Smokey Mo's BBQ — Restaurant in Cedar Park

I have known about Smokey Mo's Bar-B-Q for over seven years now. I always see or hear their commercials. Now that I think about it, not many other BBQ joints advertise on the airwaves. Maybe Rudy's? Believe it or not, PoK-E-Jo's used to be one of my favorites back in my undergraduate days. Why? They had good sides, and barbecue was still new to me. I assumed PoK-E-Jo's and Smokey Mo's were similar because of their names so I never really bothered to try Smokey Mo's. That is kind of ignorant for me to think that so I am here to atone for it. Smokey Mo's has never been convenient for me to eat there. I was in Round Rock one day so I was semi-close to one. I decided to hit up the original location. Did you know they have 11 locations? I would have guessed they had a few places but not that many.

When I walked in the door, I saw the Southern Pride smoker and was disappointed already. I rarely see a gas smoker put out great meat. I ordered the three meat plate with moist brisket, pork ribs, and sausage. I got sides of potato salad and coleslaw. The brisket had no bark. It was trimmed off. The brisket was not bad at all. The fat was not rendered all the way and smoke was absent though. There were pieces of the bark on my plate. It was good and had nice flavors. If the brisket was kept together, it might have been solid. The ribs were good but a little dry. The glaze had a nice flavor, and the smoke was surprisingly noticeable. The sausage was a special blend made for them. It was heavy on black pepper, but I liked the way it tasted. The potato salad was eggy but not bad. The coleslaw was crisp and heavy on mayonnaise.

Smokey Mo's is a local chain that puts out okay barbecue. They meet the minimum bar for Texas barbecue in my opinion. Smokey Mo's may not be for me, but I could see it working out for others. I saw a lot of families eating there, and also there were a lot of take-out orders. The prices were affordable as well. They are open for breakfast,...

The homemade creamed corn is to die for.. I've been eating at their various locations for years (Liberty Hill, Leander and Cedar Park). I understand recession, price increases, etc., but charging more for less takes away from the experience. We've been to this location a few times and my boyfriend refuses to go back. He ordered combo plate with fries and beans. He literally had 10 battered french fries on his plate. The 3 times we went with me his sides were smaller and smaller. To him this was catastrophic. He complained the entire meal and keep referring to the serving size at the Leander location, which he claimed provided a true Texas size serving. He's right, They can't really cheat you on a chicken plate (1/2 a chicken with 2 sides) but they can really cut back on the portions of the sides.

It's not all about the boyfriend's 10 fries. This particular location doesn't seem to have the same quality of food or service. We seem to be much happier when we visit the Liberty Hill location or Leander one. The people seem a...

I placed an online order on Christmas Eve to pick up some brisket and sausage for around 6pm. The online order went through and I even got confirmation confirming the order. So I get to this restaurant around the time I was supposed to pick it up and turns out that they didn’t have my order. Nothing. No meat was reserved for me at all, even though I placed an online order (assuming that there would be an order for me to pickup). No one from the restaurant called to at least give us a heads up that they wouldn’t be able to fulfill our order and maybe try a different location. Nothing. Same thing happens to another customer who walked in right behind me. All they could do is tell us to drive to Liberty Hill, which isn’t far from Cedar Park. Thank goodness we were able to find some meat from Smokey Mo’s in Leander but wasn’t expecting this to happen. If there would’ve been a better way of communicating with us, I probably wouldn’t have been disappointed on how management...