Smoke & Spice Southern Barbeque

The smokers are Southern Pride; the wood feeding them is Canadian maple. That pairing — an American low-and-slow method run on a local hardwood — is the through-line at Smoke & Spice, and it carries across ribs, pork, brisket, chicken, and wings. The kitchen commits to the smokehouse fully rather than treating it as one section of a wider menu, and that commitment is what gives a Southern-style barbecue restaurant in Windsor's Olde Riverside its own footing rather than a borrowed one.

The clearest first order is the Best of the Best, which sets one-third of a rack of ribs beside six smoked wings and lets two of the kitchen's central formats share a plate. Around it sit the smokehouse staples a barbecue menu is judged on: St. Louis cut ribs, pulled pork by the sandwich or the plate, and smoked chicken wings that return in the Wednesday offer. The sides carry their own following — Mac and Cheese most of all, with cornbread, fried pickle spears, waffle fries, and coleslaw rounding out the plate. Most barbecue dinners arrive with two of them, so a single order tends to land as a full meal rather than a centre that still needs building out.

Where the kitchen shows personality is in the constructions that push past the standard meat-and-sides platter. The Pulled Pork Sundae layers barbeque beans, pulled pork, creamy slaw, and Original sauce into a single bowl with cornbread alongside, so smoke, sweetness, richness, and crunch meet on every spoon. Harley's Revenge Crispy Chicken Bake runs in the same spirit — crispy chicken breast finished with chipotle mayo, bacon, cheddar, and Monterey Jack, baked until golden and served with two sides. Porky's Revenge Burger keeps a foot in that same over-the-top register. None of these read as novelties bolted onto the menu; each one rearranges the barbecue vocabulary the smokers are built around.

That range makes the restaurant easy to use in more than one register. A casual full-service dining room with beer and wine handles a team dinner or an unhurried night out, while combination plates, shareable wings, and a broad side list let a group sample widely without narrowing everyone to one order. Takeout and delivery run alongside for anyone taking the barbecue home, and the lunch-through-dinner hours make a midday plate as workable as an evening one. A solo diner can settle the whole visit with a sandwich and a side just as easily.

The weekday calendar gives regulars a reason to track the days. Monday brings half-price snacks, Tuesday and Thursday take five dollars off select burgers, Wednesday runs six smoked wings at full price and six more at half, and Friday shaves the Southern Fried Fish. Families have a standing incentive of their own: a Kids Eat Free offer that runs all week, one child's meal for each full-priced adult entrée. Each deal carries its own timing and dine-in or takeout conditions, but together they make the menu feel less fixed than something that shifts with the week.

Tenure sits quietly underneath all of it. Smoke & Spice has held its stretch of Tecumseh Road East since 2008, long enough for the smoke off the Southern Pride pits to read as part of the Olde Riverside backdrop rather than a recent arrival to it. What keeps the place legible is how little it strains — the maple and the low-and-slow method do the defining work, and the playful plates extend that identity instead of competing with it. The dining room opens for lunch and stays on through dinner, closing by ten even on the busiest weekend nights, which sets it firmly in the everyday rotation rather than the late-night one.