Jellybean and Julia's BBQ — Restaurant in Coon Rapids

The food I received was partially burnt, the underneath of the sandwich was burnt more than the top side which can bee seen in the photograph. The server (middle aged lady) had a weird awkward attitude, her facial expressions didn't match her forced ingenuous attempt to deliver the bare minimum in terms of being welcomed/her having to serve and communicate with me/us. I caught a representative (Young early teenage girl) who was behind the counter steering at me on two separate occasions. I do not want to confuse this person for the slightly older teen who checked us out who throughout delivered the brilliant customer service I have come to expect in restaurants. Our server rushed our order, she also opened both of my sodas as she came out of the till area walking across the dining area through/past other customers! I am particular about cleaning my soda cans before use also within the COVID era we find ourselves in and to be walking across the room there are opportunities for contamination! Even if you felt a real need to open my soda at least do it at the table in front of the customer, had I not noticed you open it, for all I know you have brought me over an open drink, this is the main thing about a sealed item, customers can be certain to an acceptable degree that it has NOT been contaminated purposely or unknowingly. Literally 2 or 3 minutes after receiving my food the server came back over with a POS system asking me to pay the bill. I literally had to put my food down to fulfill her request although my fingers were greasy as I have apple pay I was able to access my wallet via my watch, to which the server informed me there system does not take Apple pay transactions, so I look at my fingers sort of noticing to myself I had greasy fingers and was just going to reach for my wallet anyway then the server reached forward with a rather used looking tea towel she had tucked into her apron/waist area and thrusted it at me saying I can wipe my hands with that, it all happened so fast that she had touched my fingers with the cloth as opposed to offering the cloth and waiting for me to accept it and take it, it was assumed and forced on me and had now touched my hands/fingers and I felt like sanitizing my hands to continue eating as it was food I was eating with my hands. At this point my wife explained that it is an inconvenience and asked if we could pay when we finished (like you usually do) then at this point the server said she was doing this so we don't have to wait long to pay when we're leaving because she has to go out (yes leave the store) "I know, this sounds made up as it's so peculiar and unusual" also to not say initially also this is not the type of thing you say/share with customers or something you would make them aware of before they're invested and can make a choice as to weather they have any consideration that my be affected by this etc. any how to round this part of the visit up it concluded with the server leaving the store with the other young girl and the server who checked us out had no issues doing so so I'm not sure how it all aligned but that is how it all unfolded. The next concern I had was I happened to look up during eating and both the same server and the younger girl were both at the counter steering at me as I ate my food they were so engrossed that when I just happened to look up and catch them they were caught flatfooted as they didn't expect me to look up it was the most awkwardest feeling ever! initially I thought maybe they wanted to see my verdict of the food, however, later on I couldn't help thinking was my food spiked and they wanted to witness consumption, considering the circumstances either thoughts are not too far fetched. The food, burnt full of sodium and couldn't really define a nice flavor it was just a huge jumble of the flavors smashed together and the only one flavor I could pick out was the salt! I had the Nashville hot sandwich with fries and BBQ beans all three were too salty! For the type of food, quality and service I feel it is overpriced!...

Just stopped in today 7/7/24 around 5pm to try this spot again since there are new owners and see what it's like now, I know this place has changed owners frequently. Well not the best start, my husbands "mac and cheese side" which was an upcharge of $1 is pictured with review in the smallest cup in the world AND they only filled it up to the red line I drew on it. I don't know what was going on with that but the fries I got with mine for no upcharge were plentiful, didn't make sense and the mac and cheese "side" was not worth the money I don't think anyone could argue. I felt so bad for my husband that he really didnt get a "side," just a sandwich, so I shared my fries with him. I also ordered and payed $1 each for 2 sides of aioli sauce and only received one but again was charged for both, they made sure to get their money at least but didn't worry too much about the customer actually receiving it. So I don't know what to think- food was good for the part of our order that was received and lastly the peanut butter that I upcharged on my trucker burger was very scarce, couldn't taste it. Also I think the person taking my order wrung it up wrong or gave themsleves a tip without asking. I looked online to the prices- $16 trucker burger, $2 upcharge for egg and peanut butter, $16 heart attack burger $1 upcharge for the "side" of mac and cheese and $1 each for the 2 aioli sauces (we only got one) only comes to around $40 including tax but we were charged $43. something...fishy. I wish they would have an online ordering system in place too, felt very old school to have to call and more mistakes can happen that way on the phone with what people "think" they possibly heard vs it says it right on the screen online and you can refer to it as many times as you want vs only hearing it once and hope they heard you right. Not sure if I will go back. Too many mistakes still, the place hasn't changed much sadly because this was a common theme here for the food to be good but things missing or inaccurate in our to go order bag. I also got to talk to the person working around 7 and asked about the very small side. Their reply was the mac and cheese and beans are small and you can order a pint for large (doesn't say that their online menu at all) But it still doesn't make sense that for the sides under their burgers section-fries are free and you get half a basket and when you pay $1 more you get less food for this very small mac and cheese that whoever did it, didn't EVEN fill that small container up all the way so there no way that makes sense and way you slice it. Not worth...

High level: This place is a gem and may be the best BBQ around MN... CERTAINLY in the surrounding area.

I give 5 stars if everything is perfect... and we aren't quite there yet... but it took me awhile to decide between 4 or 5 stars because the food is almost good enough to push it into a 5 star review, even though service and atmosphere could use a tiny nudge.

So start with the food. These people pour love in to everything we tried and it absolutely shows. The ribs were absolutely beautiful looking and melt in your mouth delicious, the brisket is out of this world. They have a tight menu which allows them to really focus on quality and what we tried was truly best in class... only regret is that I didn't have more room in me to try more. Their potatos, mac and cheese and really... all of the sides we tried were also outstanding. Im getting hungry thinking about the meal.

The only things that I could ask for improvement on: service... not bad by any stretch of the imagination but a touch on the slow side. They weren't super busy and frankly, it wasnt slow enough to be off putting but it was a touch on the slow side... the kind of slow that makes you start to wonder: "did they forget about me?"... but not so slow that you have to waive someone down because just as that thought pops into your head, someone does show up... so definitely nothing alarming.

The only other small remark would be on the atmosphere. I really enjoy the overall atmosphere and vibe... but the tables are woefully small... for a place that is serving multiple dishes and trays a la cart... you find the table incapable of really holding 4 people's worth of orders. Now if you upped the service game, this would be less of a problem but if you are there with a party of 4, and you order apps and drinks before food arrives, you may have to awkwardly clear your own table to make room for everyone entres... the tables just arent large enough.

Again... the pros here absolutely outweigh the small dings when it comes to the slower service and inadequate table sizing. Heck... the service might normally be faster (maybe it was busier than usual or they might have been short staff) but the combination of kind of slow service and small tables created a bit of a table log jam that we had to work our own way around.... but I would happily do it all over again because the food is really very good and so if they asked me to clean my own dishes after eating, I probably would do it without thinking about it because I want them to be successful so I can keep...