Smokey Bones Greensboro — Restaurant in Greensboro

My daughter asked to go to Darryl's for her birthday, but we got there as early as we could and still the wait was almost 2 hours for a party of 8. So we looked across the parking lot at Smokey Bones and decided to see if their wait was better. Apparently they only have a few tables that can accommodate a party of 8 and allow them to sit together, both were taken, and wouldn't leave. One was done eating, but still wouldn't leave, so we were seated, but at two separate booths, which was not ideal, as I wanted to sit with my daughter for her birthday, but we ended up with a booth for kids and a booth for adults, and we sat and watched the table that could have accommodated us just sit there with people who were done eating for a long while. We ordered appetizers, and we got a mini nacho. It came out crammed in this tiny skillet so that all the toppings were on the top three chips, so I had to reallocate the nacho toppings to the other bare chips. We couldn't share a table with my daughter, and we never got appetizer plates, so I had to pass nachos by hand to my daughter, across to the booth behind us. One chip loaded up for me, dipped in sour cream, I ate it, then one chip loaded for my daughter, dipped in sour cream, and passed to her by hand, one at a time, across to the other side of the booth behind ours. Our waitress was nice but I think stretched thin because we didn't get appetizer plates, silverware or napkins until the entrees came out, and waited a long time for one round of refills to come out and then we did not get more. I had nachos all over my hands from having to reload bare chips and pass them to my daughter without cultery or napkins, so I sat and looked at my very small $17 burger, with my hands covered in cheese sauce, while I waited for napkin wrapped silverware to come to the table. We all sat and stared at our entrees while waiting for silverware, but I was the only one that couldn't also pick up my drink in the meantime, as our appetizer was the messiest and my husband was feeding the baby, so I was also feeding him nachos as well as passing them to our daughter. Entrees were disappointing. My husband's chicken was super salty, my burger was meh, and the fries were nothing special. I thought they were going to be fresh fries cut there, you know the kind, cut just before frying, and good for dipping in ranch, but they were the dry frozen "natural cut" bag fries. Definitely not a $17 burger and fries. They burnt my best friend's grilled chicken sandwich, and even burned the bacon on it. The prices were really high, so we expected better quality food and executed much better as well. To make things much worse, they have this special menu item that smokes as it sits on your table. We didn't order it, but another table close to us did. It filled the entire restaurant with smoke. We had two people with asthma in our party, and our 3 month old baby, and three other children with us, but as the baby being the youngest and most vulnerable, I had to quickly put him back in his pram, and roll him outside while my husband asked if the restaurant could be aired out. We figured Smokey Bones meant smoked meat, you know, bbq, not that the actual air quality of the restaurant would be severely compromised. They took the smoking bucket back to the kitchen, and we were able to roll our baby back into the restaurant. The big table had finally been vacated but sat covered in dishes the rest of the night, so when it came time for birthday cake, we had to ask for small plates, and a knife and fresh cake eating implements, all of which came to us one at a time, with gaps of waiting in between. Even then, we had to set our piled up dishes on the big vacated table that still had dishes on it, so that we had room to cut the cake. We crammed into one booth so we could be with our daughter while we sang to her and she cut her cake. Luckily, I don't think she noticed the shortcomings of the evening, for us, $87 for three drinks, two entrees, one child's entree, and one nacho appetizer. Not at...

If I could give this place a -1, I would. This has honestly been the worst restaurant experience I had in my life, and I travel the world and have been to hundreds if not thousands of restaurants. Only reason we went here was because my family from out of the country liked the food 5 years ago when they were here the last time. I read the most recent reviews before we went and that should have told me already what we would be getting in to. When we walked in, there were only6 tables occupied and some people at the bar. We were told by the hostess that the wait would be about 1 hour… I asked why and was told they are short staffed. OK, common problem these days, so I said we will wait at the bar and get a drink. A third of the bar was occupied by guests, the rest of the bar was filled with dirty plates and used cups, so we had nowhere to sit. So, we took one of the high tables and I ordered drinks from the bar. Bartender wasn’t really that friendly, but I think she was also overwhelmed, because she was the only one there to make dinks. One staff member then came over to me to tell me that we can’t stand at the high-top table, so I said “where else do you want us to stand or sit, you have a dirty bar and apparently everyone is too buys cleaning it up, including you”, so we stayed and I got my drinks at the bar and served us our drinks. Mind you, we didn’t take the table from anyone because nobody was waiting and even if, they could not have been seated there anyhow because they had no waiters to begin with… so what’s the big deal? We watched the dynamics in this place, and it was ridiculous. I run a company with over 200 employees, and the employees that worked as waiters or “Want to be Managers” (I wouldn’t’ call them Managers, they don’t deserve to be called that) should all get fired. Instead of cleaning up dirty areas at the bar or anywhere else in the restaurant, they did absolutely nothing most of the time. One of them (in a different colored shirt, so maybe someone higher up) sat down, played on his cell phone for about 10 minutes and then decided to go back to work. The 2 hostesses just chatted with each other at least 30 minutes doing absolutely nothing and the only 3 working were the waiters that served the few tables that were occupied and the bartender. Then we were seated. Plenty of tables around us were not cleaned up so you felt like you are in the middle of a battlefield. Not very appealing. I asked the waitress why it was so empty and she said quote “It is Gate City Blvd, what do you expect?” to which I responded: well, the place next door doesn’t seem to have the problem because it is crowded and they have big crowd of people waiting outside to be seated… and she said: “well, if you don’t like it here you are free to go over there”… that is certainly not the way you should treat any customer in any business. But clearly, she doesn’t give a flip about her job or that restaurant so, no surprise to hear something that dumb from her. Getting our first round of drinks took about 10 minutes, which is a joke considering how empty that place was, but again, plenty of “Wan to be Managers” and hostesses staying around doing absolutely nothing instead of helping each other out. The food was a joke compared to what it used to be and what I got was the biggest joke of it all. I ordered Brisket and that is usually slices of meat. I got a pile of meat that was just pulled from somewhere and on top of that, 50% was fat (and no, it wasn’t mixed up with pulled BBQ, because I got that as well). The burgers that were ordered were ok, the wings were dry, the waitress had to go back and forth numerous times to get things she forgot originally or that the kitchen forgot. All the BBQ sauce bottles on the table were sticky and nasty. As I said, worst experience ever, but no surprise with this lack of Management and employees that don’t care about their job. This was certainly the very last time I ever sat foot in this so called “restaurant” which is a disgrace to the...

WORST DINNING EXPERIENCE OF THE YEAR!!!

FOOD WAS MEDIOCRE DEFINITELY DID NOT LOOK OR TASTE LIKE WHAT WAS PICTURED IN THE MENU!! WE ORDERED THE BONE FIRE FOR 2-3 $46-$49 AND IT WAS NO WAY 2 PPL COULD EAT OFF THAT MUCH LESS 3, IT WAS TASTELESS NO SEASONING ON THE STEAK OR CHICKEN AND THE WINGS WERE SLIGHTLY UNDERCOOKED WHICH MADE THE 1ST AND ONLY FEW BITES CHEWY 🤢 ONLY POSTIVE THING I CAN SAY WAS THE RIBS WERE TASTY BUT NOT MUCH MORE THAN A HF A RACK OF RIBS "FOR 3 PPL" (ALL THE WAY AROUND DISSAPPOINTED) OUR OTHER PARTY'S FOOD AND DRINKS WERE PREPARED WRONG AS WELL MISSING PATTIES AND NO ALCOHOL IN THE DRINKS, AS IF ONLY ICE AND JUICE. I CAN SAY THE ONLY THING AS A WHOLE WAS GOOD WAS THE APPETIZERS FRIED PICKLES, AND PULLED CHICKEN NACHOS, IT WAS SOOO GOOD I TEXTED MY DAUGHTER & TOLD HER ABOUT THEM, SHE ORDERED SOME TAKEOUT FOR ME TO BRING HER BUT UNFORTUNATELY THEY WEREN'T PREPARED THE SAME!! THE ONES AT THE TABLE HAD A NICE SWEET SAUCE AN ENOUGH CHEESE TO COVER ALL JUST PREPARED PERFECTLY, WE GOT HOME SHE TRIED IT AN LOOKED AT ME AS IF I LIED ABOUT THE TASTE, I TRIED IT AND IT WAS DEFINITELY NOT THE SAME IT WAS COVERED IN A HOT WING SAUCE DRIZZLE AN ALOT OF PLAIN CHIPS!!!! NOW ON TO THE STAFF: THE WAITRESS WAS SWEET BUT NOT AT ALL ATTENTIVE HALF THE TABLE GOT ONE DRINK IN A HOUR AN THE OTHER HALF DID NOT, SHE SAID THE BARTENDER WAS SHORT STAFFED AND HAD FORGOT THE OTHER DRINKS, AGAIN WE NEVER RECEIVED ANY OTHER OFFER FOR DRINK THE ENTIRE MEAL, SHE WOULD GO MISSING AND WE WOULDN'T SEE HER ANYMORE, MIND YALL ITS MAYBE 10 TOTAL TABLES FULL & THE REST OF THE RESTAURANT WAS EMPTY AND THE OTHER TABLE HAD SEPARATE SERVERS

ON TO THE FOOD: OR PARTY ORDERED A DOUBLE BURGER BUT A SINGLE CAME OUT, HE ASKED FOR IT TO BE RE MADE SHE SAID SHE WOULD JUST GET THEM TO MAKE A EXTRA PATTY BUT IT WOULD BE 15 TO 20MINS AND THE REASON OUR PARTY COULDN'T GET THE PATTY UNTIL 15 20MINS MORE MINS WAS DUE TO THE GRILL SHORT STAFFED AN HAD SHUT DOWN EARLY FOR THE NIGHT BUT THE FRONT WAS STILL SEATIMG PPL AND SHE DIDNT KNOW WHY.... HE DIDNT WANT A COLD BURGER WAITING OR A RANDOM PATTY SHOWING UP AFTER HE ATE THE SINGLE SO HE SAID JUST TAKE IT ALL OFF NO BITE WAS EVEN TAKEN OUT. SO AT THAT POINT WE ASKED FOR A MANAGER, A VERY NICE LADY CAME SAID SHE WOULD CORRECT ALL THE ITEMS THAT HAD NOT CAME THAT WAS ON OUR RECEIPT AND THAT THEY WERE NOT SHORT STAFFED AT ALL AND NOT CLEAR WHY OUR WAITRESS WOULD SAY THAT. CAME BACK RECEIPT NOT CORRECTED CORRECTLY STILL ITEMS ON THERE WE NEVER RECIEVED LIKE DRINKS, BURGER, EXTRA BUGER PATTY, SALADS ECT... U NAME IT THEY FORGOT IT!!! I WENT TO ADDRESS IT 1ST TIME I GET A RECEIPT OF 85 ON ONE TICKET AND 19 ON THE OTHER I SAID THIS ISNT CORRECT THEY COMBINED THEM IT COMES UP TO 130 WHICH DONT AT ALL ADD UP, SHE RE-RINGS IT AGAIN AND ITS $114 STILL NOT EST $106 WHICH 85+19 WAS GOING TO MAKE SO FINALLY I HAD TO PAY SEPARATELY AGAIN THE 85 AND 19 STILL NOT CORRECT COMPLETELY... NOT SURE IF SHE DIDN'T CANCLE THE WHOLE THING AN POCKET ALL OF IT AFTER WALKING AWAY BCUS THE WHOLE PROCESS WAS A MESS!!!! NOW TO THE ATMOSPHERE: THE WOMENS BATHROOM THATS BY THE FRONT DOOR LITERALLY LOOKED AND SMELT AS IF THE SEPTIC HAD RAN IN THE FLOOR AND THEY HAD ONLY HALF WIPED IT UP 🤢 THE SMELL WAS SO BAD I COULD NOT EVEN USE IT I STEPPED BACK OUT WAITING ON MY PARTY!!!

BUT EVEN WITH THE HORRIBLE FOOD, STINKY ATMOSPHERE, TERRIBE SERVICE AND MY TABLE NOT ON BOARD I STILL LEFT THE WAITRESS A $10 TIP 🥴 IM A BIGG TIPPER DUE TO BEING A WAITRESS BEFORE AND I JUST WISH SHE WOULD HAVE GAVE HER BEST BECAUSE SHE WOULD HAVE DEFINITELY BE REWARDED IN RETURN FOR A GREAT EVENING AND...