MISSION BBQ — Restaurant in Crofton

Why I don't think we can go here any longer.

To be clear, we like the food from this chain of restaurants, enjoy the overall theme, and have been to many of them over time, but the overall pricing and quality is just not there any longer. The staff has always been polite and friendly here at this location, so that's not the core issue for this review.

Costs. Like many restaurants, prices have steadily gone up. This is a real problem for Mission BBQ though because they were already at the high end for their level of service. The issue now is that the costs to go to this location are now consistently as high or higher than taking our family to a sit down table service restaurants, which is not what this is. This is slightly higher scale counter service, and this pricing for us includes a 'cheaper' kids meal and some folks only ordering side items vs full meals at these other locations. This has generally been for a better quality than you get at the fast food burger place down the street, but at current levels this is a 40%-50% premium over other counter serve restaurants, and the quality bump no longer justifies such an increase, but more on that below.

Quality. As stated above, we generally do like the food here, but it's taken a consistent turn downward, and not just on one occasion unfortunately. Personally, I order the lean brisket as my main item when I go, and almost every time over several months it's had some sort of issues. Most of the time now, it's a serving that is upwards of 1/3 pure fat and not meat (again this is for the requested lean offering). In this most recent visit (pictured), it was nearly half meat so charred and physically hardened that the plastic knife would not even cut it. Nothing in the bottom of the photo was edible with the non-charred sections there being almost plastic in consistency. That's completely ridiculous for an item that runs for almost $15 by itself before you even add a side or drink, and it's been consistently 1/3 or more of the item not edible which is difficult to fathom with one of the pricier menu items. I fully acknowledge that I did not take it back up to the counter, but at that point I was pretty appalled because in order for that to get served to us, the cook preparing it had to think that was OK, and the person who serves it at the counter think it was fine, and the overseeing management that are constantly present letting it go. Any one of these individuals should absolutely have stopped that sort of quality from ever reaching a customer but no one did, which says everything sadly.

So, we'll hope that this is limited to the one location here and we'll try other locations before walking away entirely, but unless they as a chain take a real re-look at their cost/quality model, it's going to be a hard sell to recommend coming...

The visit to this location was my first visit to any mission BBQ. I was a little thrown off coming in as this was different than most quick places and the cashier was all smiles at first assuring me she'd help me order. She asked if I wanted to upgrade for $2 to... and me being dumb, I thought she was trying to upgrade me to a large drink or combo for an up charge so I said no thank you. Wasn't a jerk, just said no thanks. Found out later after complaining to my family about the treatment I received after it was asking if I wanted to DONATE $2 to help veterans receive a free meal on September 11th. If I wasn't so confused by the ordering process, I more than likely would have donated, but I digress.. the cashier went from all smiles to rude and short with me. My husband and I got our drinks and waited for our food. He ordered a side of fries and when his came with a piece of cornbread we thought the side had been mixed up and said so. The girl behind the counter said "Um, it comes with cornbread. We were gonna bring your fries out to you." Rude... we obviously don't know how this works?? No where I've ever been brings out your sides after the fact! Then I took my fries from the table to the condiments table to get ketchup and old bay and a young man laughed at me asking if my fries were okay. Nice words, but LAUGHED AT ME. Then to top it off, my brisket was awful. Dry and flavorless. That was the last straw for me. THREE rude employees and horrible food. I will never eat here again. This was an awful experience from start to finish and for $25, I wish I had never gone. I can appreciate their dedication to veterans but they don't even give a veterans discount? Greedy, horrible food, horrible...

I coordinate pre-game meals for the Arundel High School Marching Band and one of the meals this season was to be catered by Mission BBQ. I was really pleased with the response I had received from catering (which is independent of local stores). They even donated 5 qts of coleslaw and 5 dozen rolls because our budget is so tight. I confirmed our order for our Friday 9/22 delivery on 9/20 and everything was set.

And then our delivery didn't show up on time. And then it was late. So I called catering and they said it would arrive "shortly". When I inquired as to what shortly meant, I was told 45 minutes to an hour. Unacceptable!!!! What's also upsetting is that no one called me to tell me it was going to be late. Usually when you have a set time for a catering delivery, that's because you have a set time to eat. The band was about to walk in hot, sweaty, and hungry from two hours of after school practice and have no food! They only have a limited amount of time to eat before they have to get back out and perform during the game, so waiting another hour was not possible. The catering coordinator got on the phone with Ryan Eversman, the manager at Mission BBQ at Waugh Chapel, to try to arrange something. But we called too.

Ryan was AWESOME. We explained what happened, what we ordered, and we begged him to help us. And help us he did. He said it would be ready in 15 minutes and he even managed to get an employee, Alex, to deliver it to us. And then he refused to take our money, he was just glad he helped. We are forever grateful to Ryan and his team for coming through. Hungry teenagers are no fun.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to...