Smokey Bones Johnson City — Restaurant in Johnson City

On Wednesday, November 13, we placed an order for four to go lunch orders to be picked up. Issue 1) Called number listed on Google and got the "national" order taker that informed us they could only take one order and would have to transfer us to the local restaurant in Johnson City TN 37601. I take responsibility for not listening to all options before making an extension selection (selected 2 and not 4). Issue 2) The employee taking our over-the-phone orders was taking forever, either because of hearing issues as there was loud music in the background or the restaurant may have been short staffed as it was 11:35am and they had tables that needed to be waited on or the computer was taking longer than usual to clear between orders. Issue 3) We did pay separately all cash except for one credit card order, thus the reason for the call in rather than just ordering online. Proper change took forever. In addition, the employee had to use their cell phone calculator just to make change for an $8.75 order out of a ten-dollar bill. How hard is it to come up with the $1.25 change needed not to mention having to leave the front desk to retrieve change (bills and coins) for the three cash orders. Issue 4) One order was a featured item, the shrimp and grits bowl. We did expect the take-out order to be different from what you would receive had we been eating at the restaurant and we do understand prices for everything has increased considerably thus causing the need to reduce quantity for profit margins. However, the shrimp and grits order, for the price we paid, was lacking both in flavor/quality as well as quantity. You could say we were stuck with a sub-par lunch which we felt you needed to be made aware in hopes improvements...

If you’re looking for average BBQ and a below average experience, this is the place!

We showed up at 6:25 for a 6:30 reservation and were told it would be a half hour. What is the point of having a reservation if you just get added to the line with everyone else? That said, there were plenty of empty tables and only a few people in front of us. 20 minutes later we were seated.

The waiter was very pleasant and got us drinks right away and took our orders quickly.

I had the pulled pork platter with fire roasted corn and baked beans. The corn was very good, exactly as advertised. No extra sauces or added vegetables, just nicely charred corn. The baked beans were fine. The pork was a completely blank canvas for the selection of sauces at the table. It might as well have been boiled. No smoke, no seasoning, no flavor at all. If you get pulled pork to carry the BBQ sauce, this would be perfect for you.

My wife had the BBQ burger with potato wedges. The potatoes were excellent, definitely the highlight of the meal. If we go back she’s going for a plate of potato wedges. Lots of crispy bits. The burger was good, nicely topped with fried pickles. Again, a nice vessel for the BBQ sauce.

The entire time we ate there was an empty table nearby in a quiet section. The table had been cleared and wiped, but the e garbage for a prior party was all over the floor. No one thought to pick up a broom.

Another party nearby mentioned at the end of their meal that some of their sides had been missed. They were fine with it, just wanted to make sure they didn’t end up on the bill. I took that to mean they hadn’t asked for the staff to fix...

Food is fine, customer service is freaking awful, servers are inattentive and will argue with you about how long have been waiting for your food. Try anywhere else for your Saturday night.

Edit/ update for full story. We went here for my mom's birthday, theirs 5 of us there and we had reservations for 7 as we had a movie to go see at 8:15, after we order we wait over 35 minutes before we have to call our server back to the table to ask who then argues that the ticket only says 26 and rolls his eyes as we ask for the manager, she tells us that they had a lot of larger groups come in and the kitchen is backed up however the store may have been half full? After we explained that we basically had no other choice to either wait for our food or leave to get McDonald's or something before our movie and over 55 minutes of waiting we get our food which was 3 burgers, a sandwich and a steak, the 3 burgers, sandwich and fries were Luke warm at best and clearly had been sitting, not to mention they were wrong, and then the steak was borderline raw in the middle and clearly had just been thrown on.

We've eaten here many times and never have been treated so poorly by a waiter and waited an hour for fast food level food at best. If I wanted this kind of experience I could go to burger King. We operate a small sandwich shop in erwin and understand the importance of all of this well, you need to work on adding kitchen staff and training your waiters better.

The manager tried and took a lot off of our bill but honestly we will not be back to try again with blue moose across the street and texas roadhouse so close, far better options...