Oak & Apple BBQ — Restaurant in Richmond

So this place has high marks on Google and I believe had four stars on Yelp so we decided to give it a try. It was a party of three on a Saturday night. The chicken wings were actually very good. Good smoke, nice and crispy and well done and the meats had a decent smoke to them.

Other than that I would not recommend much of anything and we tried almost everything on the menu spending close to $180, not including tip.. The service while friendly is very disorganized and inattentive and they were not that busy everything we had from the pork ribs which we got a half rack but three ribs were overcooked and dry and the other three were okay but nothing to write home about... The beef brisket had a huge and when I say huge I mean about a cup of fat on it that should have been trimmed and not served as part of the half pound of meat. Pulled pork was average. A good home barbecue enthusiast can make much better overall than what you get here.

Also, the corn fritters had no corn other than they were made from cornmeal. They were a little bit dry and the sauce is with them. Were horrible. The pimento cheese was third rate and the Sriracha jelly was congealed and not very spreadable. Somebody put too much pectin in this or gelatin or whatever you're using...

The mac and cheese was on the dry side and not well executed, also both types of the baked beans. The one that said it had the baked beans with burnt ends only had one small piece of meat in it and it looks like somebody emulsified a lot of fat drippings into the beans as they were very heavy and it was not in a good way..

Collard greens lacked flavor. They say they were cooked in tea but that was really not distinguishable and they needed a lot of help.. as did most of the barbecue sauces. There were a few other things we tried but you get the point by now...

The service took forever, and actually the server that originally took our order and brought our drinks was never to be seen again. Only a mix of the other two people kind of running around....

The food came out very randomly. The staff seem to be scrambling. Maybe they were understaffed. I know that's a problem in the industry but still if you're running a business you have to figure these things out... If you made it this far, you have...

I decided to order takeout from this place because it had such good reviews.

Maybe I should've actually READ them instead of just going by the score (4.6) and looking at the number of reviews (a lot), because they HAD to be based on the drinks and/ or ambiance, and not the food.

I ordered the jackfruit sandwich with "Apple BBQ" sauce (I was told that this was their sweet, mild BBQ sauce), a side of fries, and a side of mac & cheese.

(SN: I was STARVING, too... hadn't eaten all day, and I personally think that food typically tastes better when I'm that hungry, but even starvation couldn't save it.)

1. The jackfruit sandwich was SO salty, I couldn't even eat it. And the "Apple BBQ" sauce was nowhere in sight. I'm guessing that they cooked the jackfruit IN the BBQ sauce...? Chile... idk: don't get me to lying. All I know is, I expected a place where BBQ is (supposedly) their SPECIALTY to get a BBQ sandwich right... even jackfruit.

2. The mac & cheese? Had onions in it. Like, crunchy (still hard, not cooked soft) onions, and not one sprinkle of salt. I'm all about being open- minded and trying new things, but... this was almost as bad as raisins in a potato salad. #IYKYK #crimesagainstmacandcheese

3. I was hoping that the fries would be the saving grace, because how can you mess up fries, right? (Plus at this point, I was at death's DOOR with the hunger.) Wrong. They had so much salt on them, I felt like I would need dialysis by the time I finished if I ate them all.

I thought it was so ironic: the sandwich and fries had SO much salt, I couldn't choke them down, yet the mac & cheese had NOT ONE DROP. A piece of pepper... NOTHING.

It was so bad that I simply ended up going to Panera Bread, and back to Oak & Apple to get my money back. (Normally, just not going back would suffice, but... idk. Something just snapped in me a while back, and I'm sick & tired of giving mediocrity/ bordering downright criminal my money.)

I don't write a WHOLE lot of reviews, but this was SO bad, I felt that it was my calling to warn others. Save yourselves!

My honest...

I really don’t want to speak badly of a local restaurant that’s within walking distance from my apartment. However, after getting takeout I remembered why I haven’t ordered from oak $ apple for months. I bought the brisket and braut platter with Mac and pot salad. Potato salad was average, Mac and cheese had unmelted cheese on top (wasn’t served hot) and after I heated it in microwave tasted like flour (I’ve made the same mistake of not cooking the flour long enough/using too much in my own Mac/gravy/rouxs to know the taste.) The brauts were delicious. None of that would warrant the review but the brisket was way off the mark. I get that when ordering smoked meats that fat is part of the experience, but the brisket I was served had to be over 50% fat by weight. After seeing it I was reminded of a similar experience when I ordered previously. I don’t mind a little bit of fat in a good ratio to the actual muscle but I can’t bring myself to bite into only fat, even if it does practically melt in my mouth. I don’t know if I just got an unlucky cut both times or if this is how it’s supposed to be served. I just might not be able to appreciate good bbq. But for a $40 price tag (not including my 15% tip on takeout) and 20+ min wait I had much higher expectations. I probably won’t be ordering again soon but I will continue to enjoy the smell when I’m walking past! Gave service 3 stars because the server who took my order was very polite and prompt at taking my order but the food took too long for it’s quality. (I don’t mind waiting a while if it means I’m happy when...