Carroll's Barbeque — Restaurant in Georgia

Review: Carroll’s Barbecue vs Bigun’s

We are staying in this area for 6 weeks and really wanted to spend time supporting the locals. However, like all my reviews, I strongly believe in telling both the good and bad.

We had already visited Bigun’s in Talking Rock, and while we were there we saw the huge billboard across the street for Carroll’s so we decided to give it a shot.

Ambiance. Not much to say. It's a BBQ place. It was clean, well organized, and had all the normal amenities.

Service. Terrible. There was literally one person working the register and a line out the door. She was not friendly at all. In comparison when we went to Bigun’s we were laughing with the cashier. This lady seemed like we were doing her a favor eating there. The only positive is they did bring out our “appetizer” to our table first and then our lunch after.

Food. This is where they really fall short. For a bit, I thought how can you really screw up barbeque. Well - you can.

Smoked Sausage - was more like a Hillshire farms polish Kielbasa. No comparison to Bigun’s

Sliced Brisket - awful. Whatever they use for the rub is not working. Unless you cut the out ring of the Brisket you literally feel like you are eating a handful of peppercorns work a teaspoon of hot sauce.

Beans - Hmmm well I would say they were like as good as a can of Bush’s beans. I did however enjoy the fried pickles although can you really screw up anything fried.

Overall - hands down Bigun’s is way better. Even if you leave up in Blue Ridge - Bigun’s is worth the drive. Now I know why they put a gigantic billboard across from Bigun’s. It's a high-traffic area given Bigun’s amazing food.

Who am I: I have traveled the world including 67 countries and 32 US states and have had the opportunity to eat at over 500 Michelin star restaurants and dined with several international chefs. I believe that every restaurant has opportunities to grow and consider myself fair...

I don't write many reviews but this needed to be said. Visited this bbq joint on our visit to a cabin in Blue Ridge. Let me state firstly that the food we got was good. This review is purely negative due to the ownership/manager. We had a group of 6 come in to eat and we all ordered at the same time. Our food was not brought out at the same time, one person got their food 10-15 minutes before anyone else. They had finished eating before the next 3 got their food. 5 minutes later 2 more people got their food. When we were all finished we still had one person not get their food and had waited over an hour for nothing. Our waitress was giving us checks before even noticing that one person hadn't got their food, even though we had told her earlier he still hadn't got it. Finally after an hour she brought him his food and he declined it initially because he didn't want to make us wait any longer. She had told him it would be on the house for waiting so long. He accepted after she told him that. Once he finishes, the waitress comes back and told him she talked to the manager/owner and they asked if he would take 50% off. After being told it would be free. How ridiculous. After waiting over an hour to eat and being told it would be free, its a huge slap in the face to then offer him only 50%. As a fellow owner of a business in food service I would NEVER do this to a customer. The restaurant made a mistake and tried to get any money out of him they could. The waitress then asked him to come with her to ask the manager for the free meal like she had promised. It seemed like she was scared of her boss and wanted him to be there to help back her up. This left a terrible taste in our mouths even though the food was good. It was a sour spot on our entire trip that really bothered us. If we come back to the area again we will probably take our business elsewhere. EDIT: This happened on 10/17 probably...

BEWARE LARGE GROUPS

Came to Carroll’s with a group of 20 with reservations prior.

Reservations was for 4:30 pm, we didn’t leave the restaurant until 7:30…

When ordering, their ordering system went down which we were sympathetic for. However when our waitress retook our orders, she forgot 10 orders. When she retook those orders she forgot 5 of the 10. You’d think after the 3rd time she could get it right, but no she brings 4 of the 5 leaving 1 person out (he eventually just took the food to go and ate it at home). When the last order came the sides were STILL wrong? We also ordered apps and other sides but after the 2nd reorder we gave up on those dishes. By the time the last person got their food the 1st group were finished eating for 45 minutes.

On top of the ordering issues, once seated it took us 45 minutes to even get drinks, and most of the drink orders were wrong. We asked for bbq sauce 4 times and after not getting it we just gave up and went to another table to get the sauces. Additionally, even after we left they messed up the checks and forgot to mark one table as paid even though we just finished paying. After all of that there was no compensation offered by the wait staff.

Now when the food finally came the brisket and smoked wings were dry. The ribs, potato salad, Mac and cheese, and collared greens were solid; but not worth the wait. The fried okra was essentially the same as the okra you’d get from Cracker Barrel.

Overall, it was the worst service I’ve ever experience at a restaurant. While some of the food was good, it wasn’t worth the quality of service and having to wait 3 hours for bbq that have been smoked/cooked since the morning. Most likely will not be back and if so it won’t be with a group larger...