Smoke Brewing & BBQ — Restaurant in Lee's Summit

Shocking lack of professionalism and accountability — do not book your event here.

We had our rehearsal dinner in the Barrel Room at Smoke and the overall experience was disappointing and insulting. Despite communicating with Lanni beforehand, we had to ask for every basic need during our event: for the food to be brought out, drink tickets (which my husband had to tear off, count out, and distribute himself), had to turn the projector on for our slide show, ask for a knife and plates for our cake, and ask for containers for leftover food, which we also had to pack up ourselves.

To make matters worse, the appetizers were late, so guests stood around for the first 30 minutes with no food. From the photo I’ve included, you can see food wasn’t served until just before 8pm, and our appetizers were supposed to be ready when we got there at 7:30. Most of our guests waited even longer for drinks since the bartender had to help prepare the food. Lanni said she’d check in during our event, but never showed. This level of disorganization and lack of service was unacceptable - especially given the $300 room fee and mandatory 20% gratuity.

After our honeymoon we attempted to share feedback privately. We were met not with professionalism or accountability, but hostility and a barrage of false accusations. Lanni responded by deflecting and inventing an entirely fictional version of our event, claiming our guests were belligerently drunk and rude. It was an outrageous attempt to rewrite reality. Lanni accused us of being “young and drunk,” a characterization so inaccurate it would be laughable if it weren’t so offensive. Our guests were all over the age of 30, our pastor was in attendance, and not a single person had more than a drink or two - a detail she knew since we used pre-counted drink tickets. She even went so far as to accuse my husband of being drunk right then, while on the phone with her.

We then spoke with a manager, Will, who admitted our group was fine and confirmed what we suspected: Lanni had double-booked that evening, and the disorganization was due to poor planning on their end. He also agreed that service at Smoke has declined. He had the other owner, Josh (Lanni’s husband), call us, who only doubled down on Lanni’s false accusations and gaslighting. Josh even told my husband it took “everything he had to remain cordial” simply for us voicing warranted disappointment.

This is not an isolated event. It’s a pattern. The business model Josh and Lanni have at Smoke and Vetta is simple: cut corners, smear anyone who speaks up, and bury honest reviews in an attempt to protect their reputation. It’s unethical, unprofessional, and insulting. We used to be regulars, but Smoke and Vetta have lost our business, as well as every one of our guests’. There’s no excuse for how we were treated - only a warning: believe the...

Very noisy place - single open dining room (with cold air flooding in from the unbuffered front door), concrete floor, flat ceiling, no sound baffles anywhere... if that matters to you. Out come the Etymotic ER20s. My wife and I shared a half slab of St Louis-trimmed pork ribs and a "Beef 3.0" platter (sliced brisket + pulled brisket + burnt ends). At $16/half slab (with fries, slaw, etc) or $29/full slab these are among the more expensive ribs in the region. The Beef 3.0 (with fries, slaw, etc) is a good value at $15. The ribs were perfectly tender - bite clean off the bone - and very tasty with good smoke, but I wished for a bit more rub. I think they would do well in any regional competition. The sliced brisket was above average - tender, beefy, and modest smoke ring. Pulled brisket - you don't see this often, but it was very good. Theses are 2-3" shreds pulled from the well-cooked point end that present somewhat less smoke, less bark, and less rub, but still show off the pitmaster's skill. Sadly, the burnt ends were just not very good. (Again, my tutorial on real burnt ends: Great burnt ends start with the point end of the brisket which should be slow-smoked to tenderness, then generously re-seasoned with rib rub, and smoked again 3-4 hours to get "burnt" - heavily smoked with a pronounced bark and practically melting in your mouth due to the collagens completely breaking down.) Like several other joints, Smoke appears to have just cut the flat end into cubes - not nearly smoked or tender enough. Definitely a treatment that would fail any KCBS competition. We had plenty of food to bring home for at least one more serving. The sauces are hand-crafted (note the flecks of spices and herbs). I prefered the spicy sauce. The regular/mild sauce seemed to have nutmeg or some other non-traditional additive that I didn't care for. The mild sauce is the schmeer on the left. It appears to have more of a molasses base. Regardless of taste, these are THE BEST looking sauces I've ever had in front of me. ever. This place is also a microbrewery. I'm not competent to provide beer reviews so order a flight and take your chances. Neither the online nor print beer menus actually attempt to describe the characteristics of their brews. I find such descriptions very helpful and most breweries proudly provide them. When asked, our server was unable to elaborate beyond the ABV/IBU data provided on the menu. And I'm already a pretty good reader so that...

PSA PSA!!!! I want to 1st start out by saying I have NEVER in my life received such disrespectful and blatant service at a restaurant or any establishment!

I HOPE everybody sees this..

Honestly, there is so much I can rant about but I’ll try and keep it as simple as I can. After sitting for an hour and a half and only receiving a partial of what we ordered I offered to just pay for the drinks/food that my fiancé and I (including our 2 youngest children) had during that time. At 1st the waitress and I assume, one of the restaurant supervisors said OK and agreed to get the receipt. Instead of getting that we were approached by an older woman and odious man who I assume were upper management that came up and asked what the issue was..

I explained we were waiting for an hour and a half and we all were getting restless and would rather just pay for what we received and this is where it starts!

The man insisted it was not that long and started to treat me as if I committed a crime because I didn’t want “my” plate anymore that was never brought out until I told them I wanted to cancel it. He put on a show for the whole restaurant to see because he wanted to act like he was doing something credible. He also wanted to speak on my parenting skills as I was holding my 2 yr old through this whole situation. We exchanged some words, he threatened to call the police on me.

The wife or older lady tried to confirm to me she didn’t want us to feel like we weren’t welcomed. I couldn’t get either of their names and after she finally backed him up from in front of us my family and I got up and left without any hesitation or further issues. We are a black family and I pray this isn’t that but now that I’m going through the reviews I’m not the first and it’s more than a couple stating similar treatment.

This place is disgusting and I dont recommend to anybody. I hope whoever has invested in this or runs this establishment realizes the individuals they have in charge are going to have this place plummet! Only a...