Picnic - Durham

I really wanted to give this place a five, but it came up short in many areas . First was the fish sandwich . It had a nice portion of fish and the fish was cooked very well .. the problem was the bread . The sandwich just fell apart halfway thru eating it. The bread was soggy , may help if likely toasted . We push the bread aside and ate the fish . Next the hushpuppies were also soggy. Also, we didn't eat them .. the brisket was cooked beautifully and the pulled pork very well also .. lastly a smile can go a long way when you are dealing with customers, and no one seem like they care if we were there or not .

Really enjoyed the fried chicken sandwich and the pork was quite good if a little dry. The biggest thing keeping it from a five star rating were the sides, which hush puppies not withstanding felt like a bit of an afterthought.

I'm pretty picky when it comes to barbecue and fried chicken, but Picnic gets it right every time! I could eat the collards and mac and cheese for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Unfortunately Picnic isn't what it use to be. Several years ago this place served fantastic food but, as of last night it was pretty terrible. I had fried chicken (which before was amazing) and it tasted as if if it had been boiled then fried. It was tough and had that distinct flavor of being re-heated and/or boiled. My friend had the brisket and it wasn't any better. The sides were just ok... it's hard to mess up frozen French fries. Hushpuppies were ok and the baked beans were barely warm.Both of us were excited to go back here again, but wont ever return. I find this to be a common theme with restaurants that are really popular, they are extremely good at first then the quality slowly begins to decline.

Let me preface by saying we own a Workhorse, so nothing will compare to our at home texas-style BBQ....however, this was a nice day trip near Eno park that was satisfying. We ordered a BBQ plate and shrimp po boy with fried oysters with fried saltinea, Brunswick stew, Mac n cheese, fried okra and a few local drafts. Yum!!! Wish we had room for dessert options but will need to check out next time. Much better than other local NC spots