Simmons Soul Food and BBQ — Restaurant in Florida

Let me preface this review by stating I did not go back to point out issues with my meal, that is the point of an honest review. I ordered multiple dishes today and will review each of the items in them. Total wait time for food was 24 minutes from the time the order was placed till I got my food. 1st order: Pulled pork dinner with Mac and cheese and cornbread 2nd order: Pulled pork dinner with Mac and cheese and collard greens. 3rd order: Wings with yellow rice and Mac and cheese Let’s start with the meat, the pulled pork was actually chopped pork and was tough and dry. It gave me the impression the meat was smoked at least 12-24 hours prior to being served. The sauce and seasoning was good that was served with this meat. The chicken wings were coated in flour then fried they needed seasoning, all you could taste was the flour. The Mac and cheese was the typical baked Mac and cheese you find at bbq spots. This Mac and cheese had zero seasoning not a flake of salt or piece of pepper was used when preparing this dish. The consistency was there, the flavor was not. The collard greens were out of a can, you can tell they attempted to doctor them up by cooking it with smoked ham hocks as the skin and bones were still in the portion that was served to me. It also lacking proper seasoning. The yellow rice was cooked properly but again lacking any form of seasoning. The cornbread was over mixed and overcooked, it had the appearance and consistency of an over baked sponge cake that absorbed any moisture in your mouth upon taking a bite. I also ordered a lemonade to drink, which to my surprise contained pineapple juice. This not only isn’t lemonade, but many people are allergic to pineapple. This could cause serious harm if they thought they were drinking lemonade to only discover they were given pineapple juice. While this review may come across as harsh, that is the point of reviewing businesses to point out the good and bad. I have watched multiple vendors come and go from the same location this place is, hopefully they take this as constructive and fix these issues. I spent a total of $44 on this order. To the business owner- I do not need a reply, no need to say give you a chance to do better. Do better for the future customers, by me giving you a chance to make my meal better in hopes of a different review would be in inauthentic review...

OK I gotta be quite honest about this place. I wouldn’t want anybody to go here and spend the money. I did thinking you were going to get good quality barbecue never been to this place before I drove up they had a lot of smoke which excited me so I ordered off the top of the menu, three brisket sandwiches let me tell you something I’ve had many brisket sandwiches I’ve never had a brisket sandwiches so bad is this before literally everything that was served was covered up with barbecue sauce, but the brisket sandwich is supposed to be nice and tender and juicy and sliced thin, not big chunks of meat that you could hardly chew and tasted like a damn corn beef sandwich The worst I’ve ever had for $72. I also had chicken wings for my little one he did like them but there was no flavor to it. I said what the heck let’s get a half rack of ribs they want 40 Sutton dollars for full rack so I said let me have Half a rack it’s still ended up costing me like $38 now for $38. I’m thinking I’m getting baby back ribs no I got St. Louis ribs they were Harley even rendered of fat. How do you like a little bit of chew with a St. Louis rib, but literally it was covered up with so much barbecue sauce I could hardly tell For the sides, we had french fries and collard greens. She told me that she put all three orders of fries in one basket. I opened it up and it barely covered the bottom of the basket. It looks like one order pretty skimpy now for collard greens, I’ve never had collard greens where I’d have bones in it , there was no flavor. Literally the collard greens were nice and tender but they were bones in it with fat. I’ll never go here again and I would advise a lot of other people to steer clear because unless you’re just getting one thing I would try that first before you move onto something else Because once you take it out of that window, you can’t take it back literally got half a rack of ribs and thrown away. I threw away two brisket sandwiches and I’m throwing away this cornbread which is a damn brick in the collard greens I don’t even want to try it’s When I seen the bone, I almost choked on it. Terrible terrible terrible honestly if you wanna do barbecue right, you need to go and taste it for yourself because this...

Roaches were crawling around on the inside of the window during my last visit.

I have mixed feelings about this place. I’ve been on the road out of town for work so I really try to make a conscious effort to spend money with the local businesses. I purchased food several times and initially had pretty good experiences. Sometimes I would drive an extra 20 minutes just to support them, as opposed to a major restaurant.

They did a good job with the food the first couple of times. I appreciate how they offered both pork and turkey collards because I don’t eat pork. I also appreciate how everything isn’t fried because I stay away from fried food whenever possible.

My very last visit was my last visit because the overall experience was just terrible.

I ordered the half chicken, which I had ordered before. The previous time I ordered the half chicken and wings. It came with a half chicken, 2 sides, and my wings (I like to eat, don’t judge me). The cost was $25.47. During my next visit (and last), I was less hungry and it was later in the day so I ordered just the half chicken and the same 2 sides (no wings). She charged me $28.24 this time. Later when I was processing why I got less food but was charged more $$$, I figured out that it was because she charged me $14 for the 2 sides instead of just telling me that it was cheaper and smarter to order 2 meals, since most the meals come with the sides.

This really rubbed me the wrong way because as a fellow small business owner, I pride myself in helping the community and the people who support us and allow for us to stay in business. She clearly doesn’t. It made me question her moral integrity.

The other big issue that day was as I was waiting on my food, there were roaches on the inside of the truck crawling around. I normally would’ve walked away, but I had already paid and I was just trying to be a good sport. That night when I got home, I was just disgusted and I couldn’t stomach my food. I just kept thinking about the roaches. It was barely 6pm and the roaches were comfortable enough to be out and about. That pretty much...