Sam's Bar-B-Que — Restaurant in San Jose

I have been wanting to review this place for a long time but being partially a vegetarian, I thought it would be wrong to judge this place based off what I have eaten/tried so far. So I decided to put down a review based on what my husband thinks of this place. To be more accurate, we took my brother to this place to get a validation for my husband's choice!

OK Soo..If my husband had his way, this is where we would be eating every day of the week!! He loves loves loves this place (trust me, those are way less loves than his appreciation of this place).

Ambience and Staff: The place is cosy and nice, the cutest part is that there is a toy train constantly running along the sides of the roof (Choo Choo!!) The staff is friendly. Everytime we have visited, there was not much of a line and getting seated is pretty easy too. The restaurant has an outdoor as well an indoor seating, so you can pick what's your comfort zone.

Ordering: Placing an order is pretty easy too, you go to the counter and get your bill. The cashier will give you your order number, you take that and pick a seat for yourself. They bring your order to the table.

Food: For their vegetarian burger, I would give them a 2/5, the veggie patty was tasteless, there were no sauce inside the burger and it felt really dry. I got the burger with side of macaroni which was great!

Brisket: 10/10 My brother and husband both got the brisket and they would not let me rate it any less than 10/10. The meat was great, cooked well, the portion was great and the sides were amazing too. This is probably the most popular dish as most of the tables within my vision.

Needless to say, I will definitely go again and maybe this time around I can give their...

I got the worst food poisoning after eating here. I had terrible diarrhea and vomited for 2 days after eating here. I arrived here around 8pm but I guess they start closing the restaurant around 8pm and not 9pm because people were cleaning up and putting stuff away as if they were closing but the sign said open. The cashier was taking the mats off the floor to I guess clean it and I should have taken that as a hit not to eat there. If the kitchen was closed I wish they would have told me that so I could have avoided getting so sick. I ordered the beef slice sandwich with chili and fountain drink. I had about two to three bites of the chili but I ate the entire sandwich which I think is what got me sick. It was tasty but dry and I had to add a lot of barbecue sauce to it. I'm not sure if it was the meat or the barbecue sauce they gave me but I do know I woke up with the worst cramps of my life and explosive diarrhea and vomiting (which is very rare for me, I've had food poisoning before but never threw up from it). The atmosphere with quaint and there were a lot of older people there and I thought it would be a great spot to bring my family but I question the cleanliness of their kitchen and why they served me food that was not safe to eat. But definitely think twice before going here especially if it's...

Overall pretty middle of the road Barbeque place, I would likely not go again.

Customer service: I could not locate a doordash account so we ended up calling to place our order. The women was very nice and said it would only take ten minutes to have our order ready.

Food: We ordered a full rack of beef ribs along with the sampler plate. We got the meals so our sides were macaroni salad, potato salad and we both also got fries (Not listed as a option on the website). The fries reminded me of frozen fries you heat up along with the potato and macaroni salad reminded me of the grocery store so we really didn't eat much of those. Meat wise The brisket was really great. The pork ribs were ok, the hot link was ok. The Beef ribs were pretty tough to eat, very chewy. The garlic bread was good and they provided a lot of BBQ sauces so that was awesome as well. Personally I might be too picky for BBQ, I really like ribs that are tender and fall off the bone. I think Smoking pig and Famous Dave's have better BBQ but nothing beats my moms ribs yet. Still on the hunt.

Atmosphere: We did do a pickup order but personally I love small places like this. Feels very homey...