"Cute venue with different acts Food is alright, not amazing but not bad Wish they took reservations as it gets really busy real fast"

"** Long Post Alert** As a Durham native this was my first time to the Blue Note Grill. I have always seen it so busy and thought that I would try a local restaurant with my family. Well last Wednesday, I see that all of the hype must be for the open mics and live music, because it sure can't be about the food. In all honesty this was the saddest dinner I have had in a very long time. Because we did not want to attend open mic we sat in the dinning room which was great, but our table was dirty. We ended up ordering the cheesesteak egg rolls (3/5) and deviled eggs (3/5) for appetizers. The eggs were okay, however it was disappointing that there was no cheesesteak in the egg rolls, but instead chunky hamburger meat. As an entree we ordered shrimp po boy (2/5), shrimp basket (2/5), and I the pulled chicken plate with baked beans and mac & cheese. It took about 15 minutes for the food to come out and I was disappointed. My pulled chicken did not look like the pictures or pulled chicken. Instead it was chicken rib meat. After our waitress explained they had mad changes recently, I sent it back and got the pulled pork bbq sandwich instead. The shrimp on the po boy and in the basket barely had flavor. Not to mention the breading kept falling off the shrimp. For this to be a bbq joint my pulled pork didn't taste like it was made with love. It barely had any smoke flavor, it was a little on the dry side and my cole slaw was heavy on the celery seed. The cole slaw in the shrimp basket on the other hand was not edible at all. We won't even talk about the hushpuppies. The only thing we enjoyed was the french fries. The quality of the food needs to be way better."

"First i want to say thank y’all for being patient with me as i was 10 mins late picking up my order. 2nd I’d like to say although the online menu is not updated they understood what i wanted and made great accommodations for a great price. 3rd the food was exceptional way better than Wilson BBQ and yes i drove an hour, but it was worth it, this was for my co-workers last day with us at Duke and yall definitely delivered, thank you to Jeremy who was nice enough to carry the big box to my car for me and tell him Yes WE WILL BE BACK!!!! I got 2 full slabs of ribs, 1 pound of pulled chicken, 1 pound of pulled pork, greens, Mac, baked beans and 2 dozen hush puppies and 2 quarts of sauce with a Gallon sweet tea"

"Went to the Blue Note for the first time after a friend gave me some tickets. We moved here from another Southern state to be near the kids and have not found a place frequented by people like us, our age and political leaning. This might be it. My wife loved the music and the vibe was chill. We’ll be back for sure. Nice servers. Easy bathroom. Right in the heart of downtown."

"A neat place to eat good barbecue and listen to live bands!! We've caught some great bands over the years of going there!"