Wildwood Barbeque — Restaurant in Hadley

If you enjoy good BBQ, then this is not the place for you. I simply cannot think of a single redeeming quality for this place.

My wife and I were staying at the hotel next door on a Saturday evening on our way to Maine, so we walked over for dinner about 7pm. My wife ordered the burnt ends with slaw, and I ordered the two meat combo and picked the pulled pork, and the burnt ends. For sides I had slaw and mac & cheese.

When the food arrived it looked fairly standard, except my pulled pork was not pulled at all, rather it was two chunks of pork. My wife tried her burnt ends first and commented that they were tough and had no flavor. While she was doing that, I was attempting to pull the pork chunks apart, that didn't work due to how tough they were. I did finally manage to chisel some of the chunk off, and it too was flavorless, while also being tough. When I say no flavor, I truly mean no flavor. No smoke flavor, no rub flavor, in fact it didn't even taste like pork. It honestly tasted like someone put a pork shoulder into a crock pot, then just added water. Of course if they had done that, it might have been tender. I then tried my burnt ends, and as my wife had stated earlier, they were tough and flavorless. I began picking through my burnt ends to try and find some more tender ones, but alas, I could not. Frankly, had the three little pigs built their houses using the burnt ends for bricks, the big bad wolf would still be huffing and puffing and trying to blow their houses down.

The sides were disappointing as well. The slaw tasted like it was just cabbage mixed with watered down mayonnaise, and not the good stuff like Duke's Mayonnaise, but rather the cheap stuff on the bottom shelf at the grocery store that is $2.99 for a gallon jar.

Neither of us finished our meal, and in fact barely had more than 3 or 4 bites each due to how bad the food was.

Again, as I stated earlier, if you enjoy good BBQ, then this should not be on your list of...

I've been going to Wildwood since I moved here 6 years ago, but I feel it's gone downhill. My husband and I went a few weeks ago and there were too many things amiss.

First, we placed our order and went to sit down in the area away from the register (where the fireplace is located). And it was dirty everywhere. The floor had a large patch that looked like someone had ground peanut shells or sand into it. The floor in general needed a thorough scrubbing. Many of the tables were dirty, so we had to wipe off where we sat. We got silverware and napkins. The silverware was slimy. They said there is heavy lime in the water, but the silverware didn't used to be so dirty. Like spotted is one thing, but spotted with a residue you can feel does not encourage me to eat with it.

I had ordered wine and the glass was equally streaked with a gross residue on it. When I went to drink from it, there were also noticeable chunks of food or something also stuck on the glass. I took it back to the counter and told the girl my glass was dirty and she immediately snapped at me that "there are heavy lime deposits in the water. It's not dirty!" And when I pointed out that there were in fact chunky things on my glass she sighed heavily and agreed to pour me another glass.

So it seems a lot of people must complain about the streaks and gross residue on everything, since the girl snapped at me so quickly. But honestly I'm not sure if the dishwasher is working correctly. Or if it is, you might need to have someone polish the residue off everything. It makes my dinner unappealing.

Final thing is that I have celiac disease and I always order my food using the special diet menu, I specify it's an "allergy" and I ask for a gluten free roll instead of cornbread. But my meal came out with cornbread. So I had to take that back too.

Details matter and Wildwood isn't paying attention to...

Ribs were clearly cooked the day before because they were dry and grey like they had been microwaved. Burnt ends we're also tough and dry. Brisket was also super dry and bland. Dry, tough, grey and bland are not good signs for any BBQ place. BBQ sauce on the side was ice cold. Cornbread was good but it made the rest of the food look like they don't know what they are doing. Stop serving food cooked the day before. Service is also very unreliable. Consistently late for catering deliveries and require multiple follow up calls to get the food delivered. Not sure how they are still in business. Seems like they are run by people with no restaurant experience. I'd recommend saving your money and going elsewhere.

Owner responded and I can appreciate them taking the time to respond. We no longer order from Wildwood BBQ due to the lack of consistency when it comes to delivery times. In reading several other reviews of Wildwood I don't seem to be in the minority when I say the food is lacking and the cornbread makes the meat look like an afterthought. 40 years of experience isn't going to make food taste better or make old food taste fresh. Good restaurants are known for their food and is what builds a following, not the owner's number of years experience or number of restaurants they've operated. One of the best restaurants I've ever been to was run by someone with less than 40 years experience yet somehow was able to achieve a level of quality and consistency far and above Wildwood they were also nominated for several james beard awards. Get it together and focus on your food quality. Take the L and learn from your mistakes. Making excuses in your responses just makes you sound like you're lacking accountability and...