We stopped in Bishop for the night during out trip from Las Vegas and Death Valley to Mono Lake and saw Bar-B-Q Bills when we drove into town. We love BBQ so we decided to have dinner there. We got there around 8:15 PM on a Sunday evening, and as they close at 8:30 PM we decided to get our meal to go (our hotel room had a small kitchen we could eat at). There were still people in the restaurant and coming into the restaurant at this time, so I think we could have eaten there as well. The restaurant itself is your run-of-the mill American restaurant. It looks more like a pizzeria than a restaurant and sports a poorly lit dining room, a counter where you order your meal and a small salad bar (almost depleted by closing time).
We all ordered the ribs, so that’s pretty much all I can talk about food-wise. The girls had the “Little Wrangler Rib Dinner” ($4.75) consisting of 2 spare ribs, baked bans or French fries, garlic bread and a soft drink. Mike and I had the rib dinner ($15), which was basically the same except for more ribs (I’d say about 6). It also included a bowl for the salad bar. In addition we got the onion rings ($2.60) and a side order of mashed potatoes (~$2.50), as Mika has been in a mashed potato kick.
The ribs themselves were OK. They were very tender, but too dry for our taste. The BBQ sauce they came with was too vinegary for my taste, and I thought the ribs were better without it (even though they definitely needed the moisture). The onion rings were quite good, it was a nice size portion for the price. The french fries were your standard battered type, tasted OK if you like that kind of French fries. The garlic bread, on the other hand, was pretty inedible. It was very soft (microwaved?) and tasted nothing of garlic. Nobody touched it. The mashed potatoes were also just OK.
The salad bar, even though depleted, was OK for our purpose. Mike got some potato salad (don’t know if it was any good), and I stocked up on hard boiled egg bits, chick peas and mini corn for Mika. She was happy.
I have to say that while the kids portions were fine, Mike and I should have shared a meal rather than have each of us get our own. As it was we only ate one portion of ribs, couldn’t finish the onion rings and left one portion of French fries untouched. We had the ribs the next day for a mid-day snack, but the other food was wasted. So if you go, order less food than you think you’ll want.
I don’t know if we’ll find ourselves in Bishop again, but if we do I’ll probably skip Bar-B-Q Bills. Those ribs were just too dry.
Bar-B-Q Bills
187 S Main St
Bishop, CA
(760) 872-5535
Marga’s Restaurant Reviews – Outside the Bay Area
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