Johnny Ray's Smokehouse — Restaurant in Fallston

Don’t, please don’t, let the wait times deter you!! You’ll regret it! Arrived in a Friday evening (Special: Ribs) approx 10 mins of 6. We were given about a 25 estimated wait time. We were called in about that amount of time. We relaxed in the seating provided on the front porch until called. I can’t say enough positives about this place, and I’m probably going to forget something, as a disclaimer, I apologize.

Staff/Greeting: This is local southern hospitality at its best. Call me old fashioned if you like; however, I feel as if “our” hospitality is a lost art. Not at The Honey Hog. Down to earth, hospitable, neighborly folks. Waitresses are totally fabulous and take immaculate care of you. There isn’t a shortage of them either. They work hard and work as a team!!

Menu: Simple, yet loaded, with plenty of choices. I despise going somewhere and the menu resembles a novel. This menu is simple, friendly, and what a menu is suppose to be like. (Tip) The Honey Hog BBQ fries pictured below is A MUST!!!!!!

Timing: From the moment we sat down until we received our food was 6 mins. Just to reiterate that, and for your assurance that it’s not a typo, that’s correct! Order taken, drinks, appetizer, and main course delivered hot in 6 minutes from the moment we sat down.

Food: We both had the half-rack of ribs (wet) with the hand-bartered onion rings, and baked beans. Ribs were fall off the bone tender, moist, with a nice smoke ring. Smoke was present but not overpowering. Onion rings are what onion rings should be like. Not soggy, not greasy, and not rubber. Crispy, fluffy, and the onion is prevalent as opposed to fried “to death” Baked Beans were very complimentary of the ribs, and awesome. The appetizer? Good Lord!!!! Hand cut “tater fries” with pulled pork, nacho cheese, and bbq sauce. While it may not sound like it “would work,” rest assured, IT DOES!!! I could have ordered those x2 for a meal. Unbelievable!!!! For desert we shared a piece of Red Velvet Cheesecake (because we were stuffed and just “had to have it” 😂) For the love of God.....it was phenomenal. I just don’t throw this “title” around very often, and it’s been almost 15 years since we honeymooned at Nags Head at the Outer Banks in NC where we had the best cheesecake ever; but, this one just slid into the #1 spot of Best Cheesecake ever!! We will be traveling to NYC in less than 45 days, so Big Apple, you have your work cut out for ya to beat this cheesecake. Sincerely, it is so creamy, velvety, divine, and tasty. So good!!

Service: Impeccable. Although, as with anywhere, you have your waitress. We must have been asked if everything was ok, did we need anything, and questions asked in general by 3-4 other waitresses. We even had the pleasure of meeting Johnny, the owner, who had brought a meal out to some patrons, and he spent a few minutes talking with us. 100% all in on making “Farm to Table” a success. Great guy, and was gracious for his time because I know he didn’t have much of it to spare. Things like that go along way. Bottom line....this staff is unique and there an authenticity to their interactions!!

Price: $$ What may seem a little pricey to some, it’s really not. Remember you are eating local grown food. This is from farmers in and around the area. It’s not delivered in bulk from who knows where. Everything served has the knowledge behind it that certified how the animal/veggie/etc was raised and or grown. That’s why there is an amazing taste. The fires require washing of the potato, cutting of the potato, and then made to order. Not just open a bag of frozen crinkle cuts and drop them in the oil. Keep that in mind. As well as, you are supporting a farmer, and that’s farmer’s craft; moreover his livelihood, his family, and the restaurant which turns over to the economy when it is done right like The Honey Hog does

Visited: 05.03.2019 Time: 1815 hours Table: Hall 3 beside stairs...

Son! That's some damn fine food! Stopped by there on the way back to Shelby and got their 4 meat Winter Special with BBQ Pork, Beef Brisket, Big Link of Beef Sausage, and some Dry Rub Wings! Comes with red or white slaw, hushpuppies, and your choice of side!

I am a big guy and me and my dog pigged out and we still have enough for a second meal!

It was melt in your mouth good BBQ!

If I were to find anything to nitpick would have been the small size of the slaw but I went back in and got a bigger slaw! I tried their red and white slaw and they were both good. Red was standard nc red slaw! In my opinion, and that may be just me, but I like apple cider vinegar with sugar and Dukes mayo in my white slaw but everybody is different.

They had a huge menu from some stuff for the kids, to burgers which looked great, catfish, chicken fried steak, cheese curds, even salads!

Their specialty is smoked meats! Their Brisket is as good if not better than any I had in Texas plus the Pork was as good as any in NC!

Their fried Cheese curds are highly recommended and while I didn't try them today they looked great and I have had them before in Wisconsin!

As fine a meal as you will get in the area and we'll worth a little 10 to 15 minute drive from Shelby to Fallston

I believe that their meats are locally raised too!

Yum Yum go get you some!

Update: My last meal at Johnny Ray's was not very good at all. I got the 3 meat combo expecting what I has last time but no! There was no sauce on the meat nor in the box!

I ordered to go as I did last time. One of my biggest complaints from my last visit was the tiny portion of BBQ slaw they gave before so I told the person who took my order that I wanted a large BBQ slaw and showed the size I wanted. I ordered 1 beer to drink while I waited for my food, but I only got 2 sips before my order came out! I thought then that's not good! They just threw it in a box!

I get home and I opened the bag and saw one of those tiny dressing size clear cups with bbq slaw on top. Then I opened the box and there was one more in the box! Nowhere near the amount of slaw I requested and demonstrated! I got several pounds of meat but a tiny portion of slaw! I don't get it. Slaw is one of the cheapest things you can make, but the seafood restaurants in Shelby do the same thing! I got those 3 golf ball sized hush puppies, and they were apparently left over from lunch because they were hard and inedible! I don't know why they just don't get a hush puppy machine like everyone else and give you 5 or 6.

I also had an issue with the Brisket, it was dry as a can be! The portions of the meat were great, but I would have much rather had sliced Brisket because when chopped beef gets dry. The 3 meat combo does not offer sliced Brisket tho and i knew that when i ordered! The pork was a little dry but good. The beef sausage was very good, too, but I didn't taste much smoke flavor on any of the meats! It may have just my taste buds that day as I just got dentures.

I thought the okra was good, but the portion size was a little small. Mac and cheese was fine, maybe a little butter needed? For a 41.00 meal I was hoping for better.

Look, I know that restaurants are having a tough time right now, and out of the 4 meals I have had here, this was the worst. I also stopped in on the way home late in the afternoon, so I was not there at normal meal time, but they were not that busy and could have dropped 3 hush puppies in the oil!

I have gotten the same combo every time, so next visit, I will maybe try...

We love trying new places and supporting local restaurants so we went to try Honey Hog which we had heard great things about. It also is very very rare that I will write off a restaurant from one experience but this place did just that for me. We got there a little before 2:00. I noticed that they wait and seat like 10 groups at a time. We were the first to arrive for the next group to get seated so we waited for close to 50 minutes on a table after we were told maybe a 30 minute wait. No biggie for me if this was the only issue but it wasn’t. After we got our table our waitress waited on all the other parties who arrived after us that was seated in her section. Some of these parties already had their food before she ever even came to take our order. Most had ate and gone by the time our food even arrived to our table. When our appetizer came out we didn’t have silverware or plates for it so we ate it with our fingers and no plates (BBQ fries). We finally got our food right at 4:00 (2 hours after our arrival). Once we said something all our waitress said was the cook was backed up with big orders. (Maybe they considered us a big party but we only had 4 adults and 1 kid) Once we got our food the burgers that were supposed to be medium came out well done. I ordered the Buffalo chicken sandwich and asked for BBQ sauce on it instead of the Buffalo and ended up with a plain chicken and cheese sandwich with no sauce. By that time, we were all so hungry we ate what they brought us (no way we were sending it back to wait another 1.5 hours!) 1 order out of the 5 was made the way it was actually ordered it. When we went to pay we said something to the person at the register about our experience who didn’t seem to care. We paid our $80+ bill, left our 15% tip and will NEVER step foot back in this...