City BBQ Menu With Prices (2026)

The City BBQ menu is built around one idea that most barbecue chains have abandoned: nearly every item is sold two ways, on its own or bundled with two sides, and the bundle is always the better deal. Understanding that single pattern is the difference between paying $8.39 and paying $11.97 for what is essentially the same lunch. This page lists the entire City Barbeque menu with current prices, plus the family packs, the samplers, and the arithmetic on which combinations actually save money.

How City BBQ pricing actually works

Every sandwich, every chicken plate and every rib order appears twice on the board — once alone, once "with Two Sides". The gap between the two is consistently $3.58. Since individual sides run $2.39 to $3.59 each, buying the bundle is almost always cheaper than buying the sandwich and two sides separately.

That $1.79 per side is roughly half the à la carte price. If you are ordering a sandwich and you want anything with it, take the bundle. The only time it does not pay is when you genuinely want just the sandwich.

Sandwiches

City BBQ's sandwich list is longer than most because it includes both the standard version and a "Lite Lunch" version of five items. The Lite Lunch is a smaller portion at a lower price — Lite Lunch Pulled Pork at $5.99 against $8.39 for the full size — and it is the cheapest genuine meal in the building.

The ones worth knowing

• Beef Brisket ($10.78) — The most expensive sandwich and the one the kitchen is judged on. Sliced, not chopped.
• More Cowbell ($10.79) — Brisket with cheddar and a fried onion string stack. The signature.
• LoLo's Pulled Pork with Slaw ($8.99) — Pork with vinegar slaw on the bun, Carolina-style. The best sandwich on the menu for the money.
• Nashville Hot Chicken ($9.59) — The only genuinely spicy thing on the board.
• Smoked Sausage ($5.99) — Cheapest full-size sandwich.

Ribs and Rib Bone Tuesday

City BBQ sells St. Louis-cut spareribs as a full slab ($27.59), a half slab ($15.59) or by the individual bone at $2.70. Selling ribs by the bone is unusual and genuinely useful — it lets you add two ribs to someone else's order without committing to a half slab.

On Rib Bone Tuesday the per-bone price drops to $1.80. Six bones on a Tuesday costs $10.80 against $16.20 any other day. If you eat ribs at City BBQ with any regularity, this is the day to do it.

Samplers and family packs

This is where City BBQ's pricing gets genuinely competitive, and where most people over-order.

The Family Pack at $29.99 is the best value on the menu at roughly $7.50 a head. The Motherload at $89.99 is the best value for a crowd, and it is the order to place for a party of ten rather than assembling individual plates — doing it that way would cost close to $140.

Sides

City BBQ runs a wider side list than most barbecue chains, and three of them are sold as baskets meant for sharing rather than individual portions.

• 3-Cheese Baked Mac ($3.59) — Baked with a crust. The upgrade over standard Mac & Cheese ($2.99) and worth the sixty cents.
• Baked Beans with Brisket ($2.99) — Actual brisket in the beans.
• Collard Greens with Pork ($3.35) — The most expensive individual side and the most traditionally Southern item on the menu.
• Hush Puppies ($2.75 for eight) — Or $6.59 for a basket.
• Corn Pudding ($2.75) — Sweet, closer to a dessert than a vegetable.
• Vinegar Slaw vs Creamy Slaw (both $2.75) — Vinegar cuts the fat of the pork; creamy does not. Order vinegar.

The 3 Side Plate at $6.17 is a legitimate vegetarian meal and one of the few on any barbecue menu.

City BBQ catering and meat by the pound

Meat by the pound is where City BBQ undercuts most of its competitors:

At $16.19 a pound, City BBQ pulled pork is roughly $2.50 a pound cheaper than Mission BBQ and about eighty cents under Sonny's. For a party of thirty that difference is real money.

For large groups the Jumbo Party Salad at $55.19 is the item most people forget exists, and it is the single easiest way to make a barbecue spread work for guests who do not eat meat.

Kids and drinks

Every kids' item is priced identically at $7.19 — pulled pork, brisket, pulled chicken, turkey, sausage, chicken leg, tenders, mac and cheese, or 3-cheese baked mac. Flat pricing across the board makes ordering for a table of children genuinely simple.

Drinks are $3.59 across the board, with a gallon of tea at $5.99 and a gallon of lemonade at $9.59 for groups. Apple juice, milk and chocolate milk are $1.19.

City BBQ vs the other big chains

City BBQ is the cheapest of the three on beef and on pulled pork by the pound, and it is the only one of the three with a genuine sub-$10 complete meal. Sonny's beats it badly on ribs. Mission BBQ beats it on sauce variety and on the ribs themselves.

What to order

If you are eating alone and want the best meal for the money: LoLo's Pulled Pork with Slaw and Two Sides at $12.57, with vinegar slaw and 3-cheese baked mac. If you want it cheap: Lite Lunch Pulled Pork with Two Sides at $9.57. If it is Tuesday: six rib bones at $1.80 each. And if you are feeding a group of ten or more, buy the Motherload and stop doing maths.

What City BBQ actually smokes, and how

City BBQ cooks over hardwood in rotisserie smokers rather than offset pits, which matters for what you should expect. Rotisserie smokers rotate the meat through a consistent heat zone, producing very even results and almost no variance between one visit and the next. What you give up is the deep bark and the smoke ring you get from an offset pit run by a person who watches the fire all night.

That trade is the right one for a chain of eighty restaurants. It means the brisket you get in Columbus is the brisket you get in Charlotte, and it is why City BBQ is more consistent than almost anything else at this price. It also means that if you have eaten at a serious Central Texas joint, the bark here will read as thin. Both things are true.

The meats, ranked by how well they survive the format

1. Pulled pork — Pork shoulder is forgiving, holds moisture for hours, and is the most consistent thing City BBQ sells. Order this if you want the safest good meal.
2. Smoked turkey breast — Genuinely good, and unusual on a barbecue menu. Turkey dries out badly if handled poorly, so a chain that does it well is telling you something about the kitchen.
3. Beef brisket — Good, occasionally very good, and the item most affected by what time of day you arrive. Late afternoon brisket has been sitting.
4. St. Louis ribs — Reliable rather than remarkable. The Tuesday pricing is what makes them worth ordering.
5. Pulled chicken — The mildest thing on the menu and the one to order for children.

Ordering timing: when to go

Barbecue is the only restaurant category where the time you arrive changes the food more than what you order. At City BBQ the practical windows are:

• 11:00am–12:30pm — Meats have just come off. Brisket is at its best. Fewest people.
• 12:30–1:30pm — Busiest, high turnover, everything is fresh but you will queue.
• 2:00–4:30pm — The dead zone. Meat has been held longest. Order pulled pork rather than brisket.
• 5:00–7:00pm — Second cook has landed. Brisket recovers.
• After 8:00pm — Selection thins. Ribs and brisket often sell out first.

Working out the cheapest way to feed a group

People consistently over-pay at City BBQ by building a group order out of individual plates. Here is the same meal for eight people, three ways:

Two Family Packs is the answer, and it is 37% cheaper than the obvious approach. For ten or more, the Motherload at $89.99 wins outright.

What City BBQ does not do well

An honest page has to include this. Three consistent weaknesses:

• The sauce range is narrow. Compared with the eight-sauce wall at Mission BBQ, City BBQ gives you a handful of options and expects you to be happy. If sauce variety matters to you, this is the wrong chain.
• Ribs are the weakest item relative to price. At $27.59 a full slab they cost more than Sonny's charges at $17.99 for a comparable order, and they are not better.
• Vegetarian options are thin. The 3 Side Plate exists, but three of the most appealing sides contain meat — beans have brisket, greens have pork, green beans have bacon.

City BBQ nutrition and calories

City BBQ publishes calorie counts for its menu, and the figures below are the chain's own numbers rather than our estimates. These are the items people ask about; the Cal column in the full menu below carries the rest, including the sides and desserts not listed here.

Two things jump out of the brand's own figures. The first is that the ribs are not the problem people assume they are — a half slab at 660 is lighter than the More Cowbell at 1,020, because the cheddar and the fried onion strings do more damage than a rack of pork does. The second is that the sides are where the real range sits: Green Beans with Bacon at 90 and Collard Greens with Pork at 100 against Fresh-Cut Fries at 580 and Potato Salad at 560.

So the swap that saves the most is on the side of the tray, not the meat. Taking green beans and collard greens instead of fries and potato salad removes 950 calories from a two-side plate without touching what you came in for. On the sandwich itself, dropping More Cowbell for the Smoked Turkey Breast saves 590 — worth knowing, but it means eating something else entirely. Note also that the baskets are built for sharing and are counted that way: the Basket of Fried Pickles is 1,510 and the Basket of Fresh-Cut Fries is 1,320 for the whole basket.

Groups should read the pack figures the same way. The Family Pack is 3,505 calories for the whole box and the Motherload is 4,730 — divide by the four and ten-to-twelve people they are meant to feed and both land well under a single More Cowbell per head.