Sonny's BBQ — Restaurant in Lakeland

My wife and I have been going to Sonny's in North Lakeland on and off for years. Several years ago we decided to stop going due to poor service and bad food. After about a year of not going to Sonny's we decided to try it again after some friends encouraged us to go back and try it. We were pleasantly surprised and have been going to Sonny's at least once a week and at time twice a week. We found a great waiter in Dwight and food was much better. After approximately two years now of weekly dinning, we had an extremely bad experience and may not go back. When we arrived last night (1/28), I requested Dwight as our server and was told it would be a 20 minute wait. There were plenty of open tables around the restaurant even with the covid distancing that the location as implemented. I asked if we could be seated in another area and have Dwight wait on us and was told no. The hostess was young and started getting an attitude regardless of what I said. I asked if we really had to wait 20mins when there was no one else in line and the place was 3/4 empty. She was not helpful or open to even asking anyone if we can be seated. I asked for a manager and she stomped off. The situation escalated quickly, but thought she should have been more helpful and open. I would not want someone like her to be the first contact of my business for visitors. After many minutes of waiting on someone to attend to our request, the manager came out and proceeded to explain why we had to wait and could not be seated if we wanted Dwight as our server. They told me that many people come in and request him all the time and that it was not fair to the other servers. I told them it was not fair to us as patrons to not meet our request due to no one in line nor was there anyone new coming into the restaurant along with many empty usable tables outside of the covid held tables. I asked the manager if she was willing to let us leave due to not seating us and having Dwight wait on us and she said it was up to us if we did not want to wait for 20mins then we could leave. My wife and I left the restaurant and went two blocks to Smokey Bones and had a great BBQ dinner with great service. I am not sure that anyone from the restaurant will see this post or even respond, but my wife and I after years of visiting Sonny's with a great waiter in Dwight, may not return because of a poor hostess and an unwise manager. The restaurant lost out on our patronage last night along with me telling those we know about that incident. At the end of the day, we choose where we want to spend our time and money along with what we support in the community. Not sure we will continue to support a restaurant that thinks it is not fair to respect the request of patrons in the economy we find ourselves.

Update on Feb 3, 2021: There was a response from the owner below on my original post to send an email referencing this post. I sent the email to the requested email address several days ago along with sending an email from Sonny's BBQ website email address and competed a form on that website. There has been no communication from Sonny's. I am quite disappointed at Sonny's. My wife and I are going out to eat tonight just like we do every Wednesday night, but we will be going to Smokey Bones two blocks away from the Sonny's on North 98 in Lakeland. In posting my original post, several people I know that often went to Sonny's on the northside of Lakeland said they had a similar experience with the same hostess and she was rude and not helpful. One of the folks left Sonny's and went elsewhere and hasn't been back. I hope Sonny's addresses the issue or they may find themselves in worse shape as time moves on.

Update on Feb 8, 2021 - No communication from Sonny's. We are advising all to not visit Sonny's on the Northside of Lakeland. I will not bother to post back here unless Sonny's actually does contact us. I think the reply email from Sonny's is just a computer generated response to make it look...

On my last day in Central Florida, after a refreshing dip in the pool, I decided to satisfy my hunger with some good ol’ barbecue. Not far from the hotel, I spotted a Sonny’s restaurant. I hadn’t been to Sonny’s in over 30 years, so I figured it was time for a reunion.

As soon as I walked in, the place smelled like a barbecue lover’s dream. It had that perfect balance—welcoming but not trying too hard. The five or so staff members I saw were zipping around the place like they were on a mission, each one expertly handling their stations with purpose and determination.

Within about three minutes of sitting at the bar and browsing the menu, I was greeted by a professionally cheery young woman. Since I had already had a few minutes to look over the menu, I knew exactly what I wanted: the Sonny’s Sampler, a pitmaster’s dream plate featuring pulled pork, sliced brisket, a quarter barbecue chicken, and sweet and smoky ribs. It was $18.99 and packed a whopping 1,960 calories. I also ordered the mac & cheese and homemade coleslaw, pushing the total calorie count to around 2,500.

Since I’ll be sharing this feast with my best friend while we chill poolside, it’s just the right amount of food. Of course, I had to sample everything before I left the restaurant with my takeout order. If you’re a barbecue lover like I am, you’d absolutely appreciate the consistent quality and flavor in their food and recipes.

The sides? They were just right—nothing mind-blowing, but exactly what you’d want with a solid barbecue meal.

In less than 15 minutes, the order was ready to go.

Another young woman about my age was cleaving the counter near me and the windows behind me. I asked if I could get some of her Windex to clean my glasses. She beamed at me and helped me out. It was really sweet. She gave me this most radiant smile.

The crew chief offered to compliment me with s sweet iced tea because Apple Pay wasn’t working and she had to actually run my card through old...

Absolutely horrible! We waited for about 45 minutes for a table for our party of 9. We took into consideration that they were still social distancing.(which we liked). So they were not very busy inside at all. Our waitress came over after a few minutes and took our drink orders, then finally showed up about 10 minutes later (in to-go cups, again not that we minded that either, although we were the only table with to-go cups.) She only brought us 4 straws and said she would be right back with more but she did not come right back. After waiting another several minutes we asked another waitress who was fully prepared with enough straws for a few tables at a time. Our waitress finally comes back and tries to give us straws. We then ordered our appetizers AND our food orders. The loaded tater tots and fried okra. The tater tot appetizer was not only not made as pictured on the menu (pulled BBQ, BBQ sauce, cheese, onions just to name a bit of what was in the picture) we received an order of warm, not fresh, tater tots with very little, very runny queso cheese on them and a hand full of crispy onion straws, we sent it back because it was horrible. (Didnt ask for it to be taken off our bill or anything. The waitress asked if we wanted something different instead and when I asked my husband if he did or not, we decided not to and the waitress decided to be very snotty and say shes going to take it off our bill and not charge us for another appetizer with complete attitude. Money wasn't an issue and for her to say that in the tone and attitude she did was very snotty!) The okra however was great, hard to mess up fried okra, lol. We waited and waited and our food never came out. We sat there for 1 hour and 10 minutes with only drinks and appetizers before we talked to another waitress who said we could just leave if we wanted to. SO that's exactly what we did.

Smoky bones on the other hand gladly took our business and the food was...