Gaskins Barbecue and Lobster — Restaurant in Lakeland

• Update 06/05/24 FOOD QUALITY AND CUSTOMER SERVICE ISSUES!!! COMPLAINT WAS FILED WITH FDACS. We have eaten here frequently and left great recommendations for Gaskins, this WONT be one of those. Today we ordered a chopped brisket sandwich combo as well as a ghetto lobster roll and thats where the issues start. The Lobster Roll was overtly fishy today, we were asked how everything was so we told the young lady that the roll was very fishy and asked her to smell it, she obliged and stated well it is Lobster and walked away. 2 minutes later my wife decided to work on her baked beans which are usually great. There was a large piece of clear plastic in the baked beans so i called the young lady over again, she picked up the tray and walked away, no words, no apologies, no nothing. At that point I told my wife we are done here and left the premises. It gets better, we called back the restaurant and asked for a Manager, the same young lady said no Manager was present, I asked for the Managers name to which I was told no Manager is present, I was then handed over to a man whom identified himself as Hamp Johnson, stating he was the Manager and chef, he stated his Lobster Rolls are always fresh and we left the restaurants without saying anything to anyone. I requested a refund for the 1 bite of Lobster Roll and was told if my wife hadn't taken a bite he would possibly refund that, he then offered to refund the plastic infused baked beans and told me that he knew this was going to happen and he has already told the Managers because "I didn't come to him correct" and hung up the phone on me. I am aware you sell a Ghetto Lobster Roll, that should be as far as the ghetto goes, CLEARLY HAMP JOHNSON SHOULD NOT BE REPRESENTING MANAGEMENT OR ANY OTHER SUPERVISORY POSITION, and with plastic in the beans, he doesnt even qualify to be a chef. I KNOW THE MANAGER HERE, TALKED WITH HER ON MANY VISITS IN FACT....Unfortunately I cannot recommend this restaurant, there are restaurants aplenty at this venue, spend your money elsewhere and if you encounter Hamp Johnson, expect plenty of ghetto, plastic in your food, fishy Lobster rolls and a shizzy attitude from all, price tag for $62.12 GOOD LUCK. I did file a formal...

I was so excited to try this place, and I’m incredibly disappointed. We ordered a lobster roll, the ribs and brisket, and a few sides. We decided to eat outside, and as soon as my boyfriend sat down, his chair nearly snapped in half.

When we finally received our food, it was cold—not lukewarm, cold. I brought it back up to the counter, and the staff offered to remake it. A team member brought the new order out to us, and somehow, it was even colder than the first one. At that point, I went back and expressed all our frustrations to the girl at the front.

We were simply ready to move on and asked for a refund. That’s when everything went downhill. The employees walked the opposite direction from me at the counter and were scrambling to get someone on the phone. We also found out they don’t require managers to be on-site. Apparently, they were all on vacation and unavailable.

Both my boyfriend and I work in restaurant management, and there’s no nice way to say this: the owners are setting their employees up for failure. It’s sad to see them run their business run this way.

After waiting for quite some time while the staff tried to contact multiple people—none of whom were any help and one hung up on her like it wasn’t important —they told us they could only issue a partial refund. That’s where I lost it. I explained everything again, because clearly they weren’t getting it. Their responses were: “The chair isn’t our problem. It was already broken.” (Then why not remove it?) “We can’t refund the lobster roll because a bite was taken out of it.” (How else am I supposed to know it’s cold and inedible?) “We don’t have permission to refund the whole order.” (But somehow you had permission to refund half?) “If you have a problem, I’ll take your number for a manager to call you.” (Simply ridiculous) Do you want any sides to go. (Absolutely not after that)

We ended up going to Grillsmith, which was 100 times better than this place. I will never recommend this restaurant if this is how they treat customers and run their business. I sure hope someone follows up tomorrow and does the right thing, because I’m not paying for food or an...

Seriously, when is Lakeland going to get good BBQ. This place, like many others in Lakeland truly was disappointing. If you like sauce, then definitely come here, because the meat lacks smoke flavor and the brisket was trying to eat Saharan sand with molasses on it. The ribs were mediocre at best along with the pulled pork, again both lacking that distinctive smoke flavor. At least the pulled pork was juicy, that was about the only thing it had going for it. The beans tasted like they just opened up a can of Bush's baked beans, dumped it in a bowl, threw some pork and brisket in it and called it a day. Definitely nothing to write home about. The sauces were definitely delicious though, especially their Carolina mustard sauce. It was my favorite out of the 3 I tried, but they were all good. Definitely need some legit BBQ around here. 4 Rivers is going to open up soon, so maybe they'll save us from the disaster of places like this. Here's hoping.

Note: I did not try any of the lobster rolls, but I'm going to definitely try them next time. Hopefully they stand up to other lobster rolls I've had. When that time comes I'll reevaluate and write another review. In closing, it seems like such a weird combo, be it lobster and BBQ. Maybe the developer of this here joint took his two favorite foods, came up with a theme and rolled with it. I just wish they did better research on how to make good BBQ. Anyways, here's hoping for...