Mission BBQ – Canton

by Jeeves · February 22, 2017

We celebrated my daughter Sydney’s 22nd birthday a few days early this year as it would be impossible to get to Akron to celebrate on her actual birthday. She was given free reign on where she wanted to eat. If you know Syd you know she’s a lot like me in the field of making decisions. Along with the Slones and Mallory we made the 1 hour and 10 minute drive to Akron. Once we picked Syd up at her apartment the big question was…”ok…where are we going?” She said she had narrowed it down to two places, both in Canton near Belden Village Mall, so we made the 15 minute drive south of Akron on I-77 to Mission BBQ.
This would a second visit to this BBQ joint for four of us. Located in the heart of Belden Village’s maze of streets and shopping it could be easily missed if we hadn’t been there just before Christmas last year. Themed after the military, the place is always extremely busy and apparently very popular because we arrived after 1:30 and there wasn’t an empty table the entire time we were there. The ordering is done via a counter with the menu on the wall behind the cashier and the food is picked up at the other end. Decorated in American military motif the place has a very patriotic feel to it, if you are there at certain hours during the day the National Anthem is played and everyone rises and honors our flag and the courageous men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice for this great nation. The menu is one however I enjoy, not too many options to choose from and has just enough options to let you know that they do one thing and they do it right, BBQ! I chose the two meat plate with Brisket, Smoked Jalapeño Sausage, fries and macaroni and cheese. Scott ordered the Smoked Jalapeño Sausage with fries, Mal ordered an overloaded pulled pork sandwich with fries which she said was one of the best she had ever had. The rest ordered, loved and devoured the brisket sandwich, with Jen and Jackie opting for the slaw and potato casserole and Syd getting the coleslaw and fries. The macaroni and cheese is homemade and quite good, slightly runny but tastes homemade. You get your own drinks and to be honest they serve some very good sweet tea. On the tables are bottles of their signature sauces, of course me being from West Virginia I chose the Smokey Mountain (even has the West Virginia State outline on the bottle) Everyone else at the table declared Memphis Belle to be their favorite and completely drained that bottle before we were finished. The meat is smoked on-site and pulled and chopped in front of you in the open kitchen. Food is served on metal mess hall trays lined with brown paper which add to the overall military mess hall theme as there are a few booths but mostly long communal tables for seating. Misses for us were the fries, which were way too salty, the cornbread was dry but had a good flavor, could tell it was a typical mix and my brisket was burned and dry – while the brisket on the sandwiches was very moist and good. Definitely pass on the coleslaw as it is long strings of cabbage swimming in vinegar concoction. Mission BBQ offers a couple of dessert options; banana pudding and cobbler but we were planning dessert elsewhere and passed on getting back in the line. My two meat combo was $8.99 which was very reasonable for the amount served to you. For my family of four it was $52.00 which included our drinks. This was ofcourse my second visit to Mission BBQ and if you are looking for something unique, patriotic and good I would recommend this place – se we overall gave it 3.5 forks out of 5 forks. There are two northeast Ohio locations, the Canton location is at 4490 Everhart Road and a location in Parma is at 8225 W. Ridgewood Drive. Sorry West Virginia peeps…closest one to you appears to be Roanoke, Virginia.