Swadley's Bar-B-Q — Restaurant in Bethany

I suppose customers must fall for the cutesy rural decor, or maybe the antique tractor out front? Or maybe the folksy atmosphere? After years of avoiding Swadley's over-priced average food, billed as "World Famous BBQ," or some cutesy such slogan, I revisited this location only because I drove right past it, and BBQ sounded good.

I entered with some trepidation, immediately reminded of 2 things: 1. This place collects your money up-front (rarely a good sign of things to come), after you've stood in line waiting and hoping for either someone to show up at the register to take your order, or a second register to be opened and staffed. Then, of course, you're relying on a staff of servers who are no doubt counting on a full-service tip for merely bringing your drinks, and doing what little else remains of serving you that you haven't already done for yourself, when you ordered and paid up-front. 2. The choices on combo plates ironically do not include ribs. It appears that's due to the fact that Swadley's intends to charge extra for their ribs.

That might be okay, if the ribs were actually decent. I got two ribs with my smoked chicken combo plate, and I'll bet I didn't salvage even a tablespoon of meat off the two ribs. Both were mostly charred on the outside, and fatty and gristle on the inside. Paying extra for mediocre-to- poor ribs is about as stupid as paying extra for charred black toast, which is exactly why I will not do so again.

The smoked chicken, on the other hand, was tender and pretty good. But the portion was meager. The sides were okay, but all-in-all, my meal was nowhere near the roughly $21.00 it cost, not factoring-in the drink server's tip.

When the ribs at Golden Corral are 50% tastier, and 100% meatier, you are most definitely not, "World Famous BBQ." Golden Corral!!

Sadly, the more establishments get away with serving average-to-mediocre food, and the longer the masses put up with it, the more the bar on what actual good food is, slowly becomes permanently...

This is like the fifth review I have ever written and believe me, this fifth ever review is very much warranted. I tend to smoke my own meats a few times a year and thought my meat was the best. Anyways, I received a gift card and decided to finally use it. I got 1 slab ribs, onion straws thingies and campfire taters. Now let me be up front, I may ingest a little cannabis every now and again. Yep, your right. This was one of those times, yada, yada, yada. So my point is, I thought, dang I gots the munchies cause these ribs are on some other shiz. So, I run into the kitchen and get one spoonful of ice cream (I make my own and its the best in the freakin world) and eat it. The flavor was exactly as expected and not to flavorful. That proves I didn't have the munchies because my ice cream + the munchies equals a euphoric kinda like you found Jesus feeling of flavor. So, this proves that it was the BEST BBQ ribs I have ever encountered. Soooooo juicy and then dip them in some of that sweet bbq sauce and you'll run straight home and slap yo mama. Man, dang. Sooooo good. I will most definitely be back. Im tellin ya, slap yo mama. I have never thanked a restaurant but I want to thank Swadley's for having that gift card available for purchase so I could receive it as a gift, no, not a gift but a beacon of hope in these crazy times. If you ever want some of the best ice cream in the world Swadly's, you let me know. I'll bring ya a couple scoops. maybe I can give you that, slap yo mama feeling that...

I would like to thank Swadley's on 39th for their service experience AND all the customers that were there as well around 2 today. I have a 3 year old daughter with autism who is non verbal, so going out to eat is always a tough experience, ESPECIALLY when we are going to eat with someone my daughter isn't used to seeing all that often (great grandmother). My daughter is nonverbal, she can say some things like dada, mama, baba, but other than that she hollers when she's happy and enjoys the food or throws a tantrum when she's upset. Today at lunch both of those things happened. The service staff didn't treat us any different, the customers around us never got annoyed, and they catered to all of our needs quickly, such as promptly getting the kids meals and drinks out at which point her tantrum stopped and she made her happy noises. Most places you go the staff tend to shy away from our table as much as possible and ONLY come when requested or waved at. That didn't happen at all today. I can't remember my servers name, but whoever you were, whoever the young kid at the counter was, and whoever the customers who sat directly behind us were, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I now know that Swadley's will ALWAYS be a safe place for my family to come eat at regardless of having a special needs child, and anyone else with a special needs child... I HIGHLY recommend going here. We were treated as normal customers for once which as anyone with a kid who has a special need knows...