Naples Rib Company — Restaurant in Long Beach

We've passed and wanted to go to this restaurant for at least a year. Every time we pass it, we've already eaten, don't have the time, or it's just not in the budget.

Sunday (9/24/17) was different. I went to pick up Mia and headed straight to Naples Rib Company hungry and excited. The experience was so bad, I'm going to break it down into sections.

Valet: As we pull into a half full lot, there's a valet who tells me to self-park. Hmm. Ok. Then he tells me that it's $4 to park there. Didn't matter that I self-parked or that the lot NEVER got full. To add insult to injury, he never gave me my change. Strike 1.

Service: After trying to find a decent place to sit (some of their tables and booths are placed awkwardly near columns or in the middles of walkways), we end up in the bar seating. Cool! I wanted a drink anyways. Our server was only attentive for the first 10 minutes of our visit. There after, he was at the POS (Point of Sale) every time I looked for him. Some times we waited upwards of 10 minutes to get what we needed. The table next to us faired the same. Although he was "helpful" with the menu, his suggestions were bad and the problems with our food were mostly not fixed because he took so long to come back to ask if everything was ok. SNEAK PEAK.: Everything was not ok... STRIKE 2

Food: I get it. Everybody has their idea of what BBQ is supposed to taste like. But I'll tell you what, this wasn't it. Most of it wasn't even cooked the way they described it.

-The Good: The BBQ Chicken and Sausage (once it was warmer than room temp) were both pretty good. On par or slightly better than expected.

-The Bad: -- Meat: Besides not being even SLIGHTLY smokey, the flavor of everything other than the two mentioned above were bland and lack luster at best. Drowning them in their BBQ sauce didn't make it any better (more on that later). My sausage came out just slightly warmer than room temp. The tri-tip (which I was told was Medium at most) was medium well at the rarest part and well done/dry at the ends. Ribs...how sad that a place with "Ribs" in their name serves this... Let's say that I've had frozen, then deep fried ribs at Albertsons with better texture and flavor than both the Baby Back and Beef ribs we had.

--Sides: Oy... The Gluten Free Rice (not sure why you'd need to put wheat in rice, but whatever) had zero flavor. It was a barely salty, slightly oily bowl of over cooked rice. Mashed Potato and Mashed Sweet Potato resembled the slime the 7 year old girl in the next table over brought to dinner. The texture was very much gluey. And I'm 80% certain the Sweet Potatoes came out of a can and were mixed with a big mixer until smooth. Baked Beans also tasted like they came out of a can. The "Roasted Vegetables" were ok. Ironically, they looked stir fried and had a lot of "juice" and no grill marks.

Sauce: Holy Vinegar, Batman!!! Personal preference, I like my BBQ sauce to have heat from cayenne and not bite from Vinegar. This sauce was verging on cloyingly sweet too. STRIKE 3

I FAILED AS A PATRON: We should have sent everything back, but we were famished and I didn't feel like making a scene. It wasn't like our server was around enough to find out we weren't happy. He did swap out my rice and microwave my sausage. Thanks...

Without a shadow of a doubt, we could have MADE the dishes better at home and saved the $110...wait...$115. I forgot my "valet".

BTW, Mr. Valet was busy on his phone and disappeared when we got to the lot and was gone the entire time we packed up and pulled out.

P.S. The bartender thought it was a good idea to talk about politics. Seriously, dude? That's like Bartending 101, don't talk about Politics or Religion. STRIKE 4 (Can a Baseball team be Yellow...

Where to begin? Our party of 5 arrived at 12:30 PM on Sunday afternoon to celebrate my wife's birthday and my employee's wife's birthday. His daughter also joined us for the meal.

We were greeted by a gentleman who turned out to be our server by the name of Chris. More on Chris later. We started with two appetizers for the table: A brick of onion rings and an order of potato skins.

Both appetizers were excellent, but the onion rings I have to say were the best I've ever tasted. And I don't say that lightly. They were up against some extremely tough competition. My memory from years ago. Before this experience the best "brick style" onion rings I've ever had were way back in the day, at Tony Roma's, and I am talking late 70's or early 80's before Tony Roma's went down the tubes. The batter was light and tasty and made for crispy rings; they were not greasy or excessively oily at all. And they were cooked in fresh oil with no change in flavor caused by the oil.

The rings are served with some of what my wife called "perfect barbeque sauce." She loved the sauce, she said it was tangy without being too sweet or spicy. She ordered the Luau Shrimp which were just right, lightly marinated and cooked to perfection. My employee had the brisket sandwich which was a hearty and robust helping of tender, lean, delicious brisket of beef. He really enjoyed that but surprisingly, he was only able to eat about two-thirds of his sandwich. I was surprised because he usually finishes everything he orders and then part of his wife or daughter's meal as well. Kudos on the large helping of brisket!

His wife and daughter shared a prime rib sandwich which they both raved about, the prime rib was cooked just right and tasted great. I saved the best for last.

My baby back ribs were outstanding! Tender and moist, the meat practically fell off the bones. They were succulent yet lean and cooked perfectly. The ribs were a nice golden brown. I ordered off the lunch menu which consists of 6 or 7 bones (I received 7) and two sides. I went with the barbequed beans and the garlic mashed potatoes.

The beans are a "must-try" item, I am told they are baked in Naples' special sauce to give them a unique flavor that infuses the beans with their wonderful sauce. And again, their sauce is special! Often times sauces can be too spicy or sweet, or contain an over-abundance of artificial smoke flavor which you will not find here at Naples. Chris, our server, told us that the garlic mashed and the barbeque beans are the top two sides in sales. I can see why.

Finally, as a thoughtful gesture, Chris brought out two generous pieces of "Double Chocolate Suicide Cake" with a birthday candle in each for our wives. As full as we all were we still managed to polish off the two pieces of scrumptious cake.

As for the service, Chris was attentive and fun without being intrusive. He was the perfect waiter anticipating our needs and timing with the skills of a pro.

With great food and service and a comfortable atmosphere at very reasonable prices we had the perfect birthday celebration meal. Thank you Naples! We are looking forward to many more years of birthday celebrations and other occasions at your fine establishment. I didn't mean to write such a lengthy review but I was carried away by the...

I ordered my take out Easter Dinner online last Wednesday and received a confirmation email. However when I arrived they told me that they ran out of turkey, of which I ordered double because red meat isn’t something some in my family eat. Unfortunately they had no turkey, did not inform me in advance, did not save me some even though I ordered and reserved it in advance. They offered a substitution of Tri tip, brisket or chicken, none of which is acceptable. With this lock down, a nice Easter dinner isn’t much to ask for. But because they didn’t honor my reservation, this is just another disappointment at a time when all we ask for is a nice Easter Dinner at home. I am very disappointed.

Oh, I ordered it last week AND PAID IN ADVANCE. I am very very disappointed in Naples Rib Company in their lack of preparation and ability to take care of their customers who planned, ordered and paid for in advance.

UPDATE: I received a very nice email from the owner of Naples Rib Company:

Thank you for sharing this with me. I do wish to apologize for last night's order/experience. We simply ran short of meats near the end of the orders. We did "the math" and even ordered 20% than we thought we needed. Somehow we fell short. This was the first time we sold this Easter TOGO menu and our inexperince showed. I will be issuing you a full refund and again want to say I'm sorry for it happening. Please feel free to give me a call if you wish to discuss this further.

The prompt response and credit showed that they do listen to customer feedback, and if there are any problems, they are on top of it, which is exactly what any customer can hope for when something bad happens. I am updating my rating because of this, however, I still wish they would have communicated earlier in the day when they knew they didn't have enough food as to prevent a surprise. There were many angry customers all talking poorly about the business (I was one of them at the time) because of the last minute surprise that was thrown upon us. It turned out that not only were they out of turkey, they also ran out of prime rib too. But, they did the best they could to make it right, and for...