Patio Pizza & BBQ — Restaurant in Roanoke

The great potential of this restaurant's location and its airy patio is spoiled by anemic service and abysmal BBQ.

The waitress was terse and standoffish, and I had to ask another table's waitress for silverware while our entrees cooled on our table. These people blasted a local radio station's Nirvana-inspired playlist, used car commercials and all, through ceiling speakers at a volume that required my date and me to raise our voices to be heard. Some seedy, telenovela-esque soap opera rolled silently away on the TVs.

The brisket sandwich was the worst I've ever had. One is supposed to apply a dry rub to the cut and smoke the brisket fat-side-up for two hours per pound, during which time the fat will melt, and the meat will become deliciously tender and moist. Patio Pizza's brisket was at least 25% pure, gelatinous fat by volume, and I had to cut most of it off. The meat was bland and tough, and I'm almost certain that its "smoke" flavor was artificial. Their "horseradish" sauce tasted like mayonnaise with only a slight hint of horseradish and, if I hadn't known beforehand what it was, I might not have guessed that it contained horseradish at all. Their "spicy BBQ sauce" was a reddish, extremely-thin, and near-flavorless liquid that turned my brisket sandwich into something more closely resembling a soggy French dip. To top it off, the $8-sandwich comes without a side, the waitress didn't offer to sell me one, and I had to order one separately, after the arrival of my solitary sandwich on a small plate.

I could go on about the brisket, I could describe our other entree, and I could continue on about the atmosphere, but you get the picture. It was a chaotic, unrelaxing, and unsatisfying experience. If you decide to visit anyway, know that the draft beer and onion rings are just fine, but I recommend staying away from all of Patio Pizza's attempts at anything beyond typical ballpark food. I...

The food just wasn't good. The pulled pork was smoked according to the menu but we did carry out and when we opened the container it was really pale and flavorless except for this salty water that it was swimming in. It was like it had been washed and all the delicious flavor of smoked meat was replaced with chicken broth??? The beans were not cooked, hard as a rock and inedible. The coleslaw was also very watery and just pushing on the container lid made thr liquid pour out through the small vent hole, it wasn't terrible to eat though and was by far the best of the food we had. We were there a lot longer than expected and they apologized because nobody had said there was a delay (or what the delay was) so we had a lot of time to just observe. There were drinks sent back to be remade, pizza sent back to be remade (and the crust is premade frozen in packs, we watched them open a pack) , bread sticks sent back to be remade and at least one ticket that was wrong and the table had been waiting for a box so they could go for about 10 minutes when a girl came by and started cleaning their table while they sat there. She asked if they needed anything and they said they were waiting on a to go box for a half of sandwich, their server then appeared with the container and fixed the ticket then took it to get change. While the server was getting change the girl walked by and rudely dropped a small empty pizza box on top of the already packed leftover sandwich and kept walking. When their server returned with the change they handed the box back and said they didn't know why it had been dropped there and gave it to her, the server looked completely confused and just took it- no I'm sorry or thanks for coming in tonight. I won't be going back, but others seemed happy with their food and...

Had family in from out of town and thought Patio Pizza and BBQ sounded like a great option for dinner. Boy was I wrong. The 7 of us ordered and the first issue was 2 of us ordered the pulled pork sandwich which is supposed to come with onion straws and cole slaw. The only thing received on their plates was just a sandwich. When questioned, cole slaw finally was brought to the table but no onion straws. Again, when questioned about onion straws they were told they were out of them. 5 minutes later a plate came to the table with onion straws. The next issue was, 2 others in our party ordered spaghetti. When food came we only received 1 spaghetti. We waited and waited, as the rest of us were nearly finished the waitress had to be asked about the other spaghetti. And I might add, that while we were waiting, instead of tending to the customers, our waitress was busy, petting a service dog!! When she finally brought it, after nearly 20 minutes, not only was it not very hot but when I told the waitress that we would not be paying for the late spaghetti she said they were really busy (which they were not) and that she would have to ask her "manager" about not paying for the meal. The so called "manager" came to our table and we were told that they were extremely busy and short staffed and that she would have to call her manager to see what she could do. She was rude, unapologetic, and a really poor excuse for a manager. She did finally agree to take the spaghetti off the bill. The service, the "manager" and her unprofessional attitude were totally and I do mean totally unacceptable!! This family will NEVER eat at Patio Pizza and BBQ again nor will I recommend this establishment to...