Kentucky Bourbon & BBQ — Restaurant in Waterloo

My gf and I went to have a late afternoon meal at Kentucky. Upon seating at a table near the sidewalk and surrounded by planters. I ordered the steak(6oz striploin) sandwich with coleslaw and my gf ordered the chicken sandwich with fries and a side of gravy. While we waited for our food, our drinks came and it took a while for the food to come. While we waited , sand was being blown into our drinks and into our face from the planters and we even saw the patio umbrella come off a table and almost impailed someone. Thats when we both noticed debris stuck in between the table panels that was obviously from the last customer that ate on our table. We avoided that area since there should be covid protocols for this. Our food came and a large platter was placed in front of me and two small pieces of bread and a small container of coleslaw. the rest of there platter was a large empty space. Before I ate my food , I oped the " striploin " sandwich and saw slivers of beef in the sandwich containing a lot of gristle /fat, about 40 % of the pieces of meat. Also there wasn't much "striploin" meat in the sandwich, if the raw steak is 6oz, it shouldn't be 2 oz of meat cooked which i saw. The cheese wasn't even melted onto the sandwich, do they not have any salamander or broilers in the kitchen? Most of my sandwich was bread and little bits of lettuce, my coleslaw was tiny, bland and dry. There was very little seasoning in it and very little dressing used to make the coleslaw. My gf had the chicken sandwich and fries with gravy, the chicken was extremely dry and the fries had a burnt taste too them. She took two bites of the sandwich and 3-4 fries and left the remaining food untouched. We also had sand and debris blown into our food from the planters , which was not very sanitary and gross. When we got the bill I was surprised to see a small portion of gravy was almost the price of a beer. my bill was over $51 for small portions and unsatisfactory food and unsanitary dining area/table. I welcome feedback from the management team/ owner of this establishment from this horrible and unsanitary experience. I know its not the waitresses fault, but management should have control of the layout and covid protocols and cleanliness of the tables. This is coming from someone who has been a chef for many years and a retired CFIA Federal...

My daughter lives nearby and had seen the place, so we thought we'd give it a try, as we've enjoyed other BBQ places we've been to, There were 8 of us: 6 adults and 2 children (7 and 12 years old)

When we arrived, there was one other large family group already seated, but it was otherwise quiet, although I use that term somewhat sarcastically, since the noise level was rather high. Still, while we don't like restaurants like that, we recognize that many places deliberately strive for a loud, vibrant atmosphere, so we decided to stay.

We were pleased with the size of the booths: the 8 of us had no problems fitting into one, and we could have easily fit at least another two people in the booth.

Service was farily slow. It took some time before our waitress took our drink orders, and quite some time before she delivered the drinks. It was also an appreciable amount of time before she came to take our food orders. The food was delivered in "batches": 3 meals came out, then another 4 meals came out after an appreciable delay, with the last meal coming after an even longer delay. This was unfortunately, since the last meal was for the youngest person at the table!

I was extremely disappointed in how small my 1 meat - 1 side platter was. The tray on which it was delivered was the same size as the Burnt Ends appetizer. At least the tater tots were extremely tasty. 3 of our party had Brisket Sandwiches with fries, and they reported that the fries weren't very good: they were cold and limp. (We probably should have mentioned this to the waitress, but didn't, so that's on us.) The 2 people who had Blackened Chicken Bowls were quite pleased with it. My grandson couldn't finish his Chicken & Waffles, taking one piece of chicken home with him (the only one who did have any leftovers, which has certainly not been the case at other BBQ restaurants we've visited.)

I see from their website that they're about to have their 2nd annual charity golf tournament, so I don't think the issues we encountered can be attributed to growingn pains. While their location was certainly convenient to my daughter's home, I doubt we'll bother...

Pros : The aesthetic of the place was very nice. And the bartender gave good service. The food seemed reasonably priced in my opinion and my drink was tasty. Cons : We were not informed of how long it would be. Seemed very overwhelmed and disorganized which is understandable with the nice weather but this has to be some of the worst service I've ever had at any restaurant. My partner and I were there for a little over an hour and ended up walking out with nothing. We were seated at the bar to wait for a patio table which is fine but after sitting there for 30 minutes we asked the waitress how much longer it would be. She seemed very overwhelmed and almost like she had forgotten about us when we asked. In this time frame while waiting at the bar for a patio table we saw two patio tables that were taken by ppl that had arrived after us one of which was taken by and I quote " friends of the waitress". I overheard the waitress that was in charge of seating the patio go up to the other waitress working there and say "hey I was holding that table, did you sit people there?" and her response was "yes their my friends". After waiting at the bar for 35 minutes we finally got seated at a patio table. We then proceeded to wait an additional 20 mins for service. None of the staff came to our table. We hadn't been asked for drinks. We hadn't been greeted, we didn't have a menu or cutlery. They definitely seemed under staffed so we were patient about but it was like we were invisible. I witnessed one of waitresses talking and hanging out at a table of friends for 10 mins at a time while we hadn't been even greeted or served yet. Also to note, not necessarily a bad thing but worth noting that the vibe and crowd was very young. Early 20s. After being there for over an hour, butted in line for tables and zero service once finally seated we ended up extremely frustrated and walking out. I understand that the service industry can be very overwhelming and I was prepared to have extra wait times with the nice weather but my experience here was so unprofessional...