Joe Bosco Authentic Smokehouse BBQ — Restaurant in Delaware Water Gap

My friends and I came here Saturday around 6pm post hiking. We had a small breakfast before we headed out for the day so by the time we came here, we were famished and so looking forward to the meal because we love BBQ and the place had good reviews.

We noted that the prices were pretty affordable and we went up to order, the woman taking it was EXTREMELY nice. Like the entire staff was so kind during our verbal interactions and if Google reviews had a staff friendliness rating, it'd get 5 stars easy.

Unfortunately, we left pretty upset and overall disappointed and still hungry. We split our group into 3 mini groups and placed our orders separately. Vibes were good, the lemonade was tasty, and we were just having a good time just shooting the shit as we waited for the food.

30 minutes pass by, no food in sight. Thats okay we thought, might be taking a bit longer since each minigroup ordered about $70 worth of meats and sides. But we got no update from staff on the ETA of the food and I can't express just how hungry we all were at the time.

40 minutes pass by, 50 minutes pass by; and we are visibly angry and disappointed that our food still wasn't ready. The food finally came out around the 1 hour mark and a lot can be forgiven if the food is worth the wait. It doesn't ENTIRELY absolve the long wait you know?

However, the food was a just a little warmer than room temperature. Not a single meat/sides was served hot. It was such a disappointment. The flavors of some of the foods were good, like the burnt ends beef brisket and pork belly, the fries, stove top mac and cheese, pulled pork. But the brisket and ribs were just such a let down, especially it being room temperature/borderline cold. Not to mention, the brisket was so lean and we specifically ordered the medium fatty brisket.

Now we didn't express our disappointment to the staff because not gonna lie, we were all pretty angry and it's hard to be angry at nice people. And honestly there were so many ways our experience could've been better.

For example, if the food was just served hot, we wouldn't have been as angry for waiting so long. But to be served room temperature food after an hour is ridiculous. And if we were at least notified that the food was gonna take that long before we paid upfront for it, that also would've helped either manage our expectations/go to the ramen spot next door.

But lets say the staff didn't know that the wait would be so long, and they were backed up, I feel like if the hospitality was good and they really cared about their customers experience, they could've served a small side like a cornbread or something to hold us over. But there was no such consideration.

Maybe our experience was just a rare bad experience but we would certainly never...

Fairly good food. Horrendous customer service.

My husband and I stopped by after a motorcycle + hiking trip over the weekend and were excited to try this place, but unfortunately that excitement started to die fairly quickly as we started on an off note when the cashier made a weirdly agressive comment questioning my request to have bbq sauce on my wings but also get some honey sriracha on the side as I placed my order.

After ordering we were given a buzzer and sat outside on their patio. About 45 minutes passed without a buzz and I had heard what sounded like some names being called, so I figured I'd check if there was a problem with the buzzers or if things were just taking a while. As I was asking the nice gal who was running food and she was midway through politely answering my question, the cashier rudely interrupted her to shout at me that the wait is over an hour and if it hasn't been an hour my food isn't ready and don't come back to ask unless it's been at least that long. This was news to me and I figured I was being very patient and polite in pointedly NOT complaining, and that it should be expected for patrons to ask a question if there has been an unusually long wait. As I was up there, I did hear that they had started to warn the folks who were newly coming in, which was something positive, I suppose. When my buzzer finally went off, after about 1hr 15min or so of waiting, there was a side missing from the order. I hesitated even to bring this up because of how every interaction at the counter had gone so far, but they were quick to address this without extra comments, so no trouble there.

As far as the food went — sausage was amazing, the wings and hush puppies were good, the brussel sprouts were okay, and the cole slaw was underwhelming.

The bathroom was pretty dirty and didn't have toilet paper.

I'm an easy going gal, and not hard to please. But all in all this experience was a let down, mostly because of the weirdly mean treatment I got from the cashier. I get being busy! It was a holiday weekend, it happens. I get standing up for yourself if a customer is being difficult too, but I always go out of my way to be a polite guest in a restaurant and to get treated like trash over one simple request and a polite question was unpleasant and uncalled for. The "always served humble and kind" signs in multiple locations throughout the resturant made this experience feel incredibly ironic. So yeah, if it wasn't for the nasty cashier I would have overlooked the long wait, the bathroom situation, being charged $2+ for a tiny cup of honey sriracha sauce, the missing side, the couple of lackluster dishes and STILL probably left 4 or 5 stars, but this left a really bad taste in my mouth. Won't be back on our next trip to...

Good reviews about this “establishment” were written by friends or relatives of the “owner”. Because we were just passing by and wanted to eat, but instead of food we received a huge portion of insults and humiliation. Our large and friendly company had a wonderful day celebrating a friend’s birthday. In the evening we headed to this “establishment” for dinner. The “hostess” met us with the words “the menu is on the wall, read it.” After studying the menu on the wall for some time, everyone made their choice and went to the cashier to place their order. After two families from our company managed to send the order and pay for it, we are suddenly informed that, in fact, they have almost nothing left from the menu, and we can only order what is still left. And in general, the kitchen will close in 20 minutes, although there were still 40 minutes before the “establishment” closed. Naturally, we decided not to order anything else, but to find another place. They politely told the “hostess” about this that the two families who made their order two minutes ago wanted to cancel it. To which the “hostess” simply exploded!! She started yelling at us in an absolutely inappropriate way, shouting that this is her restaurant, she is the owner here, she won’t cancel anything, because they are already preparing everything (two minutes!!) and that if something doesn’t suit us, we can just leave . It’s a pity that none of us had time to film this hysteria, because all the phones were in the hands of the children who were playing with them. Because it was loud and epic. We definitely didn’t expect to meet something like this... And in addition, for some reason she called the police. For what? We just asked to cancel the order because we decided not to have dinner there. And now she is trying to slander us in responses to real comments and present us as hooligans with a bunch of children who came to her to argue. We went there to eat, it was as it was 🤦‍♀️ It is unacceptable, shameful and disgraceful for people to behave like this as a business owner....