Gardners Barbecue New Bern - Ernul

Despite reading several negative reviews, my coworker and I decided to give Gardners a try for lunch today. Here’s a rundown of the foods we tried:Turkey BBQ—something about this tastes wrong. I couldn’t eat a 2nd bite.Pork BBQ—decent flavor but way too many hard pieces of red pepper that felt like I was biting rocks.Collards—barely chopped and bitter.Pastry—tastes like frozen pastry strips in a ton of salty chicken bouillon.Brunswick Stew—decent, but not great.Corn sticks—overcooked and dry.Hushpuppies—decent.Sweet tea—the best part of my meal.We gave it a try, but I don’t foresee another visit anytime in the near future, unless it’s for tea.

I used to eat at Gardners barbecue all the time when I lived in Wilson. I know they must’ve been making barbecue for at least 30 years now. Glad to see them in New Bern. It’s true eastern North Carolina barbecue with all the traditional sides. They have the best collards in town. I really like their fried chicken covered with their homemade barbecue sauce. The manager said they are going to start serving breakfast soon I can’t wait!

We ordered BBQ, Mac and Cheese, collards, fried chicken, banana pudding. So the BBQ had a very oily taste, The mac cheese was straight up garbage (so nasty), collards were dry yes I said it dry! How do you make collard dry! Fried chicken was very weird with the batter had a weird taste, A banana pudding had two Wafers and not in the bananas were not ripe how do you make a banana hard!! Never again!

Had Gardner’s BBQ in New Bern cater our company lunch today to celebrate the birthdays for several of our team members. The food arrived hot and was excellent. Great people and made catering our function easy. We will definitely be using Gardner’s again for our events. All our team thoroughly enjoyed the meal.Thank you Gardner’s!

I’ve been many times since they opened. The food is great and the service is always top notch. The most polite staff. I’ve almost had everything on the menu at this point and everything has been fantastic. Make sure to also get a Potato Jack or Banana Pudding for dessert. It’s nice having a real BBQ place back in New Bern.