Tender Smokehouse Aubrey — Restaurant in Little Elm

My family visted Tender Smokehouse (Aubrey, TX) for a dine-in dinner, around 6p on 6/17/18. When I do reviews, my normal style is to provide info for "Good, Bad, and Ugly," but in this case, I really did not have any ugly to say, with very little minor bad. For dinner time, it was busy, but not too overcrowded. We were able to find a spot in the parking lot without issue. You walk through an outside sitting area - - with grass turf, cornhole games, and a pig smoker decoration - nice for families - to get to the entrance. Upon entering the line, you can view large menu boards on the wall. We had party of five, with 3 adults and 2 teenagers. With all the options, we were slow to decide and allowed several other customers to go in front of us. When we finally decided, the girls that rang us up were patient and friendly, and one even pointed out an open booth big enough for our crew to sit in. They do have alchohal available. I'm not sure if they have a dedicated drink menu, but they appeared to have 10 of their 12 taps working. I was happy to see a "cider beer" on draft tap - which I find rare. :0) The atmophere of entire restaurant is typical to many bbq places - calm, warm, and inviting. The booths are all decorated. I saw one that thanked military members for their service - I liked that. Ours had some charming old board games up for decoration. There were multiple tv's around the dining area and some booths with sports on, but no lound sound like a sports bar. It was actually very quiet for number of customers - we had no problem hearing each other during our dinner conversation. The food itself was very good. I had the "prime brisket" and sliced turkey breast with potato salad and "pinapple slaw", along with a draft "crackberry" cider. Others in our group got the ribs, the loaded baked potato, grilled cheese sandwich, and sweet potato, and drinks. Our meals came with texas toast, pickles, onions, and bbq sauce. Overall, everything was good, but the real winner was the ribs. Everyone liked them, including out pickiest eater. I also found the potato salad very good- it is a "southern" mustard style, but there is something about it I can't explain- very good. And the pinapple slaw is different- not something I'd want year round, but it had a "lightness" that was very nice for summer time. I found the pricing to be fair. I had two small portions of meat and two small sides for under $20. I found it helpful that you could purchase smaller or larger amounts of different items (by quarter pound increments for meat, and indiv or larger portions of the sides). Our bill was $112.00 before tip, which included a beer, so without the beer, you are in range for $10-$20 average per person. The worst part of entire meal was I could not get their WiFi to work on my phone, and they only have one flavor of bbq sauce (whereas most bbq have several- orig, sweet, hot, spicy, etc). However, our server did say if you purchased a bottle of sauce ($8 I believe), once it was empty you could bring back for free refills. I'm not sure if they deliver, but there was a Mini Cooper car out front with their branding on it. All in all, we really enjoyed our meal, and I will definatly be...

After hearing from multiple people that, Tender Smokehouse was amazing we decided to try it tonight. The wait wasn’t to bad. However, you get to the register to order your food only to find out if they don’t have an available table you have to wait (possibly stand by another table that a family is eating) until there is an open table for you. Then you go back to order food again. The menu is pretty basic, which is cool. Prices seem to be plush. We decided to place a to-go order (since they didn’t have any available tables) and just wait outside! The outside atmosphere is family oriented with a coupe of areas for the kid to play, throw some cornhole, or sit and have a cold beer & watch the game. When our order was ready they called our name and we brought it home. Not what we were expecting! The brisket is wagyu, really nice and tender but really lacking in flavor, maybe a 1/8” smoke ring. Having smoked many wagyu briskets before, it was way subpar on the smoke ring. The pulled pork was the most bland pork I have ever had absolutely zero flavor, period. The potatoe was massive and cooked perfect but with the very small amount of brisket (maybe 1/2C) chives and cheese, it made for a very dry entree. The sauce was not a Texas style sauce, more vinegar based than sweet, and if you are from around here (sweet is king) tangy and bitter were the key points in the flavor and even in moderation it was overpowering. The Mac n cheese was ok, chalky, dry and desperately needed salt/pepper. We were really hoping to find another BBQ joint and closer so we don’t have to drive to Marty B’s so often. We’re glad we tried it but our experience left us wondering how so many hold the bar so high for...

Look no further for excellent BBQ with exceptional service! I rarely do reviews, but this place deserves one more than any other. First, i'm not a huge fan of BBQ, but this place has the best I've had in Texas. Their moist brisket just melts in your mouth, the turkey is the most moist turkey EVER (if you can find BBQ turkey more moist than here, i swear i will edit this review, but you wont), the frito pie is to die for, their pickles and onions are the perfect accoutrement, and the banana pudding is incredible! Second, I have never encountered better customer service than I have at Tender. The only issue I ever had, was a takeout order where I ordered a 1/4lb of moist brisket and when I got home, it was actually lean brisket. I called the Aubrey location to verify my order (it could have been an accident on my part), but in fact, it was their mistake. The manager apologized and offered to bring me the moist brisket to my home, yes, you read that correctly, he brought it to my house! He also included a banana pudding! I have not seen this level of customer service in a very, very long time. Tender always ensures my family enjoys a night out, but bringing the correct brisket to my house, so that I did not miss out on my dinner? That's a whole different level...... Don't miss out on a wonderful experience, I promise you will never be disappointed...