Porter's Real Barbecue — Restaurant in Richland

I was a first at the red food truck in Jon Dam Plaza. I'll never forget my first bite of that literal mouth watering brisket and the turkey that almost brought a tear to my eye from its succulent taste. Then your success prevailed and your team was able to expand into a building in the parkade just across the street from your original location. More original ideas with you introducing beautifully crafted monthly bbq sauces, Guy Fieri getting to visit...and then things changed. Constant out of town vacations away from the business, suddenly it's to labor intensive to put out your own bbq sauces, your giveaways are only going to donors or close family friends (that wasn't hard to figure out) You expanded WAY to fast and the quality is horrendous now compared to your red food truck. My friends are just about a year away from announcing their own local bbq that will blow you away in a local competition that would probably devastate you, emotionally and mentally speaking. I wanted to be a life long customer and now I'm back to a real Tri City staple of bbq, Baby J's. Not to mention one of your original staff members bad mouthing me when I made an attempt to apply with your establishment. Only to find out 2 weeks later it was because she was saving the position for a friend, a friend who lasted 2 months. Professionalism, authenticity, and pride do not describe this restaurant anymore and it is so disappointing coming from an original...

The strip mall restaurant is in a nice new building. I write honest reviews and not maliciously crafted to cause harm. Here is our opinion of the experience. The staff was helpful and restaurant was clean. The tables and cheap uncomfortable chairs don't augment a great ambiance. My beloved and I visited today and entered through the north double doors. You are in a cattle chute style access to a bar where the nice staff help with the simple and very small menu. I do mean small because they have brisket, pulled pork, sausage or chicken. A few sides. We chose the pulled pork, hawg sandwich and gouda mac n cheese. The pulled pork was tender. The hawg sandwich had pulled pork and sausage topped with bacon (hope my Cardiologist isn't reading this). The barbeque was served hot and a nice sized serving. This is NOT PIT BBQ. No rub, no flavor, no char and no smokey goodness. Just bland meat. The sauces were the same. We like the taste of taste and in our humble opinion $40 was way over priced for tasteless meat and bad sauce or Heinz 56 or whatever it was. Oh the fountain drinks are good...gouda mac n cheese was bland, no salty flavor, hardly any cheesy love and as for gouda, is gonda. The house pickles were fresh and crunchy. We'll have to drive to Jim Bob's Chuck Wagon in Lacy for some real BBQ. So 3 stars for cleanliness, nice staff and quick...

Decided to try and support the local economy by ordering delivery from Porters BBQ (Richland)...and was unexpectedly surprised at the LACK of customer service we experienced. We will not being going back! Bad time to start losing customers!!!

Below is my experience...

-5pm- called and placed and paid for our order for delivery. Was told it would be delivered by 6pm.

-6:30pm- nothing had arrived so I called 4 times and didn't get an answer.

-7pm- finally got a hold of the manager Alex who said that the driver was lost looking for the order before ours. She said she'd call us right back.

-7:20 pm- I called back after hearing nothing. Alex (manager) said that the driver was still lost, so she had remade our order fresh and added a dessert and was on her way.

-7:28pm-Lost delivery driver shows up and gives us our COLD, greased soaked cardboard carrier with our order that was 2 1/2 hrs cold.

-8pm- Alex (manager) never shows up with the new order so I leave a message asking for someone to call me back in the morning.

-next day-

-12pm noon- call Porters and speak to Alex (manager) who says she's sorry and will call the owner to see what she can do.

-12:30pm- Alex (manager) calls back and says sorry the owner says we can't give you a refund, but when you come in again we can give you a free dessert. I told her unfortunately I WON'T be...