Smoke BBQ Bar — Restaurant in Edmonton

My second visit. I ordered the mac and cheese a second time as the first time it was amazing. The second time, it was so dry that i really think it was microwaved instead of fresh. It was terrible. Lacking fruit in the bar on drinks, We were the only people in the resturant and yet we were missing stuff on the table. I di order the smoke burger and it was very good BUT i chose returning to try the mac and cheese a second time (as the first time was amazing) and it was microwaved pasta dish and dry. The entire resturant was empty and I feel that the cooks just didnt focus on things. Fries are good. The first time we came, the waitress forgot our wing order and we had to take them home after eating since they never came as an appetizer. Wings to take home to microwave is not nice and still be charged for them because she forgot them. I had to throw them out later that evening as it was terrible and dry. First visit was Nov 19 at 4pm. We were not offered a free wing deal since the waitress forgot to order it. She brought out the food and I asked her about the wings and she said opps, i forgot, and then ordered it but we tried to cancel it and it was now too late. Wings were so dry to reheat that I had to throw them out. Tonight, Nov 24, no pineapple for the drink but I did get a giant leaf branch in the drink. Yeah. LOL. Mac and cheese was so dry that was not eatible but brought home so the dog could eat it. What a waste. No cutlery on the tables, and yet we were the only ones in the resturant. I did like the meat on my first order which was the brisket sandwich. Tonight i had the smoke burger which was good also. He had the chicken ceaser wrap and it just wasnt right. Fries were great. Two different expereinces. I like the atmosphere. But the hit and miss food and the fact that I only chose this place for our date night was that I was craving the mac and cheese and I got microwaved dried out mac and cheese. Did my dog enjoy it. YUP but I couldnt believe i spent this much money on tonights dinner for it to be this...

I would like to preface that this review is solely on the service we experienced and not the food quality. *The food was very yummy and I would recommend it to anyone we enjoys BBQ but would warn them about their service. Keeping it short and simple, we had to wait a long time to be greeted by our server after sitting down. Then waited longer than we should have for drinks to arrive. We were a party of 4 that visited during Downtown Dining Week. So it was set items from their menu for a set price. We waited at least 40 minutes for our appetizers, after 15 minutes of ordering, one of the chefs came to tell us that they only had 1 of the 2 appetizers left that we ordered. Not sure why it took so long for them to realize this to tell us. After the appetizers arrived, it took another 40-45 minutes for the entrees to arrive. During that time we had to ask our server numerous times to refill our waters and reminded 3 times for a soft drink order. We arrived at 730pm and had another event we needed to make and needed to leave at 10pm... We asked for take away boxes for our dinner 2 times as she kept forgetting. By that time it was 9:50 and did not have time to eat our desserts and asked for them to be packed up.... Between eating our entrees and getting our food packed up, we asked for our waters to be refilled 4 times and each time she forgot. She apologized each time saying she kept getting distracted but would go and get a pitcher right away... I would watch her each time after asking to see if she actually would but she'd go and do something else. It got to the point where we had to leave and we never got our water refill... We noticed that She had 2 tables that arrived after us, got their food before us and left before us, as it looked like she tended to those tables more often.

Again... The food was great but our experience with Smoke BBQ was overshadowed by the lack of service...

My friends and I came to Smoke after seeing some decent reviews and viewing videos of local food bloggers on social media.

Upon entering in to the restaurant which was just under half full, we were greeted by our friendly waitress who gave us a few minutes until we were ready to give our food and drink orders.

Our drinks came out in a timely manner. For food, we ordered the $50 Downtown Dining Week special along with 3 other separate items as we were planning on sharing amongst 4 of us. Our first entree came out within a timely manner and our waitress was very good at checking up on us while also continuing to refill our waters and ask if we wanted more drinks, however that’s where things started to go downhill fast. It took approximately 1 hour 30 minutes for the rest of our food to arrive. The waitress had not mentioned anything and as we observed the rest of room, many tables seemed to also be waiting. At this point of our dinner the waitress was also non-existent There were 4 Skip drivers clearly upset who were also waiting for their deliveries to come out of the kitchen.

We decided not to complain as we hoped the rest of the food would help redeem the long wait. The bbq arrived COLD. The only thing that arrived got was the side of fries and it was arguably the best tasting item on the table. Wings were dry, sauces for the rest of the bbq was either bland or non existent.

When it finally came time for our dessert which was included in the $50 special, we were told they had run out and our only option was a pecan pie. We happily took that but even the dessert was underwhelming.

Between the 4 of us, we easily spent around $250. It was not worth it.

MEAT on Whyte Avenue is a much better experience both service...