The Cats Restaurant & Tavern

Not bad for highway food, and if you find yourself out on Highway 17 with a rumbling tummy, you could do a lot worse than their BBQ.

The service was friendly, our take-out was prepared quickly and it served a purpose as we were really hungry!  The food was reasonably priced and good quality.

I wouldn't go out of my way to pay them a visit, but it was a nice hearty meal on an empty stomach and I would certainly eat there again if we were in the area.

"The Cats" experience is eerily similar to "Henry's World Famous Hi-Life" in San Jose.

Like "Henry's", it has a 'history', it opens into a bar, there are small rooms in the back for seating, driving there is a pain(there is parking unlike "Henry's, but being on the free way makes it difficult to get to coming from the South, then if you wanna go North when you leave, you have to drive in the wrong direction for nearly 2 miles before you can make a U-turn), they focus on ribs & steaks and they serve garlic bread with bbq sauce & a side salad.

The main difference is that "The Cats" actually smokes their meat, and they have more sides & appetizers.

No brisket disappoints me.

Food time:

-Ribs: I like that they offer 3 choices for their St. Louis ribs: dry, honey glazed or bbq sauce slathered.  I got half dry & half honey glazed just to try it out.  The dry were rather good.  I loved the great hickory smoke smell & flavor in them.  They were pretty tender, and the rub was nice enough.  St. Louis style always saddens me though, they just seem so small and don't have as much tasty cartilage.  I'd rather have loin backs if they are gonna me so small.  The honey glazed ribs were just strange to me.  The honey glaze actually made them look unappealing, and the honey just did not work well with it in my opinion.  Just way too much honey that overpowered the ribs.  That is probably to be expected for me though, since I like my ribs dry(because most places don't actually just 'glaze' with something, they smother it, like here).

-Burnt Ends Beans:  Like the ribs, these were tremendously smokey, and had the burnt ends in 'em.  I thought these were some great beans, but I really do love that smoke taste & smell.

-Garlic Bread: Not quite as juicy and tasty as the garlic bread & BBQ sauce at "Henry's", but it is still pretty good.

-Cowboy Chips: Large potato wedges seasoned liberally with a spice mix.  They were good, and being free with the check-in offer was a delight.  I'm not sure the creamy dipping sauce that came with it complimented them particularly well.

-BBQ Sauce:  The BBQ sauce used with the bread was a nice dipping sauce that just goes with garlic bread really well.  The BBQ sauce provided with the ribs on the other hand didn't work for me.  Dunno what about it was off, but I just didn't enjoy it.

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Conclusion:
I really loved the tremendous smokey flavor in the dry ribs & beans.  However, the troublesome location is a major turn-off, they don't have brisket, I don't find the rubs as delightful as "Emergency BBQs" or the sauces up to par with "The Smoking Pig's" stuff for my tastes, & for a place so similar to "Henry's Hi-Life", it just didn't click with my taste buds in quite the same way that "Henry's" does.

Great place to have beer (or 3) and eat some good food.

BBQ is like politics....everyone has an opinion and I ignore what more people write when they diss or love-on someone's BBQ. Here are my opinions, so take them for what they are.

- I think they use too much smoke on their ribs. In my BBQ universe smoke should accent the meat and lend depth to the flavor of meat. All I tasted was smoke (like Liquid Smoke too, not delicious delicious oak wood smoke).
- Their sauce is good. Texas style.
- The tri tip sandwich was awesome. Highly recommended.
- The smoked beans tasted like they dumped a bottle of Liquid Smoke in them. I couldn't eat more than 2 spoon-fulls. Ugh.
- I got a Yelp coupon for free Cowboy Fries (pretty good) but they charged me anyway. For $6, I didn't bother arguing. Sloppy service.

Bottom line: I'll go back for the ambiance, the tri tip sandwich and the Eel River IPA. These 3 things alone warrant another try.