The Mission BBQ menu is short on purpose. Where most barbecue chains run seventy items, Mission BBQ runs about thirty — six smoked meats, a rack of ribs, a handful of homemade sides, and a wall of sauces that lets you turn any of it into Texas, Memphis, Kansas City or Carolina barbecue. This page lists every item currently on the board with its price, plus the nutrition numbers, the catering sheet, and the ordering details most people are actually hunting for.
Mission BBQ prices at a glance
Every price quoted in this guide, collected up front. Prices vary by location and change without notice.
| What you're ordering | Typical price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Sandwich only | $8.49 – $13.19 | Meat, bun, pickles, onion |
| Meat Market plate | $8.99 – $20.54 | Meat by weight, no sides included |
| Combo (sandwich or plate + 2 sides + drink) | +$3.00 – $4.00 | The XL and XXL upgrades |
| Homemade side | $0.99 – $3.34 | Individual portion |
| Full rack of Bay-B-Back ribs | $26.29 | Roughly 12 bones |
| Catering meat by the pound | $17.98 – $27.38 | Feeds 3–4 as a main |
| Guests | Meat | Sides | Approximate total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | 3 lb pulled pork + 1 lb turkey | 2 quarts | ~$105 |
| 25 | 6 lb pork + 3 lb brisket | 4 quarts | ~$300 |
| 50 | 10 lb pork + 6 lb brisket + 3 lb turkey | 8 quarts | ~$620 |
| Mission BBQ | City BBQ | Sonny's BBQ | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brisket sandwich | $13.19 | $10.78 | $10.99 |
| Pulled pork sandwich | $8.89 | $8.39 | $9.29 |
| Individual side | $3.14 – $3.34 | $2.75 – $3.59 | $3.49 |
| Pulled pork per pound | $18.78 | $16.19 | $16.99 |
| Sides included with a sandwich | No | No (bundle available) | No (Big Deal available) |
| Service style | Counter | Counter | Table service |
| Party | Order | Approx. cost | Per head |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 adults | 2 Meat Sampler + 2 sides + cornbread | ~$21 | $10.50 |
| 2 adults, 2 children | 3 Meat Sampler + 2 Jr. sliders + 3 sides | ~$47 | $11.75 |
| 4 adults | 2 × 3 Meat Sampler + 4 sides | ~$54 | $13.50 |
| 10 people | 3 lb pork + 2 lb brisket + 3 quart sides | ~$154 | $15.40 |
Two things to know about Mission BBQ pricing generally. First, Mission BBQ is a franchise-heavy operation and prices move by state — a brisket sandwich in Maryland is not the same price as one in Texas, and the gap can be a dollar or more. Second, the chain runs genuinely aggressive promotions tied to military and first-responder dates, so the price you pay in July is often not the price on the board in November.
Sandwiches
This is where most first-time orders land, and it is the fairest way to judge a barbecue kitchen. Every sandwich is meat, a soft bun, pickles and raw onion. No slaw on top unless you ask, no sauce until you get to the sauce wall — which is the entire point of how Mission BBQ is built.
The brisket sandwich is the one to order if you are only ordering one thing. You choose lean or moist; moist is the point end, fattier, and it is the better sandwich by a wide margin. Lean is the flat, and it is the one that suffers if the restaurant has been holding it a while.
What each sandwich is actually like
- Brisket (Lean or Moist) — Hand-trimmed, salt-and-pepper rubbed, smoked overnight. Moist is the better cut.
- Chopped Brisket — The same beef, chopped and lightly sauced. Cheaper than sliced and more forgiving late in the day.
- Pulled Pork — Boston butt, pulled to order. The most consistent item on the menu across locations.
- Turkey — Whole breast, brined and smoked. Genuinely lean, and the item most often ordered by people avoiding red meat.
- Pulled Chicken — Dark and white meat mixed. Mild, and the safest choice for children who won't eat pork.
The Meat Market
The Meat Market is Mission BBQ's version of a Texas meat counter: you order barbecue by weight, on a tray, with no sides bundled in. Nothing here comes with anything — you build the plate yourself. It is the most expensive way to order and the best way to taste what the smoker actually did.
If two of you are eating, the 2 Meat Sampler at $13.69 is the efficient order. For a table of three or four, the 3 Meat Sampler at $20.54 plus two pint sides feeds everyone without anyone having to choose.
Smokehouse Signatures
The Signatures are the plated items — the things that are not a sandwich and are not sold by weight. The Bay-B-Back Ribs are the headline. Mission BBQ smokes them without wrapping them in foil, which produces a rib with more bark and slightly more chew than the fall-off-the-bone style most American chains aim for. Whether that is better is a matter of taste, but it is a deliberate choice, not an accident.
The Black Plate Special deserves a note. It changes by location and by day, it is not on the printed menu, and it is usually the best value in the building. Ask.
Homemade sides
Sides at Mission BBQ are made in-house and priced individually — nothing is bundled unless you buy a combo. Five run year-round and two or three rotate seasonally.
Maggie's Mac-N-Cheese is the one people come back for; it is baked, not stirred, with a genuine crust on top. Baked Beans with Brisket carry actual chopped brisket rather than flavouring. Green Beans and Bacon are cooked Southern-style — soft, salty, not a crisp vegetable. And the cornbread, at $0.99, is the cheapest item on the entire menu.
Mission BBQ nutrition and calories
Nutrition is one of the most searched things about this chain, and the honest answer is that barbecue is not a low-calorie category — but the spread between the lightest and heaviest orders here is enormous. Every figure below is Mission BBQ's own published calorie count for that item, not an estimate of ours. The table picks out the items people ask about most; the Cal column in the full menu further down this page carries the rest.
| Item | Calories | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Turkey sandwich, no side | 418 | The leanest sandwich on the board |
| Pulled chicken sandwich, no side | 423 | Within five calories of the turkey |
| Brisket sandwich (lean), no side | 480 | The flat cut |
| Brisket sandwich (moist), no side | 566 | The point end costs 86 over lean |
| Pulled pork sandwich, no side | 572 | |
| Chopped brisket sandwich, no side | 591 | The heaviest sandwich |
| Side Salad | 14 | The lightest thing on the menu |
| Green Beans and Bacon | 132 | The lightest hot side |
| Cold Slaw | 156 | |
| Baked Beans with Brisket | 199 | Level with the potato salad |
| Cornbread | 205 | |
| Maggie's Mac-N-Cheese (individual) | 304 | |
| Fresh Cut Fries | 377 | |
| Broccoli Salad | 435 | The heaviest side, despite the name |
| Half rack of Bay-B-Back Ribs | 900 | Before sides or sauce |
The swap that saves the most is not the one most people reach for. Changing the meat helps a little — chopped brisket down to turkey is 173 calories, moist brisket down to lean is 86 — but the sides move the number far harder. Broccoli Salad down to a Side Salad is 421 calories, and even Maggie's Mac-N-Cheese down to Green Beans and Bacon is 172. If you are only going to change one thing on the tray, change the side, not the meat you came for.
Put together: a chopped brisket sandwich with Broccoli Salad is 1,026 calories, while a turkey sandwich with a Side Salad is 432 — the same counter, the same visit, and nearly 600 calories apart. The half rack of ribs at 900 is a meal on its own before anything else lands on the tray, and the quarter chicken at 613 is the lighter plated alternative.
Mission BBQ catering menu
Catering is sold by the pound and by the pint or quart for sides, and it is where the chain is genuinely competitive on price. A pound of pulled pork at $18.78 feeds three to four people as a main course — cheaper per head than almost any sit-down alternative.
The planning maths most people get wrong: order one third of a pound of meat per adult if you are serving two meats and two sides, and half a pound per adult if barbecue is the only thing on the table. Buns come by the dozen at $6.99, slider rolls at $4.99.
Rough catering cost per person
Sauces and rubs
The sauce wall is the mechanism that makes a thirty-item menu feel like a much larger one. Eight sauces, each priced at $3.99 for a take-home bottle:
- Memphis Belle — tomato-based, sweet, mild. The default for children.
- Smoky Mountain — thicker and smokier; the best all-rounder on pork.
- Texas Twang — peppery, thin, low sugar. The right sauce for brisket.
- KC Classic — sweet and molasses-heavy. The one most people already know.
- Tupelo Honey Heat — honey up front, cayenne behind it. The most interesting bottle.
- NC Vinegar — thin, sharp, barely any sugar. Correct on pulled pork, alarming on everything else.
- Alabama White — mayonnaise and black pepper. Belongs on smoked chicken and nothing else.
- Georgia Mustard — yellow mustard base. Excellent on sausage.
Beef and pork rubs sell at $6.00 a shaker for people cooking at home.
Takeout, ordering and the American Heroes Cup
Mission BBQ takes online orders through its own site and app, and the takeout menu is identical to the dine-in board — there is no separate pricing tier, which is unusual and worth knowing.
The American Heroes Cup at $4.99 is a reusable cup with $0.99 refills for life. If you visit more than five times a year it pays for itself, and it is the single most common thing regulars recommend to newcomers.
Every location stops what it is doing at noon each day to play the national anthem. It is not a marketing line — it happens, daily, and it is worth knowing before you walk in mid-song wondering why everyone is standing still.
How Mission BBQ compares
Read that table the right way: Mission BBQ is not the cheapest, and it does not try to be. What it sells is a narrower menu cooked one way, with the customisation pushed onto the sauce wall instead of the kitchen. If you want the cheapest brisket sandwich in the category, City BBQ wins. If you want table service and a beer, Sonny's wins. If you want a plain, well-smoked sandwich and eight sauces to argue about, this is the one.
The short version
Order the moist brisket sandwich, Maggie's Mac-N-Cheese, and a cornbread. Add Texas Twang from the wall. That is roughly $17 and it is the most representative meal on the menu. If you are feeding a group, skip the sandwiches entirely and buy meat by the pound — the price per person drops by nearly half.
How Mission BBQ actually cooks
Mission BBQ runs wood-fired smokers and cooks overnight for the following day's service. Brisket goes on in the evening and comes off in the morning; pork shoulder runs a similar cycle. The chain pulls product through the day rather than holding a single cook from open to close, which is why asking when the brisket came off is a question the counter staff can actually answer.
The rub is deliberately simple — salt, pepper and a modest amount of paprika and garlic — because the whole business model is built on the sauce wall doing the flavouring afterwards. That is the opposite of how Famous Dave's works, where the sauces are the brand identity applied in the kitchen, and it is closer to the Texas BBQ approach of seasoning lightly and letting the smoke and the beef do the work.
Ordering for a family
Note what that last row shows: Mission BBQ is not the cheapest way to feed a crowd. City BBQ's Motherload at $89.99 feeds ten to twelve, and even a rough by-the-pound order there lands nearer $11 a head. Mission BBQ's strength is the individual meal and the sauce range, not group economics.
The things people ask the counter
- Is the brisket sliced to order? Yes. Ask for moist and it comes off the point.
- Can I get half and half? Yes — half lean, half moist on a Meat Market order is a normal request.
- Are the ribs available all day? Not reliably. Bay-B-Backs sell out at busy locations, often by early evening.
- Do sandwiches come with sauce? No. Everything arrives unsauced and you take it to the wall.
- Can I buy sauce to take home? Yes, $3.99 a bottle, all eight varieties.