Smoked & Loaded - Cleveland — Restaurant in Greater Brisbane

This was one of the worst experiences of a burger place I've been to. We specifically drove here from Logan area because it has fantastic ratings and we were craving jalapeno poppers.

We arrived and were greeted by the server, there was one person waiting for takeaway who'd just ordered before us and noone else. We ordered and sat down outside.

We watched as the takeaway before us left. We then watched more people lining up, ordering and receiving their orders, without anything coming to our table. Another couple eventually sat down ready to dine in. After about 20 minutes, we saw our burgers sitting in the window - for about 5 minutes, before someone eventually grabbed them and brought them to our table. The couple who sat down after us received their order immediately after ours, so they obviously prioritise takeaways.

When we received our order it presented okay. The jalapeno poppers were just plopped in a basket though. The fries were decent which warranted one star. We bit into a a popper and I have never been more ticked off about a jalapeno popper. If they were fresh (which I doubt) they had spent the time to cut the jalapenos in half. So each popper was half a jalapeno. I think they completely misunderstand what makes them "pop", being a whole jalapeno stuffed with cream cheese. Complete rip off. We also searched for sauce to put on our jalapenos or chips but we weren't given any hotsauce. We checked every table around us and all the sauces were either empty or not there.

Then we tried the burgers: classic cheeseburger (pulled pork?). The look of them were great, you could see each element poking through and looked good. The cheese wasn't quite melted but that was okay. That changed when we actually bit into it. There was so. Much. Sauce. Like the first bite I took, mustard and tomato sauce was dripping out of the burger. If we hadn't eaten the poppers first there was literally enough sauce for 4 servings of them. I ended up wiping the sauce off the bun on to paper bit in the basket. My hands were covered in sauce and there was still so much in the burger. I tried to each just the pulled pork and I understand why there was so much sauce. The meat was dry and flavourless. There was no "juices" or leftover flavour from when they supposedly slow cooked it. But genuinely the only thing I could taste was mustard. Awful.

So I left most of my burger and we were out of there. Not sure if we came on a bad day or whatever but just so damn disappointing. The shop is in a great location. The seating is pleasant outside. The menu reads well although is pretty pricey. I just wish the food reflected all of that....

UPDATE AS ON 2 APRIL 2024 TO THIS REVIEW IN RESPONSE TO THE REPLY BELOW: Yes I am still very happy with this 1 star review because what you are saying in your response (5 months after my 1star review) is untrue. By the way we have never been back because of this treatment.

To be very clear: we did not get anything for free and we certainly did not get the Buffalo Wings as you are implying in your response.. We were told that if we wanted what we said was ordered in the first place, we would have to re-order and pay for it AGAIN. That was made very clear to us. So no, if you are implying you did the right thing on that night, that would be untrue. And that is why I am still so very disappointed and even more so after your response which contains untruths about what happened.

It would have been wonderful if we did receive the correct order on top of the incorrect order that was received. And I would certainly not have posted a 1 star review if that was actually the case.

Very happy to support small businesses who put customers first. We will never be back to yours. And by me replying to you here I hope you can see how bad the experience actually was for us.

1 STAR REVIEW POSTED 26/10/2023 Wow just had our first bad experience here after being customers for so long. My son ordered buffalo wings but received BBQ wings. Went back to ask and was told the order was taken as BBQ wings and the order was read back to him as BBQ wings. My son insisted that the order was read back to him as buffalo wings. They insisted they could not change the order and if he wants buffalo he would have to buy it again. So disappointed Smoked and Loaded. You have just lost us as...

Called to Phone an order of 4x burgers and 2x sides (roughly $110 worth) 40mins ahead of time, the young girl who answered clearly hadn’t been training in customer service. Not professional at all (not her fault, clearly untrained) Once arrived to pay and collect the food, the chef or owner? Yelled out to us and jumping down our throat about we should of arrived 10mins earlier because of the big order ($100 for 4 burgers isn’t big these days) so he didn’t make the food….after explaining no warning of this was provided by the young girl (once again, not her fault) he blamed us for not knowing and she’s new so not her fault either…unfortunately we were in a rush, so had to stick around and commit to ordering even though we didn’t want to. Once we received the food, he didn’t speak a word and had the most unprofessional expression and tone about us being there.

We will NEVER come back to this place, simply because the management and customer service is beyond atrocious. The burgers were decent but the sides were soggy and almost stale (fries).

Conclusion: burgers decent, customer service is a joke, management need to be replaced with someone who knows simple...