Sonny's BBQ — Restaurant in Albany

Never have I have ever. Smh. I will never go back to this place. I placed my order online, waited the 30 min that the email said, and made my way to the restaurant to pick up my order... family in tow, on mother's day. I went inside, waited in line, gave the girl the name for my order. I proceded to wait for 30 min and watch my order sit there the entire time waiting for drinks and banana pudding. After 30 min, I got back in line to get a refund. My food was cold at that point and had been sitting for 30 min after all. The girl got her superior. i told her I'm not paying $40 for cold food. I had 2 screaming kids in the car with my husband. She told me I had to go online to get a refund, I told her please tell me how... She couldn't... But also couldn't issue a refund in store.... So she had the food remade while we took the family home. I send my husband back to pick it up... Low and behold she can suddenly issue a refund in store. But here's the catch... She refunded everything except the order of corn nuggets, then tried to not put the corn nuggets with the order that was remade. I will never pay money to eat at a sonnys. Ever. The majority of my problems didn't even come from the staff, it was the stupid set up and stupid protocols they have in place that make it impossible to be efficient. I honestly felt bad for the employees, they were all busy and nothing flowed smoothly. It was an awful experience and i will never recommend this...

We came back today after they have been closed for a while due to a freezer issue I believe. It was shortly after noon and fairly busy.

Taylor was our waitress at first but then this other lady stepped in at the end like she did all the work. She was not particularly pleasant. Another patron walking by commented the same thing. Taylor was nice enough.

We ordered ribs from the lunch menu for the kids, ribs for me, and a big deal for my wife.

They served all but the garlic bread which they said they were making. We had to ask for it again when we were basically done eating. We just decided to take most of it home.

The bad part is I have had a few bad experiences here and sometimes they are similar. Once they even forgot our order. They claim it flew out the window. The thing I noticed today was they overcharged us again. My wife went to pay and they said it was over 40. We ordered off the lunch menu they provided. I did not notice anywhere that there was a weekend exclusion or anything and if there was, then why provide that part of the menu? We ordered the 9.99 rib plate. We got charged 15 dollars for both plates. That is already a stiff markup for something you can get for 2 dollars a lb at a grocery store. Yeah, it is a pain to make the bbq sauce and smoke things all day, but sometimes that is fun too. Either way, there seems to always...

Used to be great a decade or so ago, but the last couple times I visited since they re-opened, were horrible.

Everything was cold. I thought maybe it was a fluke, but then it happened again on a 2nd visit. They had this cheesy tater tot dish as a special/appetizer, the cheese wasn't melted. I'd order pulled pork, and it tasted like it was microwaved from the fridge because the outside was warm and the inside cold. At this point I have to assume that cold food is their specialty.

To add to my bad experience, there was absolutely zero noise. No music, other diners were quiet, TV's were silent. So I had to enjoy my cold, sad BBQ in silence. Very awkward atmosphere.

Remember when you were a kid, and your parents would fight around dinner time after coming home from work? They're arguing, and you're really hungry, so you microwave something from the fridge, but you're 8 years old and don't know to mix it really well so it's still cold in the middle, and you're trying to make your food and eat it in silence so you don't draw attention to yourself. You eat the food, it isn't good, but there's nothing you can do about it so you just power through it and go to bed sad. That's what my dining experience at Sonny's...