17th Street Barbecue - Murphysboro (IL)

5 /5 Chris Stern: 17th Street BBQ in Murphysboro is an absolute belter. Proper smoky meat, cracking sides, and the kind of flavour that just smacks you in the best way. The crew there are deadset legends welcoming, quick with a yarn, and proud of what they serve, and fair enough too. Tried the BBQ parfait at the Tastes of Murphysboro and it was unreal one of those “only in America” feeds that you remember long after. And yep, I grabbed a stash of their famous Magic Dust to cart back home to Australia. Used it on the barbie down under and it absolutely delivered turns out that Murphysboro magic travels pretty well. If you’re anywhere near the place, do yourself a favour and go. It’s worth every bite.

3 /5 Greg Jones: Been wanting to try this place for a while. Food was pretty good, but I wouldn’t go back. We sat in the back room. It was hard to find a table that was clean. There was one clean booth so we took it and immediately regretted it. The bench seats are wood and are about the most uncomfortable seats I’ve had in a restaurant. There was one clean table so we moved there. Our server was terrible. After she took our order she never checked on us once. If we needed anything we had to flag down another server. They wouldn’t help us but they would find her and eventually she would come to our table. The reviews of the chicken wings were good so I ordered those. They were ok. They did give me the chance to try the different sauces and I decided the magic dust was the best. For sides I had chili. It was bland and didn’t have enough meat. I also had bbq beans which were pretty good. My wife had a burger and fries and thought they were very good.

3 /5 ernie parish: The atmosphere and service were spot on. The food so so. The wings i know were smoked but could have been at least luke warm in temp. The pork steak was chewy not easy to eat. Now the burger was very good and would recommend. Not saying I wont go back to try other things but this was my first impression.

3 /5 Shawna Coffey Klein: Not sure how this place ended up on my bucket list, but we were traveling through so we thought we would give it a try. Lets start with positives. The brisket and ribs had really good flavor and were tender. They have good BBQ sauce options. Ok, that is all I have for positive. The pulled pork was like ground pork. The Mac and cheese came out with bagged shredded cheese on top, just why? Especially when you should notice its not even hot enough to melt the cheese. Now lets talk about the green beans. What is the grossness on top? It smelled bad and tasted worse. Now I know what the bad smell in the place is, whatever is festering on the beans. One would think a smoked meat place may smell like smoked meat. Nope. I guess I have one more positive. The server was kind enough to take the beans off the bill after I inquired what was rotting on top of them. I was excited they had pork rinds, but then they over cooked them. Gave it a try, took it off my list, wont go back.