Blue Ember Smokehouse — Restaurant in Fort Smith

Food: The food at any restaurant is the primary draw. For the most part, I enjoyed everything. The number one thing I was looking forward to was burnt ends.

The burnt ends that I got were very hit or miss. There were tender bites that were some of the best burnt ends I've ever had. The other bites were really tough and chewy.

The sides were really good. The baked beans and the potato salad specifically were great. The mac and cheese I would pass on, but I think it's really rare that you find good mac and cheese at a dine-in restaurant. I will say that with a drizzle of any of the three BBQ sauce options they offer, the mac and cheese is also really good.

Experience: The smoker is placed right by the front entrance so you can see employees working on racks of meat before you even enter. It gives you the feeling that everything you're about to have is fresh and also allows for you to see behind the curtains in a sense to view the process, which is a great idea in my opinion.

The concept of the restaurant is really interesting. It's cafeteria-style with a meat station where they will cut off what you order and serve it right in front of you. For a lot of people, that adds a lot to the experience and it's a really awesome concept. For speed of service though it was pretty rough. The meat station is followed by a side station and a salad station, and finally a cashier to ring you up and pay you out.

We stood in line for a solid twenty minutes before getting to the first station to order our meat selections, but when we looked in the restaurant it wasn't even at half capacity. That's because the meat station is only so big and was manned by two people who were essentially helping one group at a time. There were employees manning the side station that spent most of their time waiting patiently on the next guest to make it to them because most of the sides are hot-held and are extremely fast to serve. During our entire trip through the line there was an employee waiting at the salad station that never had anything to do. Obviously, if no one orders a salad there are no salads to be made, but I think it would be advantageous to the restaurant to have a bigger meat section and to cross-train everyone to assist on the meat station to help push through a rush.

While we were waiting in line at least two groups came up, saw the line, then turned around and left. The line was long but the restaurant wasn't actually that busy.

A lot of the negatives of my experience I think can be chalked up to growing pains or working out the kinks of opening a new restaurant. I think with a few tweaks to the way service is handled the entire process can be streamlined and will be much better.

Conclusion: Blue Ember Smokehouse is definitely worth a shot. If you haven't tried it yet, I'd recommend it. I plan on returning at some point to give it a second shot. I look forward to seeing what changes have been made to speed up service. Also, my order of burnt ends may have just been off, but what was good was really good and I'd love some...

Summary: Easily better barbecue in the state, over hyped online, and fails to deliver.

Full review: For years I have spent time on travels eating the best BBQ that there is to offer. Arkansas, Missouri, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, etc... If work or life takes me there I hit up Google to find the best BBQ in the state and then how close I am to those that are ranked or suggested. Being an Arkansas native I had to try Blue Ember - Several blogs and posts have given them the acclaim as being "the best" there is. The hype was definitely there and to test I did the typical order for me - brisket, ribs, turkey, burnt ends/pork belly, pulled port, and some sides. Buying 1lb of everything (except ribs at 1/2 pound) the total was $113, ouch! To head things off meat is the emphasis, it should be delicious without the sauce and really scream "THIS is BBQ"/"THIS is meat". Ribs, not fall of the bones by any means and we're lacking in flavor and pop. Brisket was ordered "wet," in the search for the most flavorful bits of brisket, but where was this flavor? Brisket was insanely fatty, not just on the edges but slodged into the meat taking marbling to the extreme. Turkey was an insane disappointment, almost had the texture of a bad deli turkey cut thick sliced. Thankfully the pork belly rescued things being good nuggets of meat, but didn't know they would be baptized in BBQ preventing a test of the meat itself in the absence of sauce. Pulled pork, almost every place can do a pulled pork. Pulled pork wasn't too bad, but the funky bun was a turn off. Lastly the BBQ, I got all three of the offerings and was appalled by each one of them. A BBQ should have sauce you want to dump on everything and anything, leave you salivating wanting more. The BBQ at Blue Ember had me wondering where's the store bought bottle it came out of, or perhaps maybe the new guy made the batches and forgot what it was supposed to be.

Comparison/competition within the area: If you want good pork belly, drive to Russellville and hit up Ridgewood Brothers! Outstanding pork belly and everything else is pretty dang good too! Now if you want the best brisket burnt ends, brisket, and ribs I've found in Arkansas you must go to Reid's BBQ in Booneville! Their meat and sides will knock your socks off, not to mention their insane in-house sauces... The whole of the sauces at that! Turkey, well it's so dang close between several I cannot call it but Reid's, Ridgewood, and Wrights make mean poultry!

Sorry Blue Ember... I feel the money was an absolute waste and I didn't even make it past a quarter pound of each meat till it was given to coworkers and family to test the competition. Blue Ember doesn't hold a candle to the aforementioned locations and should take notes. The reviews similarly describing ick, bland, over-hyped, etc BBQ from Blue Ember are right. Sorry... Won't write a positive review for a discount or kudos, the truth shall set you free (and save you as the reader from a meh...

After two attempts to try and enjoy the food, I will not be returning. It seems the only thing they have going for themselves are their beans which have more Smokey flavor than their meat and the jalapeño pineapple sausage. I absolutely love barbecue but my first visit to blue ember left much to be desired and after a second visit with the exact same results, I’ll get barbecue elsewhere.

My first, insanely expensive visit, was to make sure I didn’t leave anything untouched. We tried everything they had to offer and this second visit only confirmed my assessment of the first.

When meat is smoked, there should be a definite smoke taste to it. Barbecue should not rely on sauces for flavoring but should only be needed to accent the flavor. At Blue Ember it seems the sauce is required to have any flavor. The ribs, brisket, and pork all tasted bland with no hint of smoke flavor to them which led me to actually question if they used the smokers they claim to out front at all. The macaroni was mediocre and the potato salad tasted exactly like it came from one of the other barbecue joints in town. The only thing that I felt was worth anything was their jalapeño pineapple sausage and beans. Besides those two, I wouldn’t recommend dropping any amount of money for their overpriced and bland food.

My first visit I wanted to provide the benefit of a doubt and assume they were just busy as they had just opened the week or two before. Yesterday we decided to take some people for work out on a business meeting and I decided to try this again. To barely have a pound of meat between the three of us with a few sides and drop $80 is still mind blowing but I figured maybe it’s better. As we sat down, our business guest dug in before we could and their reaction embarrassed me when they said they had no flavor on their ribs at all and then had to grab sauce. Sitting down and eating my plate I realized that my first assessment was still true: the meat is completely bland with no hint of flavor or smoke, potato salad tastes as if it’s purchased elsewhere, and the beans and sausage is the only thing worth eating on this menu. Given that the business talk was more about the lackluster food than actual business is a testament that I will never eat here again.

If you are wanting good barbecue in Fort Smith, don’t break your wallet and eat here. There are several other places in town that are superior in every way. I could even care less about the price, had the food’s quality matched the ticket. Sadly, it does not and instead only leaves me with an $80 ticket that I would have been more than happy to spend elsewhere as I suggest anyone...