Iron Grill BBQ & Dinner — Restaurant in Columbus

This place is apparently no longer called Pig Iron, but Iron Grill BBQ and Brew. And the quality has definitely gone out of the place.

It used to be the best BBQ in Columbus, but recently it's gone downhill and is even worse than Hoggy's.

First of all, the service was slow and disorganized. The servers were yelling to each other and it took us at least 10 minutes to even get a server to ask for our drink orders. We were literally at the point of "if we don't get a server here in the next minute, we're outta here" when she finally showed. She was friendly but it was obvious that she was rushed to get things done for whatever reason. The drinks were a while longer in coming as well. And there was a lot of apologizing going on all over the place, not just at our table.

The actual barbecue offerings on the menu, despite BBQ being in the name of the restaurant, were minimal. There was a ribs platter, a chicken platter, a pulled pork sandwich, a brisket sandwich, and a combination platter with two choices of ribs, chicken, turkey, pulled pork, or brisket. My wife, who used to rave about the brisket at Pig Iron, couldn't finish what she got. It tasted as if it'd been brined instead of given a good rub and smoked. It was very salty and somewhat soggy. Her cornbread was not completely cooked.

I had the combination platter with ribs and brisket. I had the same assessment of the brisket. My ribs were okay - nothing special, though, and with too much sauce on top. The green beans were actually pretty good - not as overcooked as you normally get at a barbecue place. She also had chili cheese fries, which were okay but the chili had hunks of brisket in it and they were cut well enough for chili.

My son enjoyed his shrimp and chips and my daughter ate most of her mac 'n' cheese, both of which are kind of hard to screw up, IMHO. My son's milk cup was styrofoam and had a large crack in the side.

The sauces available for the meat were supposedly sweet and spicy options, but the spicy one was really more of a vinegar-based Carolina pulled pork type sauce. That would have been good to know before I put it on my brisket.

Our table was supposedly for four people, but it was really about the proper size for two people - they really seem to have crowded a couple more tables in there.

There were no kids' menus physically available although they do have a kids' menu.

All in all, we will not be back. The food quality has gone very downhill since the last time...

Overall let down. We made a 10-15 minute detour from the interstate, on an 8+ hr drive home from NY, to have this delicious BBQ...we read reviews and expected a good experience. From the moment we entered Iron Grill the server, Kendra, seemed annoyed we were there. We understand that all employees are overworked, and can totally get it that we all have had long hard days...and it seemed that we may have come at the end of a long day. We arrived at 8:30, closing time is 11:00. After ordering appetizers, BBQ Pulled Pork Quesadilla and fried Carolina Rolls, we were happy to indulge in properly prepared delicious food.. We were looking forward to our main dishes including a rack of ribs, wings, Buffalo wraps, and brisket. This is the down turn of our evening. While the ribs and wings were good, the Buffalo wraps were bland and the brisket was inedible. We discussed dousing it in BBQ and making it through, but decided that the pulled pork was good in the appetizers, and we would like a switch. When the server returned to the table, I apologetically told her that the brisket was not good and she quickly responded with, "What do you want me to do about it?" I said, I would like to swap out the brisket for pulled pork and he would like a burger. She was not only cold and rude in her conversation, her body language was terrible. She was rude to my dad, when he ordered the replacement burger she asked what he wanted, how do you want it cooked, and when he was asking for onions and Lettuce to be left off she rudely interrupted and said, more firmly, how do you want it cooked. I was so upset by the way she treated us. The brisket was dried out and tasted like chemicals. She brought out replacement food, shown in pictures, the buns tasted funny on both sandwiches. I felt uneasy about eating the food at all. Main point, don't make a detour from a long drive home for this restaurant...I feel bad for locals that say this is the best BBQ...most definitely not the best BBQ not the best service, in the running for the worst service...Cornbread...

Completely baffled at the amount of good reviews here. We decided to eat here because of all the good reviews but wow, what a regret.

Upon entering, you're greeted with a musty, urine smell. Place had a few others inside and some at the bar, but it wasn't too busy. It took 10 minutes to get seated and then another 20 minutes to even get our server to come over and give us drinks. Our server was... something else. She kept reaching down between her thighs and tugging her shorts down while taking our order. She was also ridiculously slow and inept. She brought our drinks and walked away and it took another 20 minutes for her to even acknowledge us. She was standing around, made eye contact several times before FINALLY coming over. Her only other table behind us was upset and the husband wanted to leave but the wife didn't. Wish we would've left, too.

The food is not worth it. At all. The photos on their website are fake and do not reflect the actual photos of the food they serve. Everyone's meat tasted doggy (probably didn't help they had the back door to the kitchen open), the buns soggy and falling apart, and the sides of fries / tots were gross. They tasted like they were cooked in really old grease. There was some black specks inside the salt shaker, not sure what that was about... might have been pepper, might have been bugs. Wasn't wanting to find out. The BBQ sauce they provide was OK.

100% NOT worth it. Save your money and try another BBQ place... not to sound like a hypocrite, but don't let the 5 star reviews fool you like...