right combination of moisture and nearly breakfast-like sweetness to catch our attention. We've had better nationally, but locally, it's right up there.
Thankfully, our other big entree was similarly equipped - due to a mistake, a little too similarly. We'd ordered the Two-Meat BBQ Combo ($15) so we could sample the Roasted Chicken and the Hot Link Sausage, along with two different sides: the Famous Fries, and the Firecracker Green Beans. Our otherwise great server apologized for accidentally substituting the latter item for a second order of the baked Wilbur Beans, and replaced them within two minutes. Perhaps our expectations were too high for the Firecrackers, which were billed as offering a mix of bacon, crushed red pepper, onions, and garlic, but they were a little more plain than these ingredients would have suggested; the half-moon-shaped Fries were even more bland, and just not worthy of their "Famous" name. A second Cornbread Muffin saved these sides from being a complete loss.
Yet the Hot Link Sausage - sometimes a throwaway item at barbecue joints -was outrageously good here, an oversized, purely unhealthy-tasting hot dog with a little spice inside and a lot of sweet barbecue sauce baked onto the outside casing - the sort of item we'd want on our table for a last meal. As with the wings we'd had as appetizers, Dave's Roasted Chicken was nothing special, though not bad, either: cooking chicken such that it remains moist inside while becoming crispy outside is a particular challenge for larger pieces of poultry, so the fact that there was nothing wrong with the breast and leg combination save for its plain, only slightly crisped skin was worth a little praise. Fans of tamer, healthier fare might be pleased enough with the chicken as it was, but as with the modestly sauced Brisket, we'd rely upon the barbecue sauces to punch up this item in the future.
There were only two serious disappointments, and both came at the end of the meal: Famous Dave's Sweet Dixie Minis. Normally, the restaurant serves five different desserts for under $6 - a Hot Fudge Kahlua Brownie, a Cool and Tangy Key Lime Pie, the Better Than Mom's Pecan Pie, the Famous Sundae, and Dave's Famous Bread Pudding - all but the Key Lime served with vanilla bean ice cream and whipped cream topping. Every one except the Sundae sounded good to us, but we didn't know that we wanted to shovel down a couple of big desserts after such a large meal. So we were initially thrilled to see the Sweet Dixie Minis, new menu items that offer $2 miniature portions of the Bread Pudding, Brownie, or a Strawberry Shortcake, each served with the ice cream and whipped cream combination. Unfortunately, we'd never order the Bread Pudding or Brownie Minis again; they were chewy, more ice cream than anything else, and even as six-bite desserts, bad enough to abandon halfway through. If it wasn't for a sweet, caramel-like pecan praline sauce in the Bread Pudding Mini, we'd have left the portions almost intact; they were beneath the standards of the rest of the meal.
The highest praise that we can offer for any restaurant is to say that there was never a question that we'd return for more, and even when the lower points of the Famous Dave's experience are taken into account, our overall reaction to the place is a highly positive one. That's a rare sentiment where local barbecue is concerned, as we recognize how dangerous the thick sauces, fatty meats, and sweet sides can be, and strongly prefer to eat them only when they're delicious enough to justify the risks they entail. Between its St. Louis Ribs, Hot Link Sausage, Catfish Fingers and Cornbread Muffins, Famous Dave's provides more than enough such justification, and we're already dreaming up our next excuse to pay this place a visit. We'll be splitting our visits between Famous Dave's and Kentucky Greg's depending on what we're in the mood to eat, but if we had to give one place the edge, we'd be inclined to go with this one.
