Smoke Monkey BBQ — Restaurant in Heath

From beginning to end this was a fantastic meal, atmosphere, and venue. The management was very helpful and answered all my questions; especially since I am a non-meat eater at a meat heavy restaurant.

Walking in, not only are there plenty of pic ops, but it also smells great! There is a 2nd floor that offers more privacy or a great place for a party. There is also an outdoor event center where bands come to entertain! You will undoubtedly notice the open bars of food. They have plenty of sides that do not have meat, so a non-meat eater will not starve here, that is for sure. They also have just a salad bar if you are vegan. Which is a total plus! I was with a party of four, everyone else ate meat, and loved it!

I had mac n cheese, beans, mashed potatoes, mixed peppers & squash, and corn…along with a salad! Yes, my eyes were much bigger than my stomach! Everything was fresh and phenomenal.

There is a piano in the eatery hall, and I did confirm they offer FREE piano lessons on Thursdays at 7pm!

Lastly, the staff! Every single person I met, from the management to the waitstaff and in between were SUPER NICE! It was refreshing to be able to talk to people and not feel as though you were putting them out with your questions. They were all super helpful with identifying what foods used meat and what ones did not so I could avoid a tummy issue later! Now as far as the bill...are you ready?! For my husband and I to eat it was less than $35 - for both of us! All In All; I would totally recommend this place for singles, couples, friends, and families to go enjoy food and music!

Until Next...

I have been wanting to try this place for a while now and finally made the 40 min drive. I am a BBQ junky and want to experience everything. Upon arrival I found that this was not your typical bbq joint! Friday and Saturday they have a buffet set up with an abundance of non traditional options. So I dove in, and was impressed. Jambalaya, fried shrimp, Mac n cheese, hot chicken; needless to say I was going in! First up the Jambalaya 7/10 I needed a little more umpf, it's such a rarity to fond outside of a Cajun joint that it really needs to stand out. However!!! The ingredients were legit! Large chunks of shrimp and sausage, whole okra, I feel with a little fire it would have been a hitter. Fried shrimp was good, needed to flavor up that batter a little, but the shrimp size was excellent and had great texture. 8/10 Mac n Cheese was a solid side for sure, perfectly creamy, noodles held up well, seasoning was strong and even held up after getting cold. (I sat outside) HOT CHICKEN.... I took issue with it, I tried it, I liked it. I would call it a spicy honey chicken personally. It missed a crunch that a Nashville Hot has but the flavor was very very good. It would have loved a bed of rice and extra sauce to pour on. 8/10 as long as we don't call it Nashville Hot.

All in all the night was amazing for a foodie like me, when the scenery is a part of the experience. The crawfish shack, the beer barn outside, live music blasting, beautiful evening outside with good solid food made my week. As the kids say, it was a whole vibe.

Ps, I can't wait for those hot shrimp Tim,...

So after coming here for years during crawfish season sad to say this last Friday will be our last. We got there around 18:00pm ordered our crawfish we quit ordering the potatoes an corn when we found out they were a dollar per each yup that’s a huge mark up per piece! After ordering waited about 15 mins or so before bread rolled out which whatever no biggie. Had to chase a bar tender twice to other another guy who stated the same thing. Crawfish guy comes out says sorry but about 10 mins before our crawfish come out ok cool no problem that turned into 25 mins or so. It’s the not the same cook they once had that nailed crawfish consistently seems like different people doing the cooking on the boils each time. Crawfish went a little to long were hard to peel while great size they just were tough. Out of 5lbs we ate them we ordered mushrooms but ewww I dunno what type they put in the batch with our order but they had a bad after taste. I dunno if owners changed on the cook side of crawfish but we weren’t the only ones that kinda felt the same way which is disappointing for sure we only ever came during the crawfish season because they were good now can’t say I’ll be back back. It was always smoke monkeys then Nate’s for crawfish during season. I hope yall figure it out for sure! Service needs improving after ordering noticed an elderly couple there they weren’t familiar with the restaurant but we helped them understand on drinks a buffet crawfish etc. small things that once were but...