Pop's BBQ — Restaurant in Iowa City

Good food, EXTREMELY poor catering service, and unprofessional management.

We chose Pop's to cater our wedding because we love the food there. In spite of our guest's rave reviews about the food (for just a lunch or casual dinner this place is awesome), the catering service left a LOT to be desired. Eric, the owner, was difficult to work with, rude, and we never did receive the requested copy of their certificate of liability insurance, which was required by our venue.

We chose our menu and placed our deposit for our food in January 2017 for a June 2017 wedding. We were quoted $2000 for 130 people with a 10% deposit up front to reserve our spot. When we asked for a copy of the contract we received a photo copied order form with poorly written out instructions for what we had ordered. I had to fill in all the information for our venue, date, etc. even though the person I talked to on the phone (Eric, the owner) said he had taken all the information down. Our requests for a more formal contract were ignored. We thought it was a small thing and didn't think much of it until halfway through March when we received a call from Eric saying he had lost our "contract" and couldn't remember what we had ordered, what our date was, and whether we had paid our deposit. Again, we got things straightened out, but I was beginning to get worried. It was also during this phone call that Eric told me we were being "way undercharged" but that he was going to "let it slide" since he had had some staff turnover since we placed our initial order (according to the catering prices posted online we were charged correctly).

When we contacted Pop's again at the end of May, 30 days out from our wedding, Eric was still shaky on the details but seemed to have things mostly in order. That is, until the week of our wedding when my fiance called to do our final confirmation... First, Eric had again misplaced our catering "contract" and had no idea when or where the wedding was, what time he needed to arrive, or what he needed to bring. He attempted to confirm back our order to us only to find he had mixed us up with another event the same day. He also asked if he could serve HyVee potato salad instead of his own recipe (why would we pay $2k to be served grocery store food?). He complained about our venue to my fiance, and then asked to show up to set up half an hour before dinner was to be served at our reception.

The service only got worse on our wedding day. Eric sent his mother out while we were setting up to tell us that she and her husband would be at our venue at 4:00 on the day of to set up, and that Eric would be coming with the food later. We reiterated to her that we required all vendors to be completely set up before the ceremony began, and she assured me they would be. Come the day of there was no sign of anyone from Pop's at 4:00. Instead they showed up in the middle of our outdoor ceremony, distracting our guests from the service. They were still setting up when dinner began at 6:00, and Eric snapped at my bridesmaids saying "you need to fix this mess" when he had issues with the electrical plugs ins (we asked him to bring extension cords and power strips, but he didn't). Our DJ ended up having to unplug all his equipment so Pop's could power their food warmers, which left us with just a Bluetooth speaker to play music during dinner. We even had guests running around with extension cords trying to get the Pop's crew up and running, instead of enjoying the cocktail hour.

Overall we were really looking forward to supporting one of our favorite mom and pop eateries, but the constant headaches made it barely worth it. When we called Eric to discuss our experience after the wedding he was defensive and rude, and dismissive of our concerns. Our guests very much enjoyed the food but I think we will be taking our business elsewhere...

On Friday October 20th,2017 @4 p.m i visited Pops Bar b que. Overall I like the food I like the place have gone as much as I can since they first opened. Just didn't understand why i was not able to redeem my free meal. I have made my eighth and ninth purchase today so when i asked the young lady could i redeem my free meal she wasn't sure she asked her co-worker who appeared to be leaving but was still behind the counter working and talking with employees. I was denied stating that i have to do it on my next visit. However nothing on the stamp card specifically specifies when you may redeem. I further explained i do not live in Iowa city and with my work schedule and life I don't get out here that often and then she just walks away further denying me while drinking a beer and then proceeded to sit at a table with a friend moments later my order was ready. The young lady who was drinking a beer and denied me the free meal option handed me my food and when i noticed i onky had two sauces for two rib tip dinner baskets I asked for more and was given about three more sauces by the beer drinking employee and honestly she left with her female friend tucking the open alcohol bottle under her jacket as i was leaving the...

Our experience was alright. My husband and I lived in Oklahoma and love a good bbq place, so it’s hard to measure up. We ordered takeout and spent about $35 on a brisket sandwich, a burnt ends sandwich and a half rack of ribs. Each dish came with 2 containers of bbq sauce so we got all different sauces. We didn’t love any of the sauces. The burnt ends were actually quite yummy, but we felt it was a little ridiculous that there were only 7 or so little pieces on a sandwich that cost so much. The brisket was tender, but not juicy and no smoke ring. It looked dry but didn’t taste really dry. Again, just not worth the price on a small sandwich. The ribs were tender and pretty decent tasting if we added salt. Again, pricy for what we got. One thing that we thought was strange for a bbq place is that they don’t sell any meat besides ribs outside of a sandwich. We would actually go back for burnt ends if they sold it by the pound. Overall, the place was alright, but way too pricy for...