Billiken's Smokehouse — Restaurant in Fredericksburg

We came in for brunch today after seeing the “Brunch Menu” advertised on their website. When we sat down at a table outside, the server seemed surprised when we ordered a Bloody Mary (which is featured on the brunch menu). We asked for 2 coffees, and he said “I’m not sure if we have coffee right now, I’ll have to go check”. When he finally came back 5-10 minutes later, he said he was working on coffee. He commented on how saw that we only had a brunch menu (you grab your own menus when you walk in, so that’s the only one we grabbed), and he asked if we wanted regular menus too. I found it odd that he didn’t just bring over the regular menus. Everything with this server was way more complicated than it needed to be! About 20 minutes later, he comes back to tell us a long story about how he messed up the coffee - he turned on the machine and put in the grounds, but never actually started brewing it. I still can’t believe any server at a place serving brunch would have to check if they had coffee ready… and then take 20 minutes just to say it’s not even brewing? I laughed when the server told us what happened, and he pointed out that he “knew” I would laugh at this. It felt like he was not good at his job, and acting like we had rapport was just awkward and made it worse. At that point, we ordered brunch nachos with the sauce on the side. The server said he had to check if the kitchen can put the sauce on the side… just say ok! Since coffee was apparently being brewed now, I asked if I could make my coffee an Irish coffee instead. Server looked stumped and said “we should be able to do that” - it’s literally on their online menu, and a very common drink. My bf had a bloody mary which by some miracle was delivered to our table and he enjoyed it.

About 10 minutes after ordering our brunch nachos, the server comes back and starts with “you’re really gonna hate me for this…” before telling us that the coffee machine wasn’t cooperating, so we couldn’t get any coffee. He didn’t offer anything to replace it or ask if I wanted something else to drink, since I hadn’t had anything that entire time. On top of that, he forgot to tell the kitchen to put the sauce on the side, so he told them to re-make the nachos (without asking us). At that point we had been there for at least 50 minutes and had no coffee or food, just one bloody mary. The server should have asked us if we wanted something besides coffee , offered to comp the drink, or at least ask if we wanted the nachos as-is. Also, he was over-explaining every detail! I understand trying to take accountability when you mess up, but this was over the top and one of the most awkward service interactions. I agree that this place shouldn’t offer a brunch menu since apparently it’s too much to handle.

The server suggested “I can just cancel those nachos if you want” 😂 Well we immediately agreed, closed our $13 tab, and walked to Rebellion where we had excellent service and amazing food, per usual. Next time we’ll just go...

Good meat in a great area of Fredericksburg inside an awesome old house? Check, check, check!

I'm such a sucker for good BBQ, so when people recommended Billikens to me as the go-to for BBQ, it was one of the first restaurants I checked out since moving to Virginia.

The moment you come around the block near this restaurant/house, you can SMELL how good it is. I really loved the atmosphere inside the house, but I know there's also a whole backyard/outdoor area that we didn't check out since it was still a little too cool outside for us.

Menu is straightforward, and I loved the nice touch of the pig portraits on their sauces (even though I'm not a fan of AI art - it would be way cooler to see them support a local artist to do work for these!) to easily distinguish between the flavors. The flavors are all pretty good as well, though the Carolina was a bit more runny/liquidy than I thought it would be.

We ordered the BBQ nachos and were not expecting this appetizer to be a WHOLE MEAL! Not only was it delicious, it was even better when you slather some of their BBQ sauce on top. I just could not get over how much food this was. Maybe a little much for two people if you also want to fit an entree in your stomach, but definitely a great shareable for 3+. We might have went too hard on the nachos, because we certainly couldn't finish our entrees!

I ordered ribs with some mac n cheese and roasted corn and cornbread on the side. Cornbread was perfect. I find that not a lot BBQ places put enough sweetness in the cornbread or it ends up being too dry, but this was perfection. Nice and moist, just a hint of sweetness. It was a perfect compliment to the ribs. As a lactose intolerant person, I always like to take a risk on mac n cheese just to see if it's worth the pain later. This mac was pretty good, and even better if you slather some sauce in it. Not top tier and I'm not sure I'd pick that over another side next time, but good. The roasted corn fell flat. It just didn't even taste like corn. It did not seem worth picking as a side and I would recommend skipping over that one.

The star of the show was the ribs, of course. Just meat falling right off the bone. Absolutely perfectly done, and the sauce on top highlighted the flavor. I couldn't even finish what I had since the nachos filled me up, but they tasted just as good the next day after being heated up.

My husband ordered the brisket, ribs, and sausage. He thoroughly enjoyed the wings as well, and said the brisket was excellent, but we both agreed that the sausage was the best thing on his plate. I would buy that sausage in BULK, it was so good.

I thought the food was very good overall, but I want to come back and try some more things on the menu, especially the sides. I think it's a great BBQ option for this area and for a good "Friday night dinner" or date night if you're okay with getting your hands a...

Update.

I was going to give it a try the other day! Unfortunately, two customers walked out as we were on our way in. We overheard their frustration and the same poor service from the wait staff. We turned around and went down the street to eat elsewhere. I think this place doesn't really care at all.

We ate here before, and the food was pretty good. We came here again on Saturday, December 2nd around 2-3 pm. My wife ordered the brisket with fries, and I ordered the smoked wings with a side of blue cheese, and the smoked sausage with the Tom Collins drink. The food came, and my wife’s brisket was not even warm; the fries were the same temperature, and the sausage was not warm.

So I went to find our server because she had been missing for a while. I finally found her coming out of the kitchen and told her about our food. She came by and took the food back. About 5 minutes later, she came back with the new order. Unfortunately, the food was still the same temperature, which it seemed like they brought out the same food again. They could have used the microwave to heat it up and returned the food to us, but they brought out warm food again. So, we just canceled the order. The server returned and finally gave me the blue cheese for the wings; before she ran off, I asked her about our drinks, and she forgot about it. She came back with the drinks, and it was like she had just poured gin and whatever juice in a glass with ice. This was a big dud, so we also sent this back. After all that was served to us, we only ate the wings and decided to leave. The bill came. She dropped it off at our table and apologized because she said they were busy and short-staffed; I call it BS because of her lack of concern about why the food was brought to us with no care. This is why we served low-quality food and poor customer service because our server was chatting up in the kitchen with other patrons. So, as we sat and waited for him to bring a pen so we could sign the bill, we realized she would not return. We had to find a pen in the cubby hole near the kitchen to sign the check. We even told the people about our experience when we left and wished them good luck; they had a big party, so I can imagine how their dining experience may have turned out.

I am sad that we had this experience. The first time was great, and we enjoyed the food; we even were in contact with them to cater our retirement party. The management turned us off because they could not get our order correctly priced and were sending us a menu with items we did not request. After a few emails, we decided this place could not provide competent service.

To bad there wasn't a manager on site to speak with us to correct the problems they were encountering or even ask why we were sending our food back. Never will we...