Smoky Boys Castleford — Restaurant in Wakefield

Avoid.

The service is chaotic, to say the least. 2 staff with 'uniform' the rest a mix of street clothes. Who wears flip flops working in a restaurant, really? Every time we turned around there was a different server asking a different question, with some parties seeming to get 2-3 descending on them at a time.

People kept wandering through with Nandos bags, too, which ended up in the kitchen/serving hatch. Odd.

Then the struggle with the orders; my wife ordered a cocktail, with the server returning shortly after to apologize for not having the ingredients for the 'mocktail' (which she hadn't ordered) Then when our "starters" arrived (they don't actually have starters, they have a "bites" section, and get a bit confused when you want them before your mains) there was a random chicken burger (which we hadn't ordered) no muss, no fuss, these things happen.

The Halloumi skewers were nice (apparently even these guys can't go wrong grilling a bit of halloumi) but the hummus was plain and rather boring, and was served in a heavily chipped bowl.

Then the mains; the salmon salad was a bit suspect. My wife had to investigate a bit with her fork to determine whether it was chicken or salmon that had arrived. How overcooked does salmon have to be to turn out white? I've never seen or cooked salmon that came out white before! It was edible, but incredibly boring and uninspired. A squeeze of lemon and some seasoning would have made a difference.

However, it's billed as a Smoke House, so the smoked beef ribs should be good, right?

Hmm.

So my first order of ribs came out, and the one good thing I can say is that the portion size was impressive. The first bite was warm, but not particularly hot. A small amount of digging and the middle was found to be stone cold. These were sent back, and to be fair the owner/manager (not sure which, but he seemed to be in charge) offered a free drink, and sent over complimentary Nachos. Unfortunately these too were terrible; the sort of things you might find at a service station garage.

The second set of ribs came out, and were weirdly patchy, temperature wise. Warm with hot spots, but sufficient to eat. Again, a generous portion. The BBQ sauce was basically the same sticky sweet sauce you'd get from a bottle; nothing special, nothing to particularly complain about. However whilst the first rib was nice enough, the meal got progressively dry as I worked through it. I did not finish the meal. Also, whilst the chips were nice, the coleslaw tasted rather old/funky.

Weirdly the ribs are served on a metal tray with a paper liner. This means that you'll spend your disappointing meal chasing your tray around the table, whilst separating the food from the paper

It's no wonder the manager/owner is pushing the half price offers so hard. Frankly, they should be paying us to eat what...

Absolutely shocking, don't waste your time. Reserved a table for 3 for 6pm, people in que in front of us didn't have booking and a booth was made up for them, when it was our turn the waiter looked shocked and panicked but made a table up for us we waited 5 mins for this and it was 2, 2 seater round tables pushed together

The waiter came to take our drinks order and as we had looked at the menu before hand we knew what food we want so asked if we could order food at same time. We asked how big the steak was as it wasn't stated on the menu..... Instead of telling us in oz what size the stake was she said "about this size, it's pretty big" and she used her fingers to show the estimated size of the stake 🤣🤣 I personally found this more hilerious than anything but not what expected from a grill restraunt. With regards to this one of our party members ordered the steak. Me and my husband both ordered the "top dog". After about 10 mins one drink was brought out (one of the mock tails, which was yummy) but no water for myself and other party member as ordered. After 45 mins of waiting and noticing every other table around us not having any food we asked how long it would be and if we could have the water we ordered, fair enough we was offered free drinks (which we decided not to go for) the food then came out 5 mins later.......

The steak was pretty small but also the majority of it was fat and very shameful, we also realised that the waiter hadn't even requested how to have it cooked I.e rare, medium, well done. And for the 2 hot dogs we was expecting them to come out with onions, ketchup and mustard as described on the menu. I questioned the waiter regards to the toppings and she said we should of asked for these when ordered she wasn't apologetic and passed blame onto us! She was pretty rude tbh. I showed her the menu and it said it comes with them, she offered to take them back and get toppings on, at this point the person who had the steak cut into it and realised it was mainly fat so took it to who we suspect was the manager and not apologetic at all just that this is what they get from the supplier.... Pretty rude so this party member decided to leave the restraunt meanwhile at the table with the hot dogs we start on the chips...... They were cold....at this point I tell the waiter to "not bother with anything else and we were leaving" tbh I was shocked that she looked shocked but very disappointed, disrespectful restraunt. Food was not as described on menu overall and staff were rude and waiting...

Summary - avoid at all costs if you have intolerances/allegies, children or if you don’t want to pay to be treated poorly. Go opposite for a cheaper, faster and better service at the fried chicken joint.

Went for a meal with my partner and toddler. We’d never been and it ooked nice from the outside. There were only a few other customers in there at the time and the little one was getting tired so thought it’d be a good place to get a quick dinner and head home.

Ordered at 3:30 pm and food came by 4. The menu stated only chicken strips and sauce and I suffer from a lot of stomach issues and intolerances that are easily triggered so it was a safe bet (already asked if the sauces contained some of the big triggers). Food came with loads of extra sauces and other items on the plate. Debated sending it back or just leaving the food so we could get off (little one getting quite aggy by now).

Spoke to a waitress explaining what happened and she said I was right it doesn’t say that on the menu and she will sort it. This was at 5:05. I was still hopeful even though there had been minor issues like putting red hot pizza right down in front of my toddler.

Everyone had finished their meal and still My order hadn’t come. This was 40 minutes after sending it back. I grabbed the waitress and explained it’s getting late now could I get it to go. More time passed, still nothing. Eventually someone came and asked would I like all the extras with the chicken… so an hour had passed since food was sent back and the chef hadn’t even started to cook it and actually asked me if i wanted the stuff with it, that caused the issue in the first place.

In the end I went opposite and grabbed some fried chicken. Just was coming back when I saw my other half finally receiving the food and paying.

So £50+ for the chef to take the mick and punish us for sending the food back. We were completely civil throughout the whole meal because it wasn’t the waitresses fault. And we may have waited even longer if we didn’t have the little one with us. But he was kicking off so they knew we were struggling and we just felt we were purposely been mugged off.

Manager wasn’t really bothered and laughed it off. I’d understand if there were more than 5 people in the restaurant. There were twice the amount of staff in there as there were customers.

The positive in all this is the chicken place opposite is great so if you’re hungry save yourself the time, energy and money and...