Smokey Bones Bar & Fire Grill

Reviews 4

AL

Alejandro Bustamante

If you love great BBQ, but you arent close to a great BBQ restaurant, Smokey Bones is the place for you. I recently moved here from the deep south, where BBQ transcends food to become art, so Ive had some really good BBQ in my time. Smokey Bones, unfortunately, wasnt one of those times. My pulled pork platter was dry, and lacked the smoke youd expect from slow-cooked pork. The baked beans were edible and I had plenty of them, so that was ok. The bread was somewhat tasty, even if a bit old. Surprisingly, my biggest complaint is with the Big Cheese Macaroni. I paid a little extra for this side, expecting to revisit the macaroni casserole Im used to from old BBQ houses in the South. The kind with the cheesy, baked crust on top, and thick, creamy cheese inside. Instead, I received what looked like boxed macaroni and cheese from the store, but with bigger noodles and less taste. If I was starving to death, I would happily eat all of it. I wasnt quite that hungry, so I didnt see the point. The service was warm and considerate when they were around. I arrived at the restaurant 5 minutes later than my promised time for pickup. I waited an additional 10 minutes for my order. I could be more understanding of this usually if there is a large crowd, but the place was slow when I was there. I didnt get the impression that I was welcome there. And there were little things that they got wrong. Take for instance the half gallon of tea I wanted to buy. They sell it by the gallon, but I was told that there was no way for them to charge for a half gallon. Do they not have anyone able to divide by two? Its another example of how the service at chain restaurants is driven by the specials and by what buttons the servers can press on the computer instead of giving the customer what they want. When Im spending close to $20 for my meal, I expect a bit more even if its at a BBQ restaurant. The difference is too great between Smokey Bones and what I know to be a good BBQ restaurant. Instead of visiting another corporate BBQ franchise, Ill head out of town to see if I can find good mom and pop BBQ. But if youre in town, and you just dont know any better, I highly recommend Smokey Bones.

AN

Andrew Hack

First, let me start by saying Id give this ZERO stars if that were possible. But 1 is as low as its goes. I was a fan of this restaurant until today. I really liked their food, but the last time we went there, we ordered carryout, and the order was messed up, and the food we did get was awful. That was a month ago. Today, we were going to eat in, and there were 7 of us -- 4 adults and 3 children, 2 of which needed high chairs. Somehow, the hostess didnt know where to seat us and said she needed to talk to the manager to figure something out. We stood up front waiting and 5 minutes later she finally came over and said that the manager would come talk to us about seating us. OH, and its not like the place was packed. Not even CLOSE. It was more than HALF EMPTY! Now, Ive never had this happen before in ANY kind of restaurant. Never the less, we said okay and waited to see the manager. During all this time, there were at least 4 other groups of people who got seated. We waited, and waited, and WAITED...and my 2 year old son decided he didnt want to sit around anymore and started acting like a 2 year old, running around all over the place. We got sick of waiting for a table and decided to leave and go elsewhere. Never even saw the manager. And the hostess and other servers didnt seem to bothered by losing our business as they watched us walk out. Needless to say, I dont think we will be returning. It was absolutely pathetic. Never had this kind of problem at a restaurant before. If you asked me yesterday, I would have absolutely recommended this restaurant. But now, I will probably never go back. This experience aggravated me so badly that I do not think I would ever recommend this place to anyone. There are too many other restaurants with good food that will actually treat you respectfully and seat you in a timely manner. One of those restaurants, by the way, is TUMBLEWEED. Theyre just down the road, and they treated us GREAT. Thanks to them!

JE

Jessi Jones

Smokey Bones is ok barbecue. Really. Its not amazing- it made me violently ill one time, but I dont hold a grudge for that. I would never recommend this restaurant to anyone. This is not based on the food, but on the deplorable customer service. Really. Its abysmal. There is no better way to describe it. The servers and hosts/hostess are distracted, unhelpful, and slow. They dont seem interested in being helpful in any manner. Because of this, my family has recently made the switch to carry-out. My mother works near the restaurant, and called in her order ahead of time. She was told it would be 10-15 minutes. She waited in the parking lot a bit before going inside. She waited a full ten minutes before the hostess even spoke to her- they were busy, but not THAT busy. Finally she flagged someone down and they told her theyd go check on her food. They never came back. Of course, by this point she was concerned that her food was sitting on a counter somewhere, getting cold. After a full FORTY FIVE MINUTES, including speaking to a distracted and uninterested member of management, my mom finally received her food. There is a huge difference between a ten minute wait and a 45 minute one. Anyway. When she got home, of course, the food was cold. They had failed to include any of the dipping sauces with the pretzel bone appetizer we ordered- which rendered them a bit pointless, if you ask me. Who wants a dry soft pretzel? Additionally, my father had decided to pay extra and get the macaroni and cheese side dish, which looked hot, bubbly, and delicious on the online menu. What we actually received was fluorescent orange and looked exactly as though it came from a Kraft box at the grocery store. I dont know if we will ever eat there again. Bootleg tastes better and the servers at Famous Daves are at least semi-competent.

TR

Troy Windhorst

Typical chain BBQ joint. Others have said this place is a BBQ + Steakhouse hybrid. I couldnt agree more. I experienced both good food and good service. I am a vegetarian, therefore a BBQ joint is not my first choice (of course, Im not saying I wouldnt enjoy good BBQ!). Though I enjoy veggie restaurants, I do visit mainstream restaurants often with friends. In most cases, I am surprised to find several options for vegetarians. So, for a vegetarian, this place is extremely limited to just a few veggie sides and maybe a house salad. With that said, I do have to give them a big thumbs up for their "build a burger" menu. This was a surprise, because I didnt see this on their online menu, but it was on the menu at the restaurant. Trying to be brief, you choose your type of burger patty, type of bun, and a very long list of just about any topping you could thing of. And (yay for me!) a veggie burger is one of the options. This enabled me to build a burger that could easily win a blue ribbon if placed against some of the other burgers at my table. To take it a step further, this was the best veggie burger Ive ever tasted (so far). BTW, I added mushrooms and avocado to my burger. Yummm! I also have to add that the steamed broccoli was perfect. No wi-fi as of this writing. :(