Pickles BBQ & Icehouse

Reviews 3

TE

Teresa Ragle

I posted an excellent review of this restaurant after my first visit, which went really well. Sadly, after a few bad experiences, I have to change it. Today was the proverbial last straw. A friend and I went today around 1:30 and had the worst, slowest service Ive had anywhere in years. It was actually so bad it became comical. There was one server who was responsible for the bar and the tables. After what seemed like an eternity of sitting there waiting with empty drinks (mine an iced tea and my friends a flat Shiner), a person other than our server brought our entree order (which was incorrect). He asked if we needed anything and I asked him for drinks (as ours were sitting empty on the edge of our table and had been for a good fifteen minutes). He said he would bring drinks, then promptly walked out the door of the restaurant instead. When the overburdened server came back, I asked her and she said the man was the owner. He did finally come back with the correction to our order, at which time I pointed out that his restaurant was understaffed. I told him I hadnt had service that bad in years and he started making excuses. He tried to blame the staff... he said the bartender wanted to handle the whole restaurant herself so she could make money. Of course I told him it was not his bartenders job to make staffing decisions and that he wasnt going to have anyone to wait on anyway if he kept treating guests so poorly. He thanked me curtly then got up and left in a huff, obviously dismissing me as some b*tchy woman who just wanted to complain even though I did not request any type of discount or refund or any other compensation. In fact, throughout this bad visit, I remained calm and personable. The fact is that my guest and I spent years working in restaurants and this "owner" man appears to be some bratty frat boy who just decided he wanted to open a restaurant despite having no experience and lacking the requisite humility to treat guests properly. I cant imagine that he has any experience in hospitality at all given how entirely not sorry he was about the ludicrously poor performance of his establishment. At no point did he or the server apologize for the absurdly slow and poor service. All he wanted to do was make excuses for its inadequacy. It seems like he might have felt motivated to at least apologize given our $33 lunchtime PPA, but apparently not. Having witnessed this owners refusal to take responsibility and disinterest in improving, I have to hope Pickles goes out of business soon to make room for a more deserving enterprise. Even though I do enjoy some of the menu items, I cant see fit to give it another try.

JE

Jeff Lindsey

Im thankful I bought up to the $20 for $40 Groupon for this one. Often with our little family (just three little one under age 8) we are able to order plenty for less than $30. Those days may be coming to an end, but we were surprised how little food we could get for $51 before tip. Overall the place was clean and the wait staff nice. We had two servers start to take our drink orders before they settled on which one would take us. They gave us time to figure out what we would order for the kids without too much pressure and mentioned that the appetizers were half-price (I guess as an early-bird special. It was about 5 p.m. on a week day). There were not very many other people there. Maybe 3 tables and some folks at the bar. The BBQ is Memphis style, a little dry, but many people like it that way. The house BBQ sauce was good. The food was priced from the menu about as expected $4 - $6 for kids plates $8 - $11 for half-size entrees, $13-18 for full-sized. I did remember from another review though that the plates did not come with any sizes. The sides list was tiny on this menu, so we asked for some fries, assuming that since they were on the kids menu they would be available for adults. We were right $5 for a side of fries, which were pretty good, and about the size of 2 large fast-food fries. What was surprising was the portions. I ordered the half-pound of brisket and got my daughter the half-rack of ribs. The brisket was $8 for 5 slices of meat and a a pickle. The half-rack and a pickle were $11. My wife got the best deal was my wifes chefs salad for $11, which included some cold served bbq chicken and brisket. Heres the run down of the prices: chips and three dip app $3.50 (half-price), Chefs Salad $11.00, Dr. Pepper $2.75, kids chicken nugget $6, 1 half-back ribs $11, 1 1/2 pound Brisket $8, 1 French Fries side $5, 4 waters. Total $51.15. Minus $40 GroupOn = $11.15 + tip. All in all it wasnt a bad experience. The food was good, not exceptional. The service was good, not exceptional. The price was okay, except the quantities didnt seem to match. I dont know the last time I took my family to a restaurant and left without a To-Go box. We barely had enough even with the appetizer. I cant image two adults eating for less than $30 before tip. Thats just too much for me. It may be unrealistic but its the truth.

ED

Ed Jordan

Its easy to drive by this place without noticing, but you shouldnt! The environment is open and bright with a bit of a rustic cabin meets and industrial warehouse theme. The booths have individual TVs embedded in the wall with a remote to control volume and channel. This was a huge bonus for us because my wife and I actually had some conversation while the kids enjoyed Nick, Jr., then we turned it off when our food came. My daughter declared her pizza the "best shes ever had", but we just moved here from Chicago and theres no way it was better than what we had there - she has a flare for the dramatic! It is made on a flatbread instead of a traditional crust which is interesting. My wife had the BLT which was good, but she really loved the fried brussel sprouts which I didnt really care for, but I wasnt eating them! My Kobe beef sliders were pretty good, but not seasoned at all. Perhaps they feel like the BBQ sauce and fried onion strings on top provide enough flavor, but they dont so I took off the bottom bun and added a little salt and pepper to my liking. I had the potato salad which is worth 5 stars alone! Its smoky with chunks of bacon (the real stuff) in it . . . mmmmm, bacon. The reasons this place doesnt get 5 stars from me are for the unseasoned beef on my sliders and the time it took to get our food. We were there at 5:00 on a Wednesday night with an extremely light crowd and it took nearly 40 minutes to get our food from the time we ordered. One of the servers suggested it may have been due to a "shift change" in kitchen - not my problem. Theres no way our order (grilled cheese, pizza, BLT and sliders) should ever take that long, even on a busy night. Our server was fairly new and really friendly and I dont think the delay was on her end so it didnt affect her tip. Kids do eat free on Tuesdays and Wednesdays so well be coming back and hope for better efficiency from the kitchen.