Ray Ray's Hog Pit Clintonville — Restaurant in Columbus

I felt really compelled to write a review because I am genuinely still horrified and baffled by both the food and the service I experience last night at Ray Ray's. This was my worst Columbus dining experience in my 5 years living here.

I was at Land Grant for a work event and really excited at the prospect of eating barbecue for dinner. I love barbecue because normally, as a celiac, i am impressed with all that i can eat at barbecue joints. I order 13$ worth of food (note the waffle fries are beer battered and so sadly they're not gluten free). I asked if it would be possible to substitute a side of coleslaw for the bun due to not being able to eat it. The guy said sure and then proceeded to still charge me for a medium coleslaw. cool. Then, I also ordered the collard greens. I took the food back to our table and started eating it. My colleagues noticed instantly that I was merely picking at my food and they pointed out that I had gotten a terrible cut of the pork. I had essentially received a bowl of chewy pork fat. That is not an exaggeration, it was a full bowl of chewy pork fat with potentially 2 edible bites in the whole portion. I am being 100% serious when I say I would not have fed my dog this pulled pork. In all my years eating pulled pork i've never seen anything like this. Because I have never sent food back/complained to a vendor about their food, I was not inclined at all to go back to the truck. My colleagues pressured me and reiterated how not okay my meal was and one even offered to come with me so I took a deep breath and went back to the truck. I showed the guy at the window my bowl of uneaten pork fat and he proceeded to not even make eye contact and tell me "that's just how it is. that's just how pork shoulder is". I was speechless for a second and then followed up with "this is not how pork is. I've both prepared and eaten pulled pork countless times and I have never seen anything like this in my life". He repeated "yeah, that's how it is. That's just pork" Mind you there were around 7 people standing off to side waiting for their food and watching this whole thing go down absolutely mortified with me. My friend was also there and suddenly I was really grateful to have someone who witnessed this because I seriously don't know if my colleagues would have believed just how horrible, rude, snobby, and disrespectful this whole interaction was if she hadn't seen it too. Seeing that this interaction would clearly not be going anywhere, I simply turned around and showed everyone my "pulled pork" and told them that I hoped none of them ordered it because they were in for a bad surprise. The people in line were speechless too. The staff didn't so much as offer to exchange my uneaten bowl of pork fat for at least another portion and certainly nothing about my money back. 13$ for a disgusting inedible meal, Ray Ray's should be ashamed. I will be telling all of my friends to never ever eat...

So here's my analysis, after buying the Meat Sweats and a side of baked beans. Their meats are of good quality and the side I ordered was great.

Their pulled pork was spot-on, their house sweet BBQ sauce, habañero BBQ sauce, and Carolina vinegar sauce absolutely slapped, their baked beans were fantastic, and their ribs were amazing. The brisket tasted great.

HOWEVER.

The jerk chicken was a way too wet. I plan to grill my leftovers lightly just to dry out the surface. I was expecting grilled chicken but it felt like it just got out of the marinade.

The sausage was fine. Well smoked and well seasoned, but nothing to even comment on flavor wise.

The brisket did have some pretty fatty/ collagen-heavy pockets which I couldn't eat.

My BIG problem is that they offer EITHER sandwiches of ONE of their meats, or the full selection of ALL their meats. When I hit a barbecue joint, I usually order a plate - not a sandwich - of pulled pork AND brisket, and expect a few sides included. These guys don't even include a slice of bread. They expect you to buy either a sandwich of one meat or a plate of all of the meats, and every side is a la carte. There's no option for one or two of the meats, and no sides are included in anything. This brings them down a few pegs lower than they've achieved in the quality of their meats. Maybe they have the best barbecue food, but their buying model isn't good. In any way.

Buy from this barbecue joint, but tell them their model sucks. I'm come back when...

Went with a friend for some food and to get a drink in Ace of Cups while we ate. We had no wait and the staff appeared to only be preparing one persons meal whom had already ordered. I ordered the Carolina Pork sandwich and they ordered the pulled pork and both got Mac and cheese. However, both sandwiches were just so sloppily made and mine lacked the cole slaw that should come on top. My friends pulled pork sandwich had no BBQ sauce on it and both buns were just soggy and seemed like they had been wet. The smoked pork was alright, but really lacked the smoky, sweet flavor that would make me come back for more. Mac and cheese was nothing to write home about. We waited much longer than I expected, which surprised me when the food was nothing too special and was warm at best, even when we started eating a few minutes after picking it up. When we realized our food was missing items, we tried to go back but the line had grown super long and we couldn’t get the workers attention. One worker seemed more concerned about singing at the top of his lungs then acknowledging my friend trying to get his attention. We decided to just pack up their sandwich and eat it later with BBQ sauce & a new bun. Mine would sadly be eaten without its cole slaw. A little disappointing since I had heard great things about Ray Ray’s, but I probably won’t come back to waste my money on mediocre and...