The Ranch Smokehouse — Restaurant in Barcelona

I hate to give this one star. Let me explain why. Me and my wife tend to quite strictly go to 4 star or over establishments. At the time we visited this restaurant gets 4.4 stars. Now I've been to a lot of BBQ restaurants from places like Hawksmoor in London to cafe de klos in Amsterdam (highly recommend both of these places). I had high expectations going in.

When we arrived we second guessed going in as it looked and seems to market itself as a chain even though it isn't. It was very quiet inside which perhaps should have served as a warning. We went in regardless on the back of good reviews.

The staff were extremely welcoming and friendly. We were served by a very friendly blonde lady.

So you pick your food at the counter and pay straight away. We picked and I got the beef brisket, ribs, signature fries and Mac and cheese. My wife got one of the veggie burgers. They explained that it only came with one side so she chose fries and then also added BBQ beans. We both ordered soft drinks.

We were presented with non recyclabe cups and we were told to use the refillable machine.

Our food arrived on a mound of paper sheets, boxes and some plastic cutlery. I cannot believe that in 2019 people are being this eco-backwards. My wifes food had an extra portion of chips and when queried we were told that she order extra fries on top of what already came with the burger. We were ok to put that down to the language barrier.

All of our food was cold, except for the Mac and cheese which was actually hot. Bizarrely there was only 1 other table in the whole restaurant with 3 people on and us. I would understand this perhaps happening if it was packed out and the staff were overrun.

I let our server know about this and she took it back and made us new food. When it returned our food was hot but the Mac and cheese was now cold in bits as was the beans kind of like when you microwave something and some bits end up warm and others not so much.

At no point was an apology or any kind of refund offered.

To top it off they dragged a massive bin from the street through the restaurant, past our table and through into the kitchen which seemed like a very strange thing to do while guests were there.

Because our food was served on trays there were also bins (like you find on MC Donalds so you can throw everything left straight in.

A few suggestions to the restaurant: It seems like you are trying to be both fast food and also a good sit down restaurant. Pick one or the other. Use proper knifes, forks and plates. No one wants to eat ribs with plastic cutlery. Also it's 2019. Use glasses. Not plastic cups! People should pay at the end of the meal. It isn't ok for there to be poor service/food quality and for the customer to pay full price at the start of the meal. you're an American BBQ restaurant but you don't have any whisky on your menu? That's crazy!

I notice offers have mentioned about plastic cutlery etc being used on other comments now that I read in and you seem to have a bit of a generic response about learning from mistakes and you hope the people will come back. Unfortunately unless you change I don't think people will.

The worst thing is, your food isn't too...

Honestly a shame to be writing this as I’ve been going to this place with my partner, a few times a year, since it opened but our most recent visit - for my partner’s birthday, has kind of put us off going again.

The food, as always, is the same - very tasty and big portions, however I just can’t justify the 50% increase in price from our last visit. What was 20€ is now 30€, what was 10€, is now 15€, and so on. I understand at the moment the cost of everything is increasing but for what seemed like an already expensive meal to increase in price just seems like the gauging of customers due to an increase in popularity.

Regarding service, I suspect there may have been a change in ownership/management/staffing as the service was a mess. While they were friendly (for the most part) it just seemed very unorganised and chaotic. Twice someone else’s food was brought to our table and we had to explain it was not ours and on multiple occasions were members of my group waiting upwards of 20 minutes for a simple drink - which they then had to re-ask for multiple times. These were not complicated drinks, we’re talking a Pepsi or a beer which makes the wait not really justifiable. Another member of my party ordered a tea and was told it would be brought to her and what came was a cup of hot water and a tea she didn’t order, followed by an attitude after explaining this was not what was ordered…not great. As a side note, they used to offer refillable drinks which was a great selling point but now they have resorted to glass bottles, charging quite a bit per drink.

Then it came to paying…again, not great. We were a large group of friends who were of course going to be paying for what we each had and it seemed pretty obvious that a bill of a couple of hundred euros would not be falling on one person. We were told before ordering that splitting the bill wouldn’t be an issue and in the end, it turned out it was. Seemingly duped into staying in the restaurant and ordering, we were told it was not possible to split the bill as it is more “comfortable” to pay as a whole - comfortable for the restaurant, not us, which seems a bit contradictory in terms of service but in the end, the bill was paid and we left.

This is not America and I wouldn’t want to ask for a deduction on the bill or something complementary but the fact this wasn’t even offered or the issues went by without much notice is very telling of how downhill the place has gone which, again, is such a shame.

I genuinely would recommend the food but I don’t think the price point and service can be overlooked unless you can do so…I won’t,...

Downgrading my review further to a 1 star due to the terrible response from the "owner". Based on this response, they're basically saying that if you are a few minutes late; you will be punished with terrible service, a table in the cold along with cold food where they just forget about you. But folks, it gets better - don't you just love technology? Please see the Google timeline image attached which clearly shows we were never anywhere near 25 minutes late, just a few minutes - it has a logged time. But hey, maybe if you don't leave customers waiting around for someone to eventually seat them they would have actually been on time? Oh, and BTW - maybe go speak to your waiter and ask if we were "nice" or not. I'm 100% sure your waiter will disagree with you, we never blamed him for the bad experience. The poor guy was simply overwhelmed due to YOUR bad management, and got a tip from us regardless. You clearly do not have enough staff for the amount of people, and have terrible quality control, serve cold food - and clearly cannot accept criticism either by making up stories that we were 25 (or 40 min depending on your wording) minutes late?? And then you have the cheek to imply we are not nice customers because we are leaving honest feedback... Oh well....

(Original Review) Disappointing. Made a booking for 10pm, only to arrive and find that our booking had been crossed out. We were eventually seated outside, in the cold, which we accepted and were then completely forgotten with no service to be found. To be fair the waiters did eventually come to apologize, blaming it on how busy they were and the food came exceptionally quick once ordered (in fact, looooong before our drinks - how??) but while the sides were nice and warm, the meats (pulled pork and ribs) and burgers were ice cold. An hour later and after asking various different waiters for a bill, we eventually had to get a barman to chase one down so we can pay and finally leave. Clearly a tourist trap with no regard to customer service, would recommend to...