Heads and Tails BBQ

Greta

Been there many times since it opened last year. It’s the best BBQ place in the east bay. They have a great collection of cocktails that my husband likes. I had fried chicken sandwich for a change today and it was so good! Highly recommended.

Will S

I was in Oakland and thought that Q sounded good for dinner. There wasn't anything open in the entire area except back over the bridge in SF on the way home but I saw the map entry for this place and decided to give it a try. I knew it was new but it looked promising. The place is roomy, nice, and welcoming. There are large TVs so you can probably catch something that interests you. I didn't get her name but the host/waitress? was so pleasant and nice. There's a nice full bar ready to serve your favorite libation. I was here with my daughter and we split a two meat platter which is more than enough unless you're a big eater. They made a Shirley Temple for my daughter and she was thrilled because they don't use the common bright red Maraschino cherries, no, they use tasty gourmet ones like I have at home :). We had the pulled pork, brisket, and Mac and cheese. The included pickled veggies are a nice twist. The Mac n cheese was container licking worthy, the pork was tender and smoky, delicious. The cut of brisket that I was given was a mistake by the kitchen, given that it's fairly new I wasn't mad, the bark had good flavor the moist ends were good. The problem was I was given the very end of the flat and was obviously a misunderstanding. A gentlemen walked by and asked if everything was good, I went to him at the bar and explained what my concerns were and he knew there was a problem and said he would never serve that part and would talk to the kitchen. I'm telling you this because it's important to know that this owner is genuinely concerned with what he's serving and it's our responsibility to help them by providing honest and respectful feedback to help them if we want to have a nice place to come and enjoy a meal. We want the small business to thrive, not cut them down by giving a bad review without talking to the owner. Shortly after our talk he came back from the kitchen with some replacement brisket and it was simply delicious, worthy of your consideration for sure. There were three sauces to choose from out of the traditional ones I preferred the spicy version which is actually mild. The star though was the Carolina mustard style one. I don't normally eat brisket with much sauce let alone mustard but this was so tasty, my daughter loved it too. This place is open fairly late which is great, there aren't many places to get Q at night, unfortunately I live on the other side of the bay but I'll come back here without hesitation. If you live in the area, please make plans to stop by, give them a try, and have a nice sit down meal. You're lucky to have them, you have an opportunity to contribute to their success, there is nothing in my area.

Max Imhoff

Stopped in the other day to catch a warriors game. Environment was perfect for a game and a few drinks, bbq was amazing too. Some of the best wings I’ve had in a while I’m happy I found you guys and will definitely be back. Chill vibes, casual but quality, price was right. What’s not to love! 5 stars from me

Haley Geller

Food is AMAZING! I got the burger and brisket melt with fries and OMG, so good. Drinks are also incredible! They have a hella fancy frozen drink machine that makes the most delicious frozen margaritas and Irish coffees. I’ve literally never had a better frozen marg! Everyone that works here is super nice and fun to chat with. My friends and I came to watching a Warriors game and they had it playing on 7 screens! With sound on! They also have a skeeball machine! This place rocks 😍 They also have a great happy hour everyday from 3-6 and Daily Specials!

Matthew Davis

Popped in for lunch to check out the newly opened H&T and loved it. The brisket was delicious with a side of Vaquero beans that packed plenty of flavor as well. I could see the bar is well stocked with a great selection of spirits as well as a bunch of quality local beers on tap. Points as well for having a quality N/A offering. I received fast and very friendly service. Looking fwd to visiting again soon and wish this new business the best of luck as it was obvious that plenty of heart & soul is invested at heads & tails.

Spencer Huang

The food and drinks are delicious and on-point. The beer was cold and smooth. The brisket was tender and juicy; you know they knock it out of the park when you see that smoke ring. The Mac and Cheese was kid's favorite. The Queso (asked for chips instead of Fries) was full of flavor as well. Last but not the least, friendly servers and open atmosphere, will go again!

Hella good! Since there is really no good BBQ left in the bay, I was happy to find this place. Staff is always accommodating and the burnt ends were perfectly small for my new braces. I love this place before braces tho 🥰😂

The Brisket was juicy, tender, and the meat portion was generous. The beans were tasty, I really liked the hint hot sausage. The sauce was really good (I was surprised) lol. I appreciate tasting the potatoes in the potato salad the texture was good. I highly recommend Heads and Tails Barbecue.

My son and I frequently make the drive out to Berkeley to eat here because the BBQ is that good! So it was only fitting that I reached out to Rick for a quote for our Western-themed party. Rick was incredibly kind and worked with our tight budget. He went above and beyond with our brisket and burnt ends, and even included his famous pickles (which were a huge hit!) The BBQ was gone within minutes! Everything was flavorful, perfectly cooked, and a total crowd favorite. Highly recommend for both catering and dining in. Always worth the drive!

Dark Diva

The Brisket was juicy, tender, and the meat portion was generous. The beans were tasty, I really liked the hint hot sausage. The sauce was really good (I was surprised) lol. I appreciate tasting the potatoes in the potato salad the texture was good. I highly recommend Heads and Tails Barbecue.

I ate at Heads and Tails Barbecue earlier today with some other family members in celebration of my wife's mom's birthday. The food was really good. I ordered the 3 item meat plate with 2 sides. I also ordered the half chicken plate with 2 sides and the Dino beef rib. For the meats, we choose the Cheddar smoked sausage link, ribs, pulled pork, and brisket. The Cheddar sausage link tasted the best out of everything. It was cooked perfectly and had great flavor and the texture was on point. The sausage had the perfect bite and snap to it. The beef brisket was really good. The flavor of the beef was excellent. We ordered the lean brisket instead of the fatty cut brisket but there was still a ton of fat on the brisket. I can't imagine what the fatty cut of brisket looks like. There was way too much fat on the brisket in general. The meat to fat ratio was off in my opinion. The pulled pork was on point. It was super tender and flavorful. The pork tasted really fresh. The ribs were okay. I'm not hating on their ribs but Texas Roadhouse still to this day has the best ribs ever. It's hard to compare BBQ ribs to Texas Roadhouse because all other ribs seem to fall short. The ribs I tried at Heads and Tails were St. Louis style which are totally different compared to baby back ribs. The ribs were just okay, nothing special. The smoked chicken wad good but nothing to write home to mom about. The seasoning they used for the chicken had a small amount of heat/kick to it. The Dino giant rib which is over 1 pound of pure beef and tons of fat was delicious. The flavor and taste of the beef were sensational. It was excellent but not worth $52! Yes, the Dino rib was $52 bucks! If you like pot roast or braised beef short ribs, you'll like the Dino rib. There's a ton of fat on the rib though, close to about 6 to 8 ounces of pure fat! On to the sides. The French fries were good. They were basic but tasted good dipped in ketchup. It's kinda hard to mess up French fries. The Mac and cheese was average and whatever. It lacked flavor. The arroz green rice tasted good. The baked beans tasted really good. Tons of flavor and pork mixed into the beans. The garlic rolls topped with parmesan were good. The rolls were soft and tasted fresh. The BBQ was right on the money and pretty much perfect. It tasted slightly sweet and was very mellow and not overpowering. It tasted good on all of the proteins we ate. My kids got the burger with cheese. They both liked it and said it tasted really good. Service was good. We were greeted and welcomed very quickly when we entered the restaurant. We had a reservation and were seated right away. This is a type of restaurant where once your food is served, the waiter or waitress doesn't really interact with you until they deliver the bill. They'll check in on your once and ask how the food is but that's about it. I almost forgot, a different waitress dropped our bill off at the end. We asked her for 3 small to go BBQ sauces which are beyond small but she only gave us 2. I guess they're skimpy with their BBQ sauce or maybe she didn't hear us say 3 and thought 2 would be fine 🤔. It's all good though. Overall, Heads and Tails is a great BBQ restaurant that I highly recommend. The food tasted really good. The food and ingredients seemed to be of high quality. Food ratings; Cheddar sausage link 5/5 Ribs 4/5 Pulled pork 5/5 Brisket 5/5 Chicken 3/5 Dino rib 5/5 Kids Burger 5/5 Sides: Mac & Cheese 3/5 Garlic & Parmesan Rolls 4/5 Bakes Beans 5/5 Arrow Rice 5/5 French Fries 4/5 Cost: $253 total with tip

Food is great. I enjoyed the ribs, tri tip , sausage and Mac n cheese. Lemonade delicious. Potato salad was ok.

This is a great place to hang to watch a game. The food and drinks are really good. The portions are huge. It is not vegetarian friendly. There is plenty of parking. Good dogs are allowed.

Reta's Optimal Health & Aging RO-HA

I ate at Heads and Tails Barbecue earlier today with some other family members in celebration of my wife's mom's birthday. The food was really good. I ordered the 3 item meat plate with 2 sides. I also ordered the half chicken plate with 2 sides and the Dino beef rib. For the meats, we choose the Cheddar smoked sausage link, ribs, pulled pork, and brisket. The Cheddar sausage link tasted the best out of everything. It was cooked perfectly and had great flavor and the texture was on point. The sausage had the perfect bite and snap to it. The beef brisket was really good. The flavor of the beef was excellent. We ordered the lean brisket instead of the fatty cut brisket but there was still a ton of fat on the brisket. I can't imagine what the fatty cut of brisket looks like. There was way too much fat on the brisket in general. The meat to fat ratio was off in my opinion. The pulled pork was on point. It was super tender and flavorful. The pork tasted really fresh. The ribs were okay. I'm not hating on their ribs but Texas Roadhouse still to this day has the best ribs ever. It's hard to compare BBQ ribs to Texas Roadhouse because all other ribs seem to fall short. The ribs I tried at Heads and Tails were St. Louis style which are totally different compared to baby back ribs. The ribs were just okay, nothing special. The smoked chicken wad good but nothing to write home to mom about. The seasoning they used for the chicken had a small amount of heat/kick to it. The Dino giant rib which is over 1 pound of pure beef and tons of fat was delicious. The flavor and taste of the beef were sensational. It was excellent but not worth $52! Yes, the Dino rib was $52 bucks! If you like pot roast or braised beef short ribs, you'll like the Dino rib. There's a ton of fat on the rib though, close to about 6 to 8 ounces of pure fat! On to the sides. The French fries were good. They were basic but tasted good dipped in ketchup. It's kinda hard to mess up French fries. The Mac and cheese was average and whatever. It lacked flavor. The arroz green rice tasted good. The baked beans tasted really good. Tons of flavor and pork mixed into the beans. The garlic rolls topped with parmesan were good. The rolls were soft and tasted fresh. The BBQ was right on the money and pretty much perfect. It tasted slightly sweet and was very mellow and not overpowering. It tasted good on all of the proteins we ate. My kids got the burger with cheese. They both liked it and said it tasted really good. Service was good. We were greeted and welcomed very quickly when we entered the restaurant. We had a reservation and were seated right away. This is a type of restaurant where once your food is served, the waiter or waitress doesn't really interact with you until they deliver the bill. They'll check in on your once and ask how the food is but that's about it. I almost forgot, a different waitress dropped our bill off at the end. We asked her for 3 small to go BBQ sauces which are beyond small but she only gave us 2. I guess they're skimpy with their BBQ sauce or maybe she didn't hear us say 3 and thought 2 would be fine 🤔. It's all good though. Overall, Heads and Tails is a great BBQ restaurant that I highly recommend. The food tasted really good. The food and ingredients seemed to be of high quality. Food ratings; Cheddar sausage link 5/5 Ribs 4/5 Pulled pork 5/5 Brisket 5/5 Chicken 3/5 Dino rib 5/5 Kids Burger 5/5 Sides: Mac & Cheese 3/5 Garlic & Parmesan Rolls 4/5 Bakes Beans 5/5 Arrow Rice 5/5 French Fries 4/5 Cost: $253 total with tip

Delta Kayler

This is a great place to hang to watch a game. The food and drinks are really good. The portions are huge. It is not vegetarian friendly. There is plenty of parking. Good dogs are allowed.

Edd Rustrian

Food is great. I enjoyed the ribs, tri tip , sausage and Mac n cheese. Lemonade delicious. Potato salad was ok.

My husband has been wanting to try this place for a while, so we finally decided to go for takeout today, 01/21/26. We got a 3 meat plate with 3 slices of brisket, pork ribs (not sure how many because the overcooked meat had fallen off of the bones), one hot link, 5.5 ounce containers of each beans & mac and cheese, a plain roll and small sample of cucumber pickles. Absolutely NOTHING, except perhaps the hot link, lived up to the hype. The brisket was dry and tasted more like oven roasted beef than it did smoked brisket. In addition to also being dry and overcooked, the pork ribs were heavily covered in rub and so extremely salty that we couldn't even eat them. The mac and cheese was totally flavorless and the beans were so hard you could bounce them off your plate. The pickles were limp and the BBQ sauce tasted like doctored up ketchup. Needless to say, we won't be back.

Karla Moss

My husband has been wanting to try this place for a while, so we finally decided to go for takeout today, 01/21/26. We got a 3 meat plate with 3 slices of brisket, pork ribs (not sure how many because the overcooked meat had fallen off of the bones), one hot link, 5.5 ounce containers of each beans & mac and cheese, a plain roll and small sample of cucumber pickles. Absolutely NOTHING, except perhaps the hot link, lived up to the hype. The brisket was dry and tasted more like oven roasted beef than it did smoked brisket. In addition to also being dry and overcooked, the pork ribs were heavily covered in rub and so extremely salty that we couldn't even eat them. The mac and cheese was totally flavorless and the beans were so hard you could bounce them off your plate. The pickles were limp and the BBQ sauce tasted like doctored up ketchup. Needless to say, we won't be back.

Mac n chesse was watery not good at all, but everything else was ok. I've had way better BBQ since my family is from Texas. Good try though. We also went on a Friday which there was a lot of people so the wait time was long. The atmosphere was cool, people seemed to liked it but probably because they had an open bar.

We found it on line. I think someone watched the food ch , and said I can do that. No you can't. The small ribs what animal did they come from ?The mac and cheese would have been better from the box. The place is cute , but I felt like we paid for the neighborhood not the food.

Comparable to Dickeys faux bq. The receipt says it all. Had brisket sandwich with potato salad, stingy on the meat and the potato salad was flavorless! I will not return.

Lynne Anderson

We found it on line. I think someone watched the food ch , and said I can do that. No you can't. The small ribs what animal did they come from ?The mac and cheese would have been better from the box. The place is cute , but I felt like we paid for the neighborhood not the food.

H Williams

Comparable to Dickeys faux bq. The receipt says it all. Had brisket sandwich with potato salad, stingy on the meat and the potato salad was flavorless! I will not return.

Such a bad experience, I’ll try to keep this brief but there is a lot that went wrong. We waited for over 50 mins from the time we sat to the first item coming out. It was the frito pie. It was all Fritos and barely any toppings. When I mentioned it to the server, she rudely stated that the kitchen staff says “ you ate all the toppings off the top “. Excuse me?! What toppings?? You mean the tiny blob of sour cream or the teaspoon amount of chili? We were a party of 6. One person ordered a burger and it arrived 15 mins before anyone else’s food. Then the meat plates came out and all the sides were wrong. But we still had to wait for a brisket sandwich and a chicken sandwich while everyone else ate. The chicken sandwich came out almost 10 minutes later, putting us well past the 1hr mark from the time we sat down. And the brisket sandwich was completely forgotten until I asked again about it. My 12 yr old son had to sit and wait for ANOTHER 10 mins while we all gave him portions from our plate. At the end, the manager came to apologize, saying they had an unexpected party of 20 and that’s why they were so slow. I told him that what he is saying to a that we don’t matter as much as that large group. And it also doesn’t explain the servers rudeness or the forgotten meals and messed up sides. Manager gave us a %10 discount on a $250+ tab and apologized, but I don’t think I’ll be going back. The meat is tender, but not much flavor. Just tastes like a campfire. The “Dino bone” was very tender also, but that’s not enough reason to go back. Oh yeah, and we were seated by the ski-ball game and had to constantly watch for flying ball because of unsupervised children playing while their parents drank at the bar. I’m not exaggerating, we were almost hit in the heads multiple times. Not a good game to have in a crowded restaurant. The environment was also insanely loud and it was impossible to talk to anyone not directly next to you.

I went a Saturday with a friend and our daughters, it is kid friendly. Good vibe but be aware that the sun will hit you with all the windows they have around the spot. I was disappointed, I been wanting to go for the longest because of all the hype but unfortunately, we got there it took 30 to 40 min to get our food, we get our food cold and to top it off it wasn’t as juicy or tasty as I thought it would be. I ordered the brisket and it was still tough and needed seasoning and cold. My friend and her daughter got the pull pork sandwich and it was dry, the waiter recommended the chili and Mac n’ cheese and it wasn’t it for us. We all eat a little bit and just packed it to go. I wanted to love this spot but it was disappointing 😞.

Cute place but the food was horrible!! Don't waste your money. We ordered ribs & brisket that was just not good. We were from out of town this place was recommended so we tried it. I'm from the bay and totally love BBQ but this is not the place for it!! Save your money go down the street to Everett & Jones for real BBQ. I guess if you want to have a beer and watch the game it would be cool but to eat... Save your money...Sorry but just keeping it real. Who puts carrots 🥕 in baked beans 🫘 then again those weren't baked beans. We were very disappointed🤮

Smoked chicken was very good, brisket was skimpy, service was bad. Ordered a pickup order (2 hours in advance) and had to wait a half hour past our scheduled pickup time. Staff kept walking by asking if we’d been helped, promised to check on our order, and then all disappeared. Poor service for a sports bar/bbq joint on a Saturday night. Not worth the money nor time.

Marty Cole

Cute place but the food was horrible!! Don't waste your money. We ordered ribs & brisket that was just not good. We were from out of town this place was recommended so we tried it. I'm from the bay and totally love BBQ but this is not the place for it!! Save your money go down the street to Everett & Jones for real BBQ. I guess if you want to have a beer and watch the game it would be cool but to eat... Save your money...Sorry but just keeping it real. Who puts carrots 🥕 in baked beans 🫘 then again those weren't baked beans. We were very disappointed🤮

Annabel LaBrecque

Smoked chicken was very good, brisket was skimpy, service was bad. Ordered a pickup order (2 hours in advance) and had to wait a half hour past our scheduled pickup time. Staff kept walking by asking if we’d been helped, promised to check on our order, and then all disappeared. Poor service for a sports bar/bbq joint on a Saturday night. Not worth the money nor time.

Niki Green

When the pickles are the best thing at a BBQ spot, you know the food is bad. Read the reviews of multiple people. This place is bland, expensive AND bad service. I genuinely hope that someone gets hired in the kitchen that has taste buds. First, it costs nothing to salt food. Or cayenne pepper or paprika. Literally everything is flavorless. Shells and cheese need salt, pepper, any sort of seasoning and the shells are overcooked. The fried chicken Is the same. I mean, doesnt KFC use at least 11.spices? The ribs, shockingly flavorless. If you want actual BBQ just walk 4 more blocks north up San Pablo. This place is meant to capture people that prioritize drinking over food. The prices are borderline aggregrious for what you actually get. Totally disappointing and I bet this place doesnt make it 2 years. If you work here and care, then hire some people to taste your food and listen to the feedback. Oh please stop eating in your own kitchen, it's not great watching you eat the bland stuff you serve your customers.