My birthday dinner at the Green Mesquite Austin, TX

I have always wanted to goto the Green Mequite here in Austin off Barton Springs. Monday (August 20th) was my birthday. I packed up my son and we headed over to there. I had called ahead just to make sure I was not going to get there too late. They closed at 10pm, so there was plenty of time.

We roll in and the place is almost empty. We were immediately seated in a booth and our drink orders were taken. The menus are under the plexiglass covering the tables. This is a BBQ place, so I wanted to try some of that. The special for Monday was Meat plate which was Brisket; but, I wanted something other than brisket. The waitress comes back to take our order and Josh is indecisive. She suggests a hamburger as Josh is looking over the kids menu. He orders a hamburger and fries. I ordered a BBQ sandwich that comes with two meats with fries. The sandwich comes with sausage and turkey. The food is brought to us rather quicky. The waitress brings a ketchup bottle of BBQ sauce which is nice. I hate BBQ plates the drown their BBQ in sauce. The bread for the sandwich is a cheap hoagie roll and is very dry like it had been sitting out all day. The sausage had a nice smokey flavor to it as did the turkey, but both meats were dry and chewy. The Sausage was apparently cooked way too long as it was shriveled up. The food is editable but has to be covered in BBQ sauce because the meat was soo dry. The fries were hot and homemade. I do not have a french fry preference. It was good that they were not too greasy. Josh gets his hamburger and it has mustard on it and he does not like mustard. I try scraping it off and he tells me he is not going to eat it. I then tell him I will save it for tomorrow's lunch.

When I get the bill i was shocked to see it was over $20 just for 2 people. The drinks alone totalled over $6. The waitress had charged me full price for the hamburger. I had asked her about it and she proceeds to tell me that there is no hamburger on the child's menu. Of course, I laugh to myself because she is the one that suggested it after we were looking at the kid's menu. I then notice on my receipt there is a "suggested tip" at the bottom for 15%, 20% and 25%. The service was prompt and the waitress was nice, but she never came back and checked on us or to give us refills or even ask if we wanted dessert. She definitely did her job but she never went out of her way to serve us.

Overall, I was not impressed with the food at all. I have know people that have gone to this place and they said it was great. I have gotten better BBQ at Rudy's and they claim to be the "Worst BBQ". If they are the worst, what is the Green Mesquite? With the food being fair and the service marginal, I will not be returning to this place at all. I did notice the owner was opening a Green Mesquite in Russia. Apparently, Russians are used to bad food and marginal service.

If you want good BBQ, goto the Salt Lick or any of the BBQ places in Lockhart, skip the Green Mesquite. Or if you are on Barton Springs, go over to Chuy's or Shady Grove.