One of my favorite bbq spots in Minnesota. Great service with friendly staff. The inside is busy…read morewith a great energetic vibe. You can call ahead to get your name in the line for seating to save your wait time. The complimentary chicharron bowl was a great way to start the meal. Use the bbq sauces as dip. Order: Half rack ribs. Not the best texture on this rack. Just a little too soft for me. Salt level was aggressive. I would not recommend the portion we were served today. I think they just had an off day. Brisket. Tender and juicy. Perfectly smoked. This was a delicious bite. Bbq style Cuban sandwich. This was a memorable bite of food. Great spin on a classic. Sides: Mac and cheese. Creamy, saucy and flavorful. Highly recommended. Fresh cut fries. Definitely worth the upgrade. The dill lemon aioli is highly recommended. Cheesy grits. Yummy. The star of the show was the thinly sliced pickled jalapeño on top. Added that sweet vinegar crunch. Poblano corn. Good flavor. Just ok. Baked beans. Good bite but nothing special or memorable. I would skip. Collar greens. Tender and flavorful. Highly recommended.

Sat on the big patio with the dogs. They even offered a water bowl and gave them dog treats!…read more Great smiley service! Tasty food.

The portions here are glorious! We had spent most of the day driving and had forgotten to grab food…read moreearlier in the day, so this was our first real meal (minus the snacks!). There were lots of contenders I wanted to go for (eg the teriyaki barbecue mushroom Swiss burger!), but I ended up deciding on the Chuck Norris + I definitely wasn't disappointed! (It is a lotttttt of food.) Aside from being a burger, it was also topped with ground beef and onion rings + we were able to choose different flavors of bbq sauce too! (My memory is failing me a little and I should've written this review sooner, but I believe there was their house bbq, apple, and blackberry!) Might have been blueberry? It was delicious + we def ended up having leftovers for the next day. We got fried mushrooms and cheese curds to split too! The decor here is fun + if you're looking for something other than a burger, they do serve breakfast all day + also have salads and sandwiches too! Service was friendly and pretty quick!

This place was a great stop for lunch, albeit the only option in the area for the most part. We…read morewere taken care of pretty quickly, and the food was good but the burger was just ok- pretty dry. The cheese curds were good, but the ranch was definitely homemade, and the fries were good too. Overall decent, but wouldn't say it's the best place to go on the north shore.

Stopped by here on the way back from boundary waters and was not disappointed. Nice location and…read moreplenty of indoor and outdoor seatings. Staff was nice and lots of different sandwich choices. Parking lot right next to it which was convenient. I got the slamin Gordon and it was good. The greens were a strong would have liked more salmon but the flavoring was good.

Northern Waters Smokehaus is one of the most recommended restaurants in Duluth. Located…read moreconveniently in the center of Canal Park, we stopped by on a sunny Wednesday early afternoon, hoping to score some of the best sandwiches in town. Even though this was well past lunch time at 2PM, the outside patio was packed and there was a line of 10 people or so to contend with to order at the register. Due to how busy it was, our food took about 20 minutes to arrive. The Squealy Dan, Porketta ($16) - Unlike most other restaurants with Iron Range Porketta, Northern Waters slices their porketta thinly instead of pulling the pork apart. It has a pleasant spiced flavor and the texture feels as if it's cured rather than roasted. It's relatively tender, and while they give a decent amount of meat, it's completely overshadowed by the heavy spicy quality of the black pepper and the acidity and vegetalness of the crunchy pepperoncini. There's a bit of melted gooey provolone on top of the porketta. While nice, there's not enough to balance out the peppers. This is all on a crusty almost baguette-like hero roll, toasty and warm. The sandwich is served with a side dip that's essentially black pepper and pepperoncini water. Definitely not needed given how overwhelming those elements are in the sandwich. (3/5) Pastrami Mommy ($19) - I haven't had bison pastrami before. Now I know why it's not very common - it's way too lean and dry compared to beef pastrami. Still, it's nicely spiced and peppery, and there's not much of the bison gamey flavor since it's cooked out from the curing. There's a little bit of mayo underneath and some mustard on top, but it's not enough moisture or fat in my opinion to counteract the leanness of the bison. While there are some slices of provolone above the meat, they are served cold. I feel like melting it with the pastrami on the griddle would do wonders to help develop some more unctuousness. It's also served on cold rye - perhaps toasting with some butter would also help. Otherwise, the sandwich is just too dry and lean for my tastes. (3/5) I feel like I ordered the wrong items. I probably should have gone with some of the seafood sandwiches, but I found it strange they only serve Atlantic salmon rather than local lake fish. In the end, I appreciate that Northern Waters Smokehaus makes most of their meats in house, but after trying their food, I feel like it's more hype than substance. Bathrooms - Larger ones located upstairs, shared with the rest of the businesses in the mini mall. Note: Northern Waters Smokehaus charges a 3% credit card fee. This is disclosed on a sign at the front register. Food: [3/5] Service: [ ] Other: [+] Final Rating: 3/5

Cute atmosphere, but the seating in the bar area was horribly uncomfortable (the waitress in that…read morearea commented that she knew the chairs were tortuous and understood why we moved to the dining room after a couple minutes). I ordered the four meat platter, and in hindsight wish that I had just ordered the brisket platter because the ribs and pulled pork were dry and bland (couldn't taste seasoning or a smoky flavor, and we can legit make better at home). The smoked sausage was nothing special. The only thing I enjoyed was the brisket as it was moist and tender, but again, it wasn't much for a BBQ/smokehouse flavor. As for the bottles of BBQ sauces at the table, they were all very mild; I get in WI restauranteurs tend to hold back on bold or stronger flavors due to the tame cooking of our ancestors, but why that's still the case when people are now well-traveled I will never understand. My husband had the poutine and was not a fan (I did not try it). Finally, the thin brown to-go boxes are useless. We sealed up my leftover meat and placed it in our cooler with other food items. Once home we discovered the material of the box had soaked through and released brown liquid over everything else. Yuck! Such a waste of time to have to wash the cooler and all it's contents because of mediocre BBQ stored in a chintzy box.

Great service. Wonderful ambience. Bang bang shrimp is…read moredelicious. Great selection of beers

After 45 minutes of waiting for our food, half hour waiting for a table even though plenty were…read moreavailable, they told us 2/3 of our food was not available. And that was only after I literally stood up and blocked the waitress from walking past us. They ran out of ribs. Brisket. Chicken. The waitress told our children that she would not make them Shirley temples. Told them they would get Sprite or nothing. Truly, an unbelievable experience. Hands-down, the worst restaurant experience in my lifetime. They've taken it to a new level. 8 o'clock at night in Biwabik, Minnesota. I have to find a different restaurant to feed my family after almost 2 hours of waiting for food. Unbelievable.

The ribs were wildly impressive for the middle of nowhere MN. Madison our server was attentive and…read moreresponsive. A great in-hotel option.

We decided to do a pie-off and bought slices of double-crust apple pie from Rustic and Betty's to…read moredetermine who we thought was the best. Rustic made the purchase process much faster thanks to their Pie on the Fly truck; our slice was ready in a couple minutes, fork and napkins included. Our conclusion: the crust was flaky, messy, with visible cinnamon, and was delicious. It had more flavor through the crust, which we preferred, though the fillings were similar and good. This was our favorite of the two.

Friendly service, cute place…read more 30-45min wait on a Sunday morning. Coffee cake was delicious. Omelette was cheesy and tasty. Water glasses were kept full. Basic but solid breakfast place! Clearly popular.

Delicious and so friendly! The food is super good, the staff is nice and the vibe is good.read more

I was in the Duluth area and my son was craving bbq so we tried this place out. It's located in…read morethe very back but the signage is easy to locate. We ordered 2 pulled pork sandwiches and half rack of ribs. Sides we had Mac and cheese, baked beans and pasta salad. The Mac and cheese had serious cheese pull. The ribs were a little dry but I had no sauce cause my kiddo used it all for his pulled pork. Service was great and love supporting small businesses. There are tables to sit at but we took it back to our hotel.

Great servers! Good menu. Ate here 3 times in past 10 days. Check out the Wednesday 2 for $40 menu,…read moreyou won't be disappointed.

Fantastic lunch spot on a Friday. Cheryl was our server and she took fantastic care of us. My…read morehusband had a Castle Danger Sea Salt & Lime beer while I had a Duluth Raspberry Cider. I had a bowl of wild rice soup, and wow, it was so good. The cornbread alongside was sweet and delicious, and I treated it like my dessert! My husband had the Boundary Walleye plate, which featured one massive piece of beautifully breaded fish. On the side he had broccoli, a roll, and he picked waffle fries for his potato. A five star lunch all around.

Fantastic small family restaurant. Exactly what you would expect when you walk in. Locals,…read moredecorations from grandmas house and great, inexpensive food. Three of us ate for $30.00. Loved it!

The food was delicious. The waitress was very prompt and excellent. They let us in a half an hour…read morebefore they were supposed to close just great people and excellent food. We knew we had the right place when we saw all the cars in the parking lot.!!!

always a great time at Betty's Pies. We got the Split Rock fish and chips and the Stormy weather…read moreStacker. Both were delicious! to end our meal we obviously got pies. We got the Reese's Peanut Butter Cream Pie and the Great Lakes Crunch - amazing! always a must when we come up to the North Shore

We decided to do a pie-off and bought slices of double-crust apple pie from Rustic and Betty's to…read moredetermine who we thought was the best. We had a much longer wait for pie at Betty's, and were lucky to get a parking place at all. It was mobby, and it wasn't even the weekend! There was about a 10 minute wait to order at the outdoor window, and a 15-20 wait for our slices. Most of the people ahead of us seemed to be getting pie shakes. In addition to the apple pie slice, we bought a toffee cream one. We ate it soon after our visit. It was delicious. The pale crust reminded me of shortbread, the filling light, sweet, and creamy, with what seemed to be Heath bits throughout. It was great and surprisingly not filling at all. As for the apple pie comparison, Betty's version was more cohesive a crust and easier to eat, but it was also surprisingly bland. The thicker crust at the edge was dry, too. The fillings from both bakeries were quite close, both good. From Betty's, we liked the cream pie slice much more than the apple. For classic double-crust apple, Rustic was best between the two.