Primal Bbq - Wilmington

Was in the city for a vacation, was looking forward to eating Brisket and saw they weren't open Monday (which understand since employing people is problem right now) so I waited till Tuesday (which they were said to be open online). Placed the order online and paid for my order. I drive to the location and see the doors locked and completely dark inside. No one home. Even the piece of paper on the door said they were supposed to be open during these hours. So don't bother with this business, they take your money online but don't even bother opening the store. So now I have to do a chargeback.

Good BBQ takes passion and soul and sadly Primal BBQ located near Wrightsville Beach is lacking seriously in the soul department. Wilmington is in dire need or a true bbq restaurant and I was hoping primal was going to be it. You know that place I'm talking about. No frills bbq spot with the smell of smoke lingering air, a smoker that's withstood the test of time and just beautifully smoked bbq meats. Fall off the bone ribs, burnt ends that make you mouth water when your order. Sadly primal isn't that spot. We got a rack of ribs, green beans, and a pound of bbq to go and sadly we were not impressed. They rubs were cooked. Cooked as in the likely met the minimum required temp time to be safe to eat. I picked the rack up by the end and definitely wasn't at risk of falling off the bone. So to save dinner I fired up the grill tried to make a sauce and attempted to resuscitate these ribs. Some time and low heat helped but the damage was done. The pulled pork again was cooked but mostly flavorless and uninspiring. I know it's a time city to open a restaurant in and hopefully this was just a one off bad meal. I'll definitely try it again in the hopes of updating the review because I don't like leaving negative reviews.

Overpriced and Underwhelming…My family and I decided we were feeling bbq tonight and we've been wanting to try Primal because (our favorite) Moes has been closed. We ordered about $80 worth of food for the 3 of us, and got a portion of almost everything. The portions were very small and very expensive and it barely fed the 3 of us (we were expecting to have lots of leftovers). It tasted as if the food had been made the day before and they reheated it in a microwave to serve, and I was very disappointed because almost everything was dry and bland. I really enjoyed the sauce on the burnt tips though. And Billy who took our order was very kind and helpful. It’s unfortunate because I really wanted to like it but at that price point, I don’t think we’ll be returning.

I am a local. I have been wanting to try Primal for a while now, but just haven’t. Well since our fav (Moe’s) is closed due to a fire, I figured it was worth a shot. I went online and ordered a side of macaroni cheese and 8 oz of chopped BBQ. I went to get it and while i was waiting, i noticed that the in-store prices were different, by a good amount. I paid $1.25 more for a small side portion of mac cheese and $2.00 premium for the BBQ. The BBQ was pretty good. The mac cheese was good, my son liked it, but the portion was no where near what a $4.75 portion should have been. The bowl was about 1” deep and 4” across.Long story short, call your order in by phone to save some money.

The BBQ was okay. It was nothing memorable but also not bad. The fries could use some work. They were too thick and under seasoned. The mac and cheese was okay but a little runny. The peach cobbler was too doughy. The brisket, burnt ends and pulled pork were good. The sauces definitely help and I do love the variety of sauces they include on the side. The wings were also okay. I like mine more crispy though. I was dissapointed that the website list items that they actually don't have like Sweet Potato Casserole, loaded tater tots and brownies. The main reason I couldn't give it the four was because I ordered it for pickup and when I got there it wasn't even prepared at all. Everything had to be made or put together. If I wanted to wait for my order this long , I would of just ordered it in person. The guy who took my order was very friendly but this is not my idea of a pickup order when you have to sit down and wait for 15 minutes.