Bandana's Bar-B-Q Cedar Rapids IA — Restaurant in Cedar Rapids

We stop in from time to time. The food is decent, about four stars decent. The service is iffy. We have had good service in the past. What we got last night was one star service, at best.

So, we both had ribs and various sides and it was all good. The server was friendly enough, just not very attention-oriented. My wife was out of her beverage halfway through the meal and was not offered another or a refill. The server asked, probably, three times if we wanted take home boxes. The first was just minutes into our meal. Even though we told her no, she kept coming back to ask again. Not necessarily bad customer service, more weird and amusing, but an example of how she didn't seem to have her mind on the job.

She brought the bill before we were finished and said, "No rush" and walked off. She didn't bother to ask if we wanted dessert or, again, refills. She passed by roughly five times without stopping, saying, "I'll pick that up in a minute" while pointing at the bill. We were still eating the first time she did this and, no, we hadn't put a card or money into it yet. The second or third time we tried to ask for a menu as we wanted dessert, but she was in too great a rush to stop and listen.

So, I pulled up the dessert menu on my phone and we found something. The server stopped and grabbed the bill and I said, "We haven't paid yet. We have been waiting to order dessert" and told her we both wanted the Caramel Apple Granny. This was the only part of the meal I didn't enjoy much. It tasted all right, but it comes frozen so solid it's difficult to eat. I thought I saw her put them into a microwave, but they came to us frozen. Maybe she didn't actually turn the microwave on?

I don't generally mention other customers when I review a restaurant, but I will this time. A table behind me had the same server and one of the ladies at the table had to get up and go to the kitchen to flag her down, as she wasn't paying much attention to them, either. The table next to us was out of drinks and they had to get her attention to ask for refills. At another table, from what I could hear, a woman did not get the burnt ends she ordered and everyone was already eating their food by the time the server told her they were out of burnt ends. Maybe tell her that when...

Service is terrible, and the food mediocre at best. Walk in the door, and it takes 3-5 minutes for us to even see an employee to seat us. The keg cooler is down, so there are no beers on tap, and our server, Jessica, does not know what they had to offer in bottles, and goes to the bar to find out the five beers that she can't memorize. After bringing our drinks, Jessica rudely exclaims they are out of burnt ends and brisket which is fine, as those are usually the first to sell out, but it's they way she tells us... Our meals come out, and I am missing one of the items of my two-item combo plate. When I finally see our server Jessica again I let her know I am missing my smoked sausage, she hollers very loudly to the kitchen about it and promptly brings them out on a side plate. At this point, my beer is 3/4 empty, and Jessica asks if I would like another. Of course! Thank you. She brings my second beverage and begins to remove my unfinished first beer by the rim of the bottle. I guess I'm finished with it now... Halfway, HALF WAY, through our meal, Jessica brings the bill. I guess I won't be having another beer or any dessert. The chicken tenders are dry af, and you can hardly cut them with a fork let alone chew them with your teeth. The garlic bread looked and tasted as if it comes frozen in a bag. Pulled pork was fine with the BBQ sauce. Smoked sausage was cold and not appetizing. French fries were soggy. Fried corn was new to me, and decent. Fried okra was not great. Q Dogs is many times better than this place and not...

I do hate to do this to a small business but I feel it’s important to know what people are getting up front. Perhaps our experience was the exception? The coleslaw was the only good thing. My husband walked in to pick up our order that was supposed to be ready at 4:45 on a Saturday and no one was out front to greet him and when they did come up front our food wasn’t ready so he had to wait around an extra 10 minutes. That actually wasn’t a huge deal and we would have been fine if that were all but it is a bad sign if it’s that dead on a Saturday. We ordered 3 brisket sandwich kids meals and 2 brisket budget meals totaling around $40. If the food was good this is absolutely reasonable. The food sucked! We live not even 5 minutes away and they supposedly had just gotten it finished right before my husband left and we ate right away, but the food was lukewarm at best. It felt like they used no salt, not salted butter in the toast, perhaps a low sodium barbecue sauce? It really wasn’t seasoned well and the meat was slimy. Not just tender, but slimy. Literally could have sucked it in like a noodle with no teeth involved. The portion sizes for the adult meals were smaller than the portion sized for the kids meals even though they were 2x the price. We did get two sides though. We eat out infrequently and I was really looking forward to some good barbecue, and I’m hoping they were just having a bad night, but the food...