Rocky Top Beer-BBQ & Grill
1900 Lansing AvenueOur days on the road are always long but usually end with a good meal.
Night two in Jackson was going to be a short one. We got done with work around 6:30 but had to be back up at 4 AM.
I wanted to grab dinner before we headed back to the hotel and my co-worker was on board for that.
Wednesday night we passed a spot on our way from Grand River Brewery to our hotel near US-127 that popped out at me. It had the words “beer” and “BBQ” right on the sign. I made a note and we went back there Thursday for dinner.
Rocky Top Beer-BBQ & Grill is on Lansing Avenue and Andrew Avenue on the north side of Jackson. The restaurant is a standalone restaurant in a somewhat residential area. There are some other businesses along Lansing Avenue but it’s not really a business corridor. The parking lot was packed when we pulled up right around 6:30 on Thursday night and there were people waiting outside. We were surprised by this and surprised by the half hour wait but we were already there so we decided to stick it out.
About 20 minutes after we put our name on the waitlist, I got a text saying our table was ready. The restaurant isn’t very big and they do a good job of packing the tables in to the space. It’s a pretty typical sports bar space with a little bit of a roadhouse feel to it. The hostess took us to a two top off to the right of the entrance away from the actual bar.
Sometimes beer makes me sleepy and I really needed that on this night..but I went the opposite direction and just ordered a Coke instead. They have a pretty large tap list but there was nothing that really stood out to me as something I had to have at that moment so I passed.
The menu is very heavy on the BBQ. That’s a big reason why I chose this place. I had a really hard time deciding what I wanted. There was the traditional plates of meat and even the typical pulled pork or brisket sandwiches, but they also had some other unique sandwich options using those meats.
I decided on the Smoked Brisket French Dip. The sandwich is smoked chopped brisket, cheese, and sauteed onions on a toasted beer cheese bun and served with a side of au jus for dipping. I left the onions off the sandwich. Every piece of this sandwich was amazing. I was shocked at how much I liked the bread. The cheddar cheese melted in to the top of the toasted bun gave an additional crunch to the sandwich that was slightly softened when dipped into the beefy au jus. The brisket was amazing. It smoky, it was tender, and it was slightly salty. The chopped brisket was held together with a layer of melty cheese. I always enjoy a French dip but this one was on another level.
The sandwich is supposed to come with home made BBQ chips but I upgraded my side to the Waffle Fries. The potatoes were super crispy with a little bit of seasoning but I upgraded to fries because I wanted something to dip into the BBQ sauces that were on the table when we sat down.
My pick of those sauces was the Louisiana Spicy. The thin tomato-y sauce had a pretty good kick to it but nothing that was super overpowering. If the brisket wasn’t so delicious on it’s own, this would have been the perfect sauce.
My colleague went in a totally different direction and ordered the BBQ Smoked Pulled Pork Baked Potato. This plate is a jumbo smoked baked potato with pulled pork, beer cheese, and house smoked maple bacon. We still had a little bit of work to do when we got back to the hotel and he acccused me of putting him to a “food coma.” Needless to say, he enjoyed his meal to.
The cost of my dinner was a little over $20 before tip.
Rocky Top Beer-BBQ & Grill wasn’t a place that was even on my radar before this trip to Jackson. They restaurant has been there over 15 years so it’s not like some new place that has just popped up. We found out later the restaurant was so packed on a this night because it was cheap wing night…we were unaware of that or we probably both would have ordered wings.
As it was, we both were really happy with dinner and weren’t too put off by the wait. We got a nice, hearty, delicious meal before we got back to the hotel in anticipation of that early morning alarm.
SW Michigan Dining 