

Our customers follow their noses here! Driving or walking up Wisconsin Avenue, you ask “mmmm, what’s that aroma??” That’s pork and beef and chicken coming out of our wood-only smoker, falling off the bone and ready for a dousing with ROCKLANDS’ Original Barbeque Sauce.
Small, no-frills joint serving wood-only barbecue & American comfort-food sides, plus beer & wine.
Hours
| Sunday | 11 AM–8 PM |
| Monday | 11 AM–8 PM |
| Tuesday | 11 AM–8 PM |
| Wednesday | 11 AM–8 PM |
| Thursday | 11 AM–8 PM |
| Friday | 11 AM–9 PM |
| Saturday | 11 AM–9 PM |
Address and Contact Information
Address: 2418 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington, DC 20007
Phone: (202) 333-2558
Website: https://rocklands.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=gbp
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Rocklands Barbeque and Grilling in Washington, DC
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Reviews
The outside of this restaurant is very welcoming. Outdoor seating is available when the weather is nice. The atmosphere is great..we came during the holidays, and Rocklands is decorated wonderfully, creating a very warm and friendly atmosphere. The design of the restaurant is great as well. A great display of a rustic building while remaining functional.
The person who rang us up was extremely friendly and explained options well. He didn’t try to upsale at all, but that’s not a bad thing either. Outside of the greeting and ordering process, we had no further interaction with the staff.
The food was the biggest letdown with this establishment. We both chose the three meat platter and different sides. The platter comes with pulled pork, BBQ pulled chicken, “brisket”, and includes 2 sides. Out of the 3 meats, the pulled pork was the best. However it was just… OK. Slathered in their BBQ sauce to hide the fact that the meat really doesn’t have a good smokey flavor. The BBQ chicken was a little ok the dry side and I wouldn’t really say it was pulled. More like chunked. Again, slathered in a BBQ to try to make it taste better I suppose. Lastly, the “brisket.” I put that in quotes because I would not call it brisket. Sliced nearly as thin as roast beef deli meet cooked and yet again, drenched in the BBQ sauce. Un-rendered fat as well. The smoke flavor is bitter, not earthy.
If you have to drench your meats in BBQ sauce to try to give it flavor, you are doing it wrong. BBQ should be an option, and not a necessity. Mind you, there are some meals that BBQ sauce is part of the design, however, it should at least be a good flavor.
The best part of my meal was the sweet potato salad. It was creative, and was fine, but not really a stand out dish. The BBQ beans were also nothing special. In fact the mostly tomato based flavor for them was just not great.
I hope that they can reassess and put some time into redesigning their menu and how their food is prepared so they can truly represent the smoking and grilling community, and truly provide an impressive meal experience and not just a great atmosphere.
Their three-meat platter with two sides is my go-to meal. Everything is flavorful, well-cooked, and the variety is great. The in-house barbecue sauce is phenomenal—rich, smoky, and just the right amount of tang.
Yes, prices have gone up a bit over the years, but it’s still a solid value for the quality and portions. Their staff is also super friendly. While I normally get my orders to go, they do have plenty of seating inside and out for those that wish to dine in. Highly recommend!
However, everything else was disappointing. I ordered a brisket plate and what I received surprised me. The meat was cut very thin and served on a bun. As for the taste and texture: 1. it was overpowered by an overwhelming amount of BBQ sauce, and yet the meat itself lacked flavor; and, 2. the meat had the consistency of boiled bacon. The collard greens were fine but needed some salt. The Mac and cheese was extremely disappointing and just tasted like Velveeta.
We Enjoyed getting a Home delivery of Our favorites. Baby Back Ribs and BBQ wings arrived packaged carefully ,so easy to unwrap and serve . Sides of Col
(For context, I’m from Texas, Texas bbq is my favorite style of brisket, and I was a big fan of the Hill Country Barbeque before it closed its DC location.)
**
I ordered the 3-meat platter (chicken, brisket, and pulled pork) with sides of mac & cheese and Texas corn pudding (like a pureed version of cornbread, sorta).
The chicken – despite being drenched in barbeque sauce – was *very* dry. I would not order the chicken again.
The brisket is thinly sliced and more akin to Kansas City, Missouri barbeque. It was okay – not bad, but also came heavily soaked in lots of sauce. The flavor was not bad but nothing remarkable.
The pulled pork was probably the best of the three, but I think only because it wasn’t drowning in barbeque sauce.
The mac & cheese was fairly average. Didn’t taste homemade. Not bad but also very generic.
The Texas corn pudding had good flavor and texture. Pretty good.
Food portions were okay (probably fairly standard for the DC area, which is to say, not as much as you’d expect to get for what you’re paying), but that’s just the norm around this city.
Brisket was super dry and disgusting. It included slabs of fats (that looked inedible) and the brisket was completely flavorless. For the amount we paid for this brisket, absolutely not worth it – it is overpriced for no reason. Probably the worse brisket we tried – we ended up throwing away everything and wasted our money because we were scared we’d get sick. We wanted to go back to the restaurant to get a refund but we had a baby with us and had to get back home so we decided not to.
Beans was not good at all. Gave us heartburns. The taste of tomatoes was overpowering. We tossed that too.
Pecan pie tasted a bit salty and it was quite obvious it wasn’t made by the restaurant and was rather bought either from giant or some grocery stores. We still ate it because it was still decent once you get used to the saltiness and was definitely not as sickening as the brisket or the beans.
Overall, will not be returning to this place and will never recommend this place at all.
The staff are super friendly and the food is amazing. Especially the seasonal cornbread. My god, how do they make that stuff!?