Best barbecue joints in NJ

🌭 There are many great NJ restaurants that serve barbecue-style food

🍔 The list spans four different regions in the state

🔥 Do you agree with the picks?

Sizzling, searing, marinating, and grilling! We’re talking about barbecuing, of course.

Summer is here and New Jerseyans are bellying up to the grill to cook up burgers, hot dogs, chicken, ribs, and more.

But if you don’t want to actually grill, where can you go to get some of the best barbecue food in the Garden State?

Best of NJ, an online site about all things New Jersey, compiled a list of the 29 best barbecue restaurants in New Jersey, broken down into four regions – North Jersey, South Jersey, Central Jersey and Jersey Shore. From that list, we picked some of our favorites.

North Jersey

Brothers Smokehouse BBQ & Soul

900 Route 17 North, Ramsey

Open: Monday though Thursday from 12 p.m. to 9 p.m. and Friday through Sunday from 12 p.m. to 10 p.m.

The Farella brothers wanted to bring their love of the South to Hudson Valley, New York, where they opened a BBQ shack in 2008. The business was booming until the restaurant caught fire and burned down in August 2010. But the brothers didn’t want to give up on their dream. After two years of planning, they opened their first full-service restaurant in 2012 and have continued to expand since.

At Brokers Smokehouse BBQ & Soul, all the meats are slow-cooked daily with a special blend of woods and house seasonings.

Some menu favorites:

Their sticky ribs are St. Louis ribs smoked low and slow and caramelized in their house barbecue sauce.

The Texas smoked sausage is straight from the South Side Market in Elgin, Texas. The meal is a duo of Texas-style beef sausage and jalapeno cheddar sausage, smoked, then, “kissed” on the grill.

The Brother’s smoked brisket is pepper-crusted and smoked low and slow for over 15 hours, until perfectly tender, and juicy, and sliced to order.

Aunt Edna’s fried chicken dish is named after the brothers’ great aunt's classic recipe. The chicken is fried to order and served with a choice of two sides.

If southern seafood is your thing, then try mama’s shrimp and grits. It’s gulf shrimp sauteed with bacon, peppers, and onions, served over cheesy grits.

The restaurant also has live acoustic music three days a week.

Central Jersey

Boss Hog Barbecue

13 South Plainfield Avenue, South Plainfield

Open: Wednesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Closed on Monday and Tuesday.

One of Best of NJ’s Central Jersey choices for the best barbecue joint is none other than Boss Hog Barbecue.

Brothers, Mark and Jeff Johnson are the owners and the pitmasters at Boss Hog. They discovered their passion for low and slow BBQ more than 15 years ago, and have been working hard to perfect their craft ever since.

According to the restaurant's website, one of the keys to their authentic southern-style food is their smoker, named Goliath. This is a 500-gallon reverse-flow cooker that uses hardwood as its only source of heat and smoke.

What’s different about Boss Hog is that because they only serve freshly smoked meats daily, when the supply sells out, that’s it for the day.

The menu features Memphis-style ribs, brisket, pulled pork, pulled chicken, chicken quarters, and smoked bratwurst.

They also serve hearty BBQ sandwiches, and classic BBQ sides like baked beans, cornbread, mac and cheese, and coleslaw.

The sauces: Boss Hog serves five homemade sauces including Pineapple Habanero (fruity with a kick of spice), Carolina (thin, tangy, and spicy), Kansas City (classic, thick, and sweet), Alabama White (creamy, and tangy., perfect on chicken), and their original sweet and tangy Boss Sauce.

South Jersey

Back Alley Barbeque

2591 Haddonfield Road, Pennsauken

If it’s the typical, classic, good old-fashioned barbecue you want and not those fancy combos, then Back Alley Barbeque is the place to go, according to the list compiled by Best of NJ.

The menu consists of pulled pork, chicken, ribs, brisket, fried fish, smoked wings, and seafood gumbo. Side dishes consist of mac and cheese, collard greens, baked beans, coleslaw, yellow rice, green beans, potato salad, and yams.

In addition to dine-in, take-out, and catering options, the restaurant hosts an open-air barbecue once a week on Wednesdays.

Jersey Shore

The Hickory Hog

2310 Bridge Avenue, Point Pleasant

The Hickory Hog, which opened in 2007, is an award-winning BBQ restaurant in Point Pleasant, known for slowly smoking their ribs and meats with hickory, mesquite, and apple wood in a state-of-the-art smoker.

Everything is made to order, so you’ll wait a bit for the food but it’s all fresh.

Hickory Hog wings are served with either buffalo (hot, mild, or garlic), cajun, honey BBQ, teriyaki, chipotle BBQ, or honey sriracha sauce.

Menu highlights include Memphis dry-rubbed ribs, pulled chicken or pork, Corona beer battered cod, blackened steak bites, sandwiches, salads, burgers, and wraps.

Fun sides include hog rolls (pulled pork, coleslaw, and cheddar cheese rolled in a fried wonton), spicy pub pickles (beer-battered pickles served with chipotle ranch), and buttermilk battered onion rings (served with Texas petal sauce).

Summer is a great time to sink your teeth into some great barbecue food, whether it’s at one of these four places, or somewhere else in the great Garden State.

To see Best of NJ's full list of all 29 BBQ restaurants in New Jersey, click here.

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