Smokey Jake's BBQ, LLC — Restaurant in Aitkin

First things first, when you walk in, you don’t smell food, it smells like fruity air freshener. And, you definitely don’t smell the Smoky smells of a barbecue. Secondly, every single side is sold separately, INCLUDING PICKLES. Not a single chip is served with your sandwich or pickle. If you order a sandwich and nothing else (a side) you get a big cold tray with a sauceless sandwich. $13 for a plain brisket sandwich, and when I say plain, I’m serious. They give you barbecue sauce, but it is in an HALF ounce container.. not exaggerating (I’ve never seen a sauce container that small) NOT like in the review image, they have downsized. If you want a piece of cornbread, two dollars. Pickles, one dollar. The chicken wings special, seems like a good price, (gotta pay extra for fries though $4) but then when you actually get the chicken, it was incredibly DRIED out. I’ve never written a bad review about a restaurant before. This isn’t my personality, this place was just genuinely disappointing. Once again, very short on the sauce!!! What kind of barbecue place shorts you on the barbecue sauce? Very weird. I’ve seen some comments on here saying best barbecue in Minnesota, clearly these people have never had barbecue. You should be able to get a sandwich with generous barbecue sauce and pickles. No parking or at least very limited. And the employee seemed extremely type A and high stress. There was a little boy that opened the front door when they were leaving and the employee yelled “shut the door we don’t want flies in here!” (It’s spring, there aren’t flys yet) .. I get his point, but it was the way he said it. It was intense. This is just super...

When my self proclaimed “foodie” brother told me to stop at Smokey Jake’s the next time we were in town I made sure to ask, “Why them seeing you’ve eaten at every restaurant in Aitkin?” He said because you like bbq and theirs is really good! I asked, “How good is good?” He replied he took two generations of his family there and ordered pretty much everything on the menu and declared it all to be excellent! Being a rib guy I ordered the half rack with a bean side. My wife opted for the pulled pork sandwich with a slaw side. She raved about her sandwich and I couldn’t believe how perfect the ribs were — thick, meaty, tender, no fat, incredible flavor! In a nutshell FANTASTIC!!! Can’t wait to get back there and give their grilled cheese and pork sandwich a try. Also, really enjoyed talking with the owners when they checked in to see how we were doing. It’s obvious they take pride in their work and the quality of the food they serve. My advice? Give them a try. Like us, won’t be...

Read an article raving about Smokey Jakes and after laughing about the vivid descriptions we drove 2 hours to see if it was half as good as stated...nope it wasnt...it was twice as good as described. The pulled pork was one of the top 3 pulled pork sandwiches I've ever had. 3 choices of sauces mild ,spicy, extra spicy. We decided let's go down the middle with spicy and see what happens. Went the only word I can use That is even close to describing it.... is outstanding. The fries were incredible hot , Crispy, good flavor... the staff asked us if it was our first time, where we were from. Had us go over and put pins in the map to show our locations, the owner came out. We found out he's from a small town very close to where we are. The entire experience was incredible. We'll be back in a few weeks. I've got to try the bourbon pulled pork grilled cheese sandwich. Once again thank you, we had a...