Pioneer Smokehouse — Restaurant in Brenham

If you want a nice place to hang out, this is the place. The food… well, we had a brisket sandwich with French fries and potato salad, shepherds pie and nachos.

Let’s start with high chairs, all the safety belts are missing so, no go there!

Let’s get on the food BEFORE we talk about the employees…

The shepherds pie was horrible! The BBQ sauce is far too sweet, the potatoes were very bland and too watery (they were boxed potatoes and likely reheated… far from fresh). The dip was the best dish and even that was lacking as it had little brisket being a brisket dip. Now to the brisket sandwich, the French fries were AMAZING! I’d assume they were cut fresh daily. Too bad they couldn’t do that for the shepherds pie… that said they forgot our potato salad and when we asked for it they still never brought it.

Now, the employees… the owner? Manager? Who knows… The oldest person on staff while we were there… he was rude, did nothing but bi*ch and complain about something so loud we could hear and made us feel like we were an inconvenience being there. The other staff were young and inexperienced so I expected the forgetfulness and them on their phones.

Now for the price. We ended up spending $60 for 3 people and I feel for that price we should have had much better service and better seating.

That all said, obviously I’ll not make the 3 hour trek there ever again! I’ll go somewhere we would be likely more appreciated and even if we were not, they’d take their complaining elsewhere and not bi*ch about others in front of customers mainly when complaining about...

We're not from Brenham and we're just stopping through on a weekend trip. We were looking for something good to eat, and Pioneer Smokehouse had good reviews, and was close, so we thought we'd give it a try. First off.. this is not a traditional restaurant, but more of an outdoor bar with BBQ. And go hungry, cus it's a lot of food. We ordered the 1lb plates (Comes with choice of two meats, and 1 side), and a half order of the hobo nachos. This was misleading. The prices were great considering that by 1lb plate, you actually got about 1lb of each meat! Most BBQ joints give you your choices in weights that total 1lb over all. Also, the half order of hobo nachos was enormous, easily the size of a full order anywhere else and was a meal in and of itself. However... We were eating outside on the side deck, but the flies were so bad and pervasive that we moved inside. This did not help. There are open doorways all around the building, so the just followed us in and continued to bombard us. As for the food.. the meats were all good, or at least what we got. The wife wanted the smoked chicken and the sliced brisket. They had neither. The chopped brisket was good, though a bit fatty. The pulled pork was about the same. The green beans on the side were good, but the pinto beans were bland, and tasted like bean flavored water. The coleslaw was on the tart side, and slightly spicy. I can't say it bad as I'm not a great judge on coleslaw.. I prefer KFCs. All in all, it was ok good, lots of flies, and ok environment. I don't think this will be on our list of places to...

Horrible service and mediocre food!

We hate giving bad reviews on Google because so many of them are just silly things like not having ice in your cup, but our recent visit to Pioneer Smoke House was pretty awful.

We arrived at Pioneer’s at 6:00pm on a Saturday and the restaurant was only 1/3 full. We were so excited and sure we were gonna get great service.

You won’t believe it, but we had to wait 1 hour for an order of 2 barbecue sandwiches and a side. 1 hour?!?!?! We were absolutely starving by the time we got our sandwiches and they forgot to deliver our side. We were so tired and hungry by then we didn’t see the sense in complaining about an incomplete order and waiting another hour.

Both sandwiches were pretty bad. The brisket sandwich was 50% fat/gristle and uneatable (see the picture!). The pulled pork sandwich was flavorless and bland.

We both love coleslaw. We drive hours out of our way to just eat this delicious delicacy. From North Carolina to Kansas City to West Texas Hill country, we pride ourselves, knowing what a good cole slaw is.

Well.. we’ve never had such a flavorless and bland coleslaw. It had a weird lifeless tan color and not any flavor at all. Not even the cabbage itself had flavor. Definitely not my grandma’s slaw.

Everybody there looked tired and overworked and the food was nothing to write home about, especially when there’s wonderful barbecue a stones throw away in every direction. This is Texas! This is...