Big Shanty Smokehouse — Restaurant in Kennesaw

I went for the first time on, Saturday, June 18, 2017. I walked in around 1pm. and up to the menu. I looked around, just a few customers. No smiles, quiet. An older woman was working the register and two older big men transferring/preparing the food.

I wasn't greeted with a hello, smile or welcome. I stepped up towards the menu and proceeded to ask her about sandwich sizes. She pointed up at the menu and said, "We only have one size!" Her tone was a bit rude in nature but I politely ignored it.

I told her I wanted a pork sandwich to go. The total $7.37. A bit higher than usual. I relaxed and took a seat on an old wooden bench and patiently waited. As I looked around, I suddenly noticed a blackish/brownish insect racing towards me. I was hoping it wasn't what I thought it was. But, yes, unfortunately it was.

It bolted right towards me and I raised the sole of my right shoe, and Crunch!!!! The woman whispered to the man preparing my sandwich, both staring strangely at me out of the corner of their eyes, as if I wouldn't notice. He handed her my to-go box, and she passed it to me.

There wasn't any "thank you", any "come back to see us", no smiles, not even the customers looked happy. Just lot's of dead silence. It was like some children of the corn or wrong turn scene, just dark and eerie.

Now I could have gotten my money back, but I've seen much worse. I quickly checked my sandwich, to assure all was well and returned home. I tried the medium sized pork sandwich hoping it would compare to Helen's, Latham's, or Mckenzie's back home. But there is no comparison.

4.4 stars??? Really? I feel grateful even more so now that I know I've already had the best. The sandwich is over priced by $2-$3. The barbecue was about average at best, about on par with the convenient stores back in West Tennessee. The hospitality was totally southern sad.

If you want real barbecue, the best barbecue, then hit up Beale Street around May. They don't have the world championship barbecue cook off there for nothing every year. No more Georgia barbecue for me ever!

On a brighter note, pizza and wings do tend to be much...

Mediocre BBQ at high prices.

I had the brisket and was going to order chopped, but was told by the cashier to get the slices because they are thick. The sliced brisket was chopped, so I'm guessing the chopped is even thicker cuts. I'm glad I'm not a person who likes sliced or I'd have been further disappointed, as they obviously don't know what sliced means here. The BBQ is Texas style, minus the heat. They had "hot sauce" on the table, but it wasn't hot at all. The potato salad wasn't as good as what I'd expect to get prepackaged at Kroger or Walmart and the Mac and Cheese wasn't good either. They also had all their food in warming trays, so the food didn't come to our table hot, and it was tough, instead of smoky and tender. They did have a good sauce though, but I prefer either sweet or spicy, and it was neither and there weren't options of different styles, only sauce or no sauce.

There is a smoker outside, but I honestly couldn't tell if they actually use it or not. It was off, and as someone who has a smoker at home and comes from Kansas City where everyone has been to the BBQ competitions and probably participated with their company they work for at least once, this place falls amongst the worst BBQ I've ever had. Between the tough food, lack of flavor, being cold and lacking that good smoky flavor - I couldn't ever recommend this place nor will I ever go back. Not sure how their Google ratings are so high here, but I can personally smoke better food than I had at this establishment last night and have only once been to a BBQ establishment that doesn't pull their meat directly from the smoker when they serve you - and that place happened to be the only place worse than this location and I've been to hundreds of BBQ restaurants across the world. I also left with an...

Honestly this used to be my all time favorite barbecue. In the past year it has just totally changed. We usually went every week or every two weeks and did takeout for lunch. Brisket was our fav. After the past four, yes we gave it four tries we quit. Pricing stayed the same and yet they cut the portion of brisket size literally in half. My husband got One slice of brisket in his combo plate (that's 15dollars) and it had so much fat it wasn't even half a slice worth. On our last trip the brisket platter you got two slices... Again horrible cuts, when I said something to the girl that took our payment(you pay 40 bucks for lunch you should get more than 4 slices of brisket im sorry) she got completely embarrassed and told me she was sorry but the owners had decided to cut down on the portion size... But leave the price the same. I give two stars bc i still love the thought of how good it used to be, but i honestly don't want to chance getting not good food again and wasting that kind of money.

As a response to the owner, nice of you to call me a liar, and yes they did tell me that. It was the young brunette who runs the checkout. Ill make sure to never bring my business back to you since that is how you think is necessary to talk to someone who has been coming to you for years. Honest opinions are put out there for you to grow from not to nit pick, if you can not handle constructive criticism, you probably shouldn't bother to read your reviews. There is a VERY VERY VERY big difference between fatty pieces and complete fat slice, im sorry but no one wants to eat only fat. Totally and completely disappointed in...