The Smoke Doctor — Restaurant in Hamburg Township

I came in here a few weeks ago and was hoping to cure my hankering for bbq, but left quite dissatisfied. My fiancé and I both dined in that evening and were both saddened with the portion sizes for the prices we paid. I ordered the brisket dinner ($15.95 plus tax) along with the mac-n-cheese and loaded mashed potatoes as my two sides. The brisket itself was more fat, rather than the high quality meat I paid for. The mac-n-cheese was extremely bland. I tried my best to sprinkle it with the mini salt and pepper packets, but sadly it didn’t help whatsoever. The loaded mashed potatoes weren’t any better. They were not seasoned and had hunks of burnt cheese sprinkled throughout. I chose to not eat either side dish and power through this unfortunate dinner experience. My fiancé ordered the brisket and ribs combo dinner ($15.95 plus tax) along with french fries and a piece of cornbread as his two choices of sides. His brisket was the same as mine, which ended up being more fat than high quality meat. His four ribs were more bone than actual meat. The fries are not seasoned, nor were they anything special. The portion size was laughable, especially after paying a $3 up charge. He would of been better off ordering a side of appetizer fries for $3.75. The cornbread was extremely small in size, cold, and had no sweet or savory flavor to it at all. The fact we had to pay an extra $3 as an “upcharge” for these fries is absolutely ridiculous. I personally think it’s bad for business when you don’t give the customer some type of bread already along with the combo meal they’re already purchasing. Most bbq restaurants will give you a piece of cornbread, dinner roll, or some type of sliced bread with your meal. The bbq sauce used at this establishment is literally Sweet Baby Rays mixed with some “extra ingredients” they choose to toss in. The tiny containers they give you filled with the bbq sauce is only halfway filled at best. It makes me truly wonder and question the authenticity of this bbq joint altogether. The drinks offered here are seriously limited and not worth the price of $2.49 per bottle. You would think they would offer homemade sweet tea or lemonade, but they do not. Another huge disappointment was they offer no dessert options. No homemade pie, cakes, cobblers, banana pudding, or any type of pudding for that matter. Even if you don’t offer a wide selection of desserts, you could still have just a few options available to the customer. We spent $42.24 altogether on our date night and will not be returning to this...

Went for my first visit yesterday… and i think…

Good food, traditional new school BBQ. Great with the new mixed dishes. Pulled pork was good with a hint of Brown Sugar. Chicken was good in general. Ribs were overdone and dry, requiring sauce.. not charcoal dry but a couple more minutes and they would have been. Brisket is a chopped style, not my bag i prefer sliced but is what it is.

Service was VERY SHORT, SNAPPY and RUDE. Not greeted when we entered, No direction was given, as to counter pickup or table service(which is becoming a bit if an issue when places have both order and pickup counters..) Thought that she called me up to grab the order from the pickup counter, was then informed in a very snappy snarky tone that when the food was ready it would be dropped off. When the brought the food she even said that she was pretty sure she got everything to just come up to the counter and let her know… could see that i was missing a side and the cornbread i ordered, but didn’t know if it was in the box or not.. then when I did go up to the counter she got all exasperated and she pulled out the ticket and CLEARLY had marked off everything EXCEPT the missing items, THEN PROCEEDED TO INSPECT THE TABLE FOR THE MISSING ITEMS… the SNAPS at me that SHE WILL BRING THEM OUT TO ME. After we finished eating, we cleared our table and headed for the door and she flipped to the Nicest person and wanted to know how everything was?!? Had a hard time just deciding to leave a review instead of telling them how I feel.. maybe this will get the point across that I LIKED the food.. but the SERVICE could be greatly improved.

Overall I can say that I see why there were so many online orders that got picked up.. the food was good, but the service ruined the...

Just ate here.. let's start with the bad.

The problem with the bad is its subjective. I wanted more seasoning and more smoke. You can have too much but most of the food needed more. Again, the problem is location. Qhen everyone is white and never season anything you have to make these people happy. It is what it is though. Also there are mtiple styles of different bbq.. for example, chopped brisket vs sliced, pulled pork done multiple different ways qith sauces, without, and little 50 variations of each. So what bad is subjective and that's why I didn't rate lower. While ita not my fave styles it is for others.

The good? Nothing was dry... at all. The chicken was cooked perfect. It's vary difficult to get chicken right and these guys did. The wings were smoked ahead of time and then deep fried and they were amazing. I would like a tad more smoke though. Again, too much would be bad but it's so close to being perfect for me.

The brisket tacos were good and next time I'm going to order with no sour cream and add some jalapeños... same with the brisket fries.

Huge props for having brisket that was dripping wet like it just got out of the shower. Not sure if they add beef talo to it after let it rest or what but it's good.

Overall it's worth trying just ate sure you know what you're getting and if it's not what you like, try it anyway and the next time you know what to get and what to avoid for your personal...