Monk's BBQ — Restaurant in Purcellville

Wow! Just Wow! Monk's BBQ just catered my father's 80th birthday party at Williams Gap (WG) Winery on Saturday, and the event turned out better than we could have imagined.

Wendy, Monk's catering coordinator, and Bridgette, WG's Manager teamed up to deliver party that left our guests complimenting me on our choice of venue and food. But it wasn't just about the caliber of event space or  tastiness of cuisine that was served... it was about the professionalism of the staff that both the caterer and the winery provided.

The Staff: Both Paula and Nick from Monk's worked seamlessly with Renee and Susan from Williams Gap to insure our guests were well fed and well "wined." Paula and Nick's presentation and delivery (passing hors d'oeuvres) was about as efficient and professional as it gets. And the duo of Renee and Susan did an incredible job of keeping our glasses full of WG's excellent wine.

The Venue and management: Williams Gap Winery is one of western Loudoun's newest wineries, but their Manager (Bridgette Smith) is not new to the industry. As a matter of fact, she solidified her customer care skills in our minds (and hearts) at another winery in which she also managed. Needless to say, we were sad to see her leave. BUT, when we found out she took on the lead position at Williams Gap, we couldn't wait to visit and pick up where we left off. We were not disappointed!

The Food: Monk's BBQ is well known in Loudoun County for being one of the best bbq restaurants in the entire region. But what many of their satisfied patrons don't know about is that they have a top notch catering business that rivals other established caterers in our area. In fact, they were named Best of Loudoun's top caterer by Loudoun Now. And "Now" I know why! It starts with their catering coordinator, Wendy Eversole. Apparently, she was in the business for many years before going to Monks and is well versed in the culinary wants and desires of wedding, corporate and other private event clientele. So, walking a first-timer like me through the process was cake walk for her.

She suggested I go with hors d'oeuvres ranging from spinach & bousin stuffed mushrooms caps and individual fruit bowls, to sautéed shrimp skewers and an incredibly ornate cheese board. And, once again, their catering staff presented our tasty treats with the utmost professionalism.

I know this review is pretty long-winded, but we've shown loyalty to those restaurants and wineries who've taken care of us in the past. And being creatures of habit, it was an exercise of "leaving our comfort zone" by trying out a new winery and caterer for our special event... Williams Gap and Monk's really came through for us . They both get a A++, double thumbs up, and whatever else you can think of that justifies using either, or both, for...

So I came here on Tuesday Aug 5 at around 5pm with my brother who is from out of town. I told him it was one of our favorite places and wanted to give him a good experience. I normally come here with my whole family including kids.

But it seems like this place has seriously gone downhill lately.

The front of house staff are all 16 year old kids and none of them know what they are doing. They are messing around half the time and checking phones. They act like they need a babysitter and they don't have one. When taking our order they put it in wrong and assumed 2 grown men were were going to split a burger, regardless of me saying we want 2 burgers when I placed the order. I had to fix the order or else we would have ended up have ended up missing an entire entree. It looked like an older girl was teaching a new girl how to put the orders in, but it was the older girl who messed up the order, not the new kid.

When asked if we wanted drinks we told the front of house people we were going to sit at the bar and get beer. They just said "okay".

We sit at the bar. The bartender immediately tells us off because we were apparently supposed to order the food at the bar because we were "taking up my seats." Which there was no indication of that anywhere and the front of house staff didn't say a word about it. The bartender then spent enough time on her phone that customers sitting at the bar had to track her down to get their drinks. I would have thought they'd want me and my brother to get out of here sooner, since we were taking up their seats, but I guess they weren't concerned about it anymore since they had 2-5 seats open the entire time anyway. I had been here 10 or moe times and didn't know about this ordering food at the bar rule because I never sit there, I'm always with my wife and kids.

The ice cream place upstairs (also owned by Monks) had the same issue. 4 or 5 teenagers all messing around and goofing off. Nobody watching them. And no customers to merit the number of people they had up there. We saw maybe 2 or 3 couples go in the whole time we were getting ice cream and sitting outside to eat it.

5.. Tipping before service is complete at the front of house. Never again. I tipped but apparently that doesn't mean anything here at all. If I ever come back here again I won't be tipping at the front of house register again. But I'm leaning towards just not coming back, and especially not sitting at the bar ever again. If the kitchen gets part of that I'm sorry but they need a better way to do it.

The burgers just weren't very good. They were really dry, like, really really dry. The pimento cheese was good but that was its only redeeming quality. The burgers they make at flying ace monks are way...

We chose Monks to cater our wedding due to how good their food is. Their service from start to finish was very unprofessional and left us feeling very disappointed. We had issues with the catering team from the moment we signed our contract, Wendy Eversole and Sue were super inconsistent and/or were inconsiderate when responding to us. We were constantly told No or that we had to wait to ask questions or even to pay them. Our invoices were never correct, the food was incorrect until two weeks before the wedding, our guest count was off by 40 guests and who much we wanted of everything was wrong. We paid for the bar package and were asked to supply the margarita mix, easy no problem, well it was a problem they didn’t use it. One of our special cocktails was a hurricane margarita and they didn’t use the mix, when we brought it to their attention at the wedding they said they followed the build, obviously not. We came home with three unopened bottles of margarita mix that we took. The bartenders also opened multiple bottles of red wine for no reason, all of them went bad since we didn’t get a chance to drink them. Over $200 lost in wine. Their staff yelled at members of the bride and grooms family, never once apologizing for their behavior. They made a two year old cry. They knew that family would be at the venue before the ceremony for pictures, they still yelled at the families and tried to say we interfered with them setting up the buffet, which wasn’t set up until after happy hour. So that doesn’t even make sense. There is so much more to this and we have tried talking to Monks to come up with a solution to those issues and they have blown us off. So here we are, posting reviews we never wanted to post, just trying to get the owner, Brian Jenkins, to talk with us. We tried talking to the General Manager of Monks, Charles, but he refused to speak with us. He told us he would speak with us after speaking with Wendy Eversole the head of catering. The women who told us no so many times, the women who caused the drama behind the walkthrough and wedding issues. Charles as never called us back. We have called time and time again trying to talk to him and the restaurant has refused to talk to us and asked us to stop calling. But what else should be do? No one wants to talk with us, they have read our emails, even responded back so acknowledge that there were issues caused by their staff. Don’t use this business for catering, you are setting yourself up for...