Unique bbq sauce and salad. Great chopped pork. It's been there as long as I've been alive.

Food was good and there was plenty of it. Service was excellent. I go here quite often and always leave with a smile and a full tummt.

Excellent Food Great Staff. Love taking home a whole homemade pie. Can't beat them for a whole chopped or pulled Boston butt with sauce and sides. Can feed the whole family and still have leftovers for the next couple days. read more

Not impressed. Went late afternoon weekday. Out of some items and employees cleaning up and getting ready to leave. So So barbeque on soggy buns, cole slaw too sweet. They definitely have close by competition. read more

We love getting barbecue when we're having family and friends for celebrations at the lake. The barbecue is flavorful and they offer different sauces. read more

Their BBQ Used to be good and I would order the barbecue for my family. We've always used our own sauce as I never did like their sauce. Most recently we noticed that there's never any smoke coming out of the cook pit. Come to find out cottons does not smoke their own barbecue anymore. Yeah read more

The atmosphere was like eating in a funeral home, and there was literally a yard sale table in there. Wait staff wasn't friendly. BBQ meat was okay, but the sauce was terrible. From what I hear I ate here about 5-10 years too late. read more

I'm from out of town and I should have asked where to go for lunch first because when I said where I went I got that look like when you tell someone you got in a motorcycle wreck. Awful sauce. You can't even call it BBQ sauce. pork plate good portions, but seriously awful sauce. Meat would have been better without it. Baked Beans and my to-go water were the only things I could finish out of my almost 10 dollar small pork plate. Hate to leave 1 star but seriously worst bbq ive ever had. read more

The chopped pork was well done and I have enjoyed that now on two occasions, it's good not the best ever amazing. The BBQ sauce and BBQ chicken were misses for me...chicken was dry and sauce is tomato based but heavy on celery seed/salt - not to my taste for BBQ meat. read more

Good food...pulled pork and other traditional items are on the menu. Good place to get a paper menu and order to go ahead of time. Hours are odd but stop if smoke is coming from the pit. Slaw and beans are nice compliments! read more

Cotton's is one of my favorite spots on Lake Martin. Their BBQ is excellent, pork is well cooked and their tomato based sauce is thick and tasty. It is a no frills location. Come as you are. Sweet tea is my favorite drink here. I will often pick up some pulled pork for a weekend at Lake Martin if I don't have time to dine in. Try it, it's worth a drive, and is a Lake Martin fixture. It used to be in the tiny building across the street. Plenty of room now, though. I agree with Robbie H, the meat is so good it can be eaten without sauce. But if you do include sauce, all the better. Their sauce is sweet and mild. Also, they are closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, so as I said above, better plan ahead and get a 1/2 pound to go if you want some good Q on those days. read more

Cotton's Alabama Barbecue - Cotton's BBQ view from Hwy 63 - Barbeque Near Me - Eclectic, Alabama

Ate here years ago and it was great. Ribs tasted boiled. Didn't even remove fat from the skin on the BBQ chicken...big glob. White meat was tough and no taste. "Baked" beans and green beans tasted like they opened a can. Plain baked potato was good. Won't be back. read more

The the atmosphere on the outside of the restaurant was great but the inside not so much. The quietness of the inside felt like I was attending a funeral, maybe some music or sound from the TV would make this better. I got the BBQ sandwich which was really good and I liked how they toasted the buns which added to the great tasting BBQ. The tomato based BBQ sauce was awful and did not go with the BBQ at all. I'd give this BBQ joint a three stars because the sauce and atmosphere was bad but the BBQ was one of the best. read more

Poor website - hours are always incorrect. No one answers phone. Take out orders are never ready. This place was great when Alvin Ward was in charge ! read more

If you're looking for bbq in eclectic, this is the spot to go! Tender and flavorful, can't beat it.

Cotton's is our go to when we need a quick meal. We love their BBQ half chicken. Get it quick because they run out quick. My fav is the half chicken with loaded baked potato and onions rings. We go to Cotton's every week. read more

I Love there Bar-B-Q sandwichs with extra Cottons Bar-B-Q sauce & the Fries are awesome. My hubby loves the Hamburger with Cottons Sauce & Onion Rings. My son loves the Chicken Fingers. I haven't had anything there I didn't like. I do recommend you try. read more

Fantastic BBQ. Real smoked BBQ pork with lots of outside meat. Their sauce is a little odd, with celery seed mixed in, but they cook their meat so well that you could eat the meat alone without any sauce at all. Cotton's and Spiced Right BBQ in Lilburn, GA are my two favorite BBQ restaurants. read more

Sides were good. Could not tell much about the meat because there was so much sauce. Also the sauce wasn't like a Bbq sauce it was more like a spaghetti sauce. Next time, will ask for no sauce if I go back. read more

The BBQ is merely ok these days. It used to be a lot better. I have been coming to Cottons for 45 years when it was in the little building across the street from its current locationk. The sauce had a better flavor then but the meat is still as perfect as ever. I eat the meat without the sauce whenever I get a chance to visit Eclectic and Lake Martin. I wonder what changes the new place has in store, whenever it is finished. I think the have been building on it for 10 years!! Cottons remains on the meal plan, even though I eat a lot of Texas beef BBQ these days. read more

Yes go now if you are near and looking for good BBQ. Sides were good, tender and juicy pork was better. Sauce worked great, sweet with a little kicker. Slices of white bread, friendly owners. Good value and great food, bring your appetite or take it away. read more

Love it! I'm also the main waitress! Yes family owned and operated. All our sides are home maded! No there is not bug spray in the sauce so I don't know what made you come up with that crap! No we do not bread our chicken fingers cuz were a BBQ place! We have been going strong since 1946!!!! We have awesome customer based people very regularly! Beans are not straight out of a can! Our sauce is different but our main customers are older and people and we do have kids who eat BBQ so no our sauce is not hot but we can make it that way for the ones who prefer it! We use real hamburger meat and everything. And why use a dry rub on BBQ when we smoked the meat in a real BBQ pit with hickory so a dry rub would not be necessary! read more

My wife's family has been coming here for years and I was sent on an expedition to get BBQ from the establishment and bring it back to the cabin. When calling them up to order food, they only had two items to choose from pulled pork or chicken fingers as main menu items. We got the pulled pork, beans and coleslaw. Pork was well smoked but no seasoning on it. No dry rub whatsoever so I found that surprising. Coleslaw was pretty good, but not good. The beans had to have been Bush's original, so skip it. And most of all, skip the sauce. Just as others stated, it is quite awful. On another note, they gave me a box to load everything in and it was formerly a frozen food box for chicken tenders, so it appears they are not hand breading their chicken. On a final note, it pains me to write this negative of a review. The people there are incredibly nice and it is a family operation. I hope the best from them, but they need some serious help from Kitchen Nightmares. read more

Chopped pork was tasty and well-trimmed, but the sauce was horrible. Tasted like somebody put bugspray in it. Truly awful. Coleslaw and potato salad soso read more

Where do I even start???? I eat bbq and I eat it often. I always like trying new bbq places in search of the perfect bbq. Stopped at Cottons yesterday on the way home from the lake and all I can say is WTF!!! We'll just start from the top. We were greeted by someone that obviously wasn't happy to be at work. That's probably because she was acting as hostess, chef and dishwasher all at the same time. We were pointed in the general direction of where we could sit and ended up in the corner. The place itself if seriously dated and the decor, or absolute lack of decor should have a been a sign of things to come. We were greeted by another girl who was obviously not happy to be at work. She was semi-prompt in bringing my sour sweet tea and semi-happily took our order. Clue #2 and #3 were once again right in front of us. Sour tea and the fact that she asked us if we wanted our sauce on the side. I've had bad bbq before and I've had bad bbq sauce before, but I had no idea what I was in for. Our plates arrived quick....a little to quick. It literally looked like I had ordered a plate of spaghetti! My girlfriend plate looked just the same as we both ordered a chopped pork plate. Being optimistic, I took my first bite (after scraping about a gallon of sauce off the top). I knew then that I had stopped at the wrong place. The sauce was beyond description, It was HORRIBLE, resembled cheap spaghetti sauce and was absolutely tasteless. After a dash of salt trying to get some type of flavor, it ended up tasting like some cheat canned spaghetti sauce that had been diluted with a cheap bottle of ketchup! It was terrible, by far the worst I've ever had. My girlfriend took one bite of hers and she was done. She's a food connoisseur as well, having lived all over the country and knows a thing or two about food. As I scraped the sauce off of my bbq, I realized why it was smothered in sauce. The meat obviously came out of a pot, where it had been soaking for a long time to keep it from drying out. It wasn't fresh, was water logged and was on the verge of slimy. Simply the worst I've ever had. We both moved on to our sides. She had onion rings and slaw. She took one bite of the slaw and just gave me that look. I can handle most slaw, regardless of how poorly it was made. I took a bite as well and something was bad wrong with it. It literally tasted like someone had dumped an entire bottle of pickle relish into a bucket of slaw. Once again, bad bad bad. I had a double order of baked beans and knew without even taking a bite that they were bad. Simply put , they scooped them out of a bucket and straight into a bowl. Tasteless to say the least and pretty much the icing on the cake. Absolutely zero effort was put into any of this food, ZERO! We both left with disgusted. We also both left agreeing that it was the worst food we had ever been served in a restaurant. It was simply horrible and painfully obvious that the owner simply does not care. It's no that hard to make good bbq, and if good bbq is served, the people will come. For the love of God, offer something besides that awful sh@t you claim to be sauce. The worst thing ever! You obliviously know this because you offer the customer the option of having the sauce on the side. Most people like bbq because of the sauce and or rub on the meat. The meat was also bad bad bad. If you have been in business for all these years, then you should know how to plan better and not have to leave your meat soaking in whatever type of fluid that was. Simply bad bad bad and a total lack of effort. Put a little effort into the sides as well. The beans were the worst ever! I would have done just as good taking a can of Dollar General brand baked beans with me and eating them straight from the can. It's not hard and a little effort with the beans will go a long way...just don't incorporate your sauce into it, that would just make it worse. How about some fresh slaw? That's not difficult either. If you want me to show you the way, just let me know. I've eaten at enough bbq places to know how it's done. With a little effort, a little elbow gease, a little money and a little time, this place could be a top notch bbq joint. read more

The sauce was HORRIBLE. Unfortunately I made the mistake of ordering my bbq with the sauce mixed in. Too bad it was smothered in sauce that tasted like marinara. Took one bite and I was done. read more

We were there last night, Friday, and had the 1/2 BBQ Chicken, very disappointing, the meat was so dry you could have mopped the floor with it. The slaw lacks rating, the beans were half decent but needs some attention. Do these people even taste their own cooking??? They need some expert attention. read more

Joseph M. Benson, I've eaten Cottons Bar B Que almost since I was born. Cottons opened in 1952 in Sept. and I was born Nov. 1st 1952. As soon as I was old enough to eat real food dad, Dr. Joe Benson would go to Cottons kinda regular. I have been eating Cottons for 64 years and have not found any I like better. My family still drives the 2 1/2 hour drive to get there to eat the best Bar B Que in the sounth. I highly recommend you try to get to Cottons for a try of the best. It is family owned and operated and some of the best people you will ever meet run the place. I'm about due for a trip down soon, so hope to see you all there. read more

LOVE there BBQ and the best thing is the Salad with the dressing mixed in with it not sure whats in it but i love it,,;-)))) and the staff are always nice. read more

It's been over 30 years since I've eaten at Cottons Bar-b-que. It was my favorite Bar-B -Que resturant when I lived in Montgomery. There was a story goin round about an Air Force Pilot flying all the way from Hawaii to eat at Cottons. This has been a while ago, the old timers would remember. I love their sauce, I think it has strawberries in the sauce, or it used to. Their house salad dressing is out of this world ( or it used to be). I'll be coming over from Columbus, Georgia one week end to eat there again. Larry Cannon, Columbus, Georgia read more

I grew up eating Cotton's BBQ. I compare every BBQ I eat to Cotton's and so far nothing compares. The sauce is WONDERFUL!! The best side is salad with the house dressing. When I return to the Lake, I always make sure I eat Cotton's (several times). read more

First and foremost, I will say this is not the best barbecue joint. One thing I can say is that they are consistent. Their meat has been the same (and very tasty) as far back as I can remember. My family is from around the area and I've eaten there on more than a few occasions dating back to when they were in the smaller building across the street. I actually really enjoy their food, but I don't walk in expecting the best barbecue I've ever tasted. Their meat has a hearty smoky flavor and their sauce is unique. Many people don't like their sauce, and I can understand why - it's not like every other barbecue sauce on the shelf. In my opinion, it tastes like it is vinegar based, but it's thick and tangy. I love their sauce, but it's polarizing in the sense that you either love it or you hate it. Most of the locals grew up with it or have acquired a taste for it, like myself. I suggest trying the sauce before you have them apply it to whatever you try. All that aside, this is Alabama, and the establishment isn't some big fancy Art Deco building with artisan chefs on-hand; it's an expanded and renovated service station so don't expect to be walking into a five star restaurant. If you like trying local joints off the beaten path and you're ok with mismatched chairs and wood paneling then you're in the right place. read more