Dickey's Barbecue Pit — Restaurant in Springboro

First and foremost, up until today, my wife and I have always enjoyed this Dickies. We are regulars, for dine in, carry out, and delivery. We’ve had to rely on Dickies for a considerable amount of our meals because my wife is 25 weeks pregnant, with gestational diabetes. In other words, she needs a diet that’s very sufficient in protein.

We’ve ordered Dickies weekly for the last several months, all good standing.

Today however has taken a 180. Wife orders carry out, I pick it up, make the 20 min drive home assuming all is good as usual. Upon wife opening her brisket meal, she discovers there are 4 “slices” of brisket which were all fatty end pieces and burnt. In other words, it was inedible

Wife calls and speaks with Maddie. After explaining the situation, Maddie apologizes and offers to make another brisket plate for me to pick up. I agree to go back out in the 20 min one way commute, since we ordered early enough.

Upon arriving, the associate there asked why I was back. I told her it’s because my wife called in for a new brisket because the other was inedible. She asks in further detail what specifically was wrong with it. I’m all for transparency, but we already went over it with Maddie, so I don’t know why I was essentially interrogated. I go into further detail by explaining it was only end pieces and mostly fat. She hands me the new order, without saying a word….much less an apology. You can cut the tension through air. Never felt unwelcome there before now.

I SHOULDVE looked in the new container, because it was replaced with RIBS! Suffice it to say, my hormonal, pregnant wife is furious because she already can not have pork, so to be duped a 2nd time was exponentially devastating to where now my wife and expecting child are going hungry for longer…after waiting an extra hour for me to get there and back a 2nd time. No way in Hell, I’d go back a 3rd time (and yes, they suggested we come back again). Maddie already left. What’s funny is they did not offer to outsource to delivery and wife asked if we could get it delivered, the associate, Ben stated “I would, but manager doesn’t want to”. I know they use door dash and they have our info, so why they didn’t offer is beyond me.

I will not trust this dickies location anymore. I’d rather go to South Lebanon which is double the commute but least there’s a chance that 1) They’d take pride in the quality meat they cut; 2) If they get an order wrong, I won’t be hounded and glared at when I pick up the reorder 3) That they’d be able to tell the difference between Brisket and Ribs.

I’m surprised by the lack of sympathy and professionalism of handling a situation, especially when my wife and upcoming child are involved.

To the franchise owner, I hope your staff generally treats your customers way better than how my wife and myself...

Update (12/27/18): 4.5 stars. Decided to check the place out again last week for improvement. It was a total 180. Great service this time around and met the owners in person. Everyone was friendly. Food tasted way better. My wife had the chicken and ribs and she was impressed. It was very juicy and tender. I tried the brisket and kielbasa and they were better: moist and flavorful. The fried okra was on point, mac n cheese and cole slaw were delicious. Definitely recommend this place now. They continue to improve so that’s a definite win.

I stopped by again today for more brisket and chicken. Yum!

Update: I gave an extra star (from 3 to 4 stars) due to the manager reaching out to me and remedying the problem. They are trying to improve staff which is good. They are overall trying to improve the food and staff services. Will try this place out again in a few months.

Original post: Came in around 7pm Friday for the first time. Line wasn’t too long but service was very slow. There was a customer who had been waiting for 30 minutes (pick up / take out order?) for her food and I overheard one worker telling another coworker that she had been waiting for 30 minutes for her food and the guy finally started preparing her food. Wow! Another guy who was handling the side dishes was flustered with all the orders (it wasn’t THAT busy). Not a very good first impression. We tried the brisket (bland), kielbasa (undercooked), pork ribs were salty which i liked but wife thought it was too salty. Side dishes were pretty good. Free ice cream was nice and were able to make our own root beer float. I’m from Texas and there isn’t anything around Ohio that comes close to Texas brisket so I thought this would be good since it apparently originated from Texas. Nope. Not good or close enough. I preferred City BBQ over this place. Have yet to find a place that can come close to Rudy’s...

Dickey's BBQ. Springboro location. Recommended by a BBQ eating friend @Bob Keller.

I love Ribs. I have eaten ribs in 3 countries, and in at least 10 states. Ohio ribs are not usually in the ranking when it comes to really good BBQ ribs. That said when my BBQ places closed recently, due to covid related problems we think, I decided to make the long drive south of town to Dickeys in Springboro.

The place is a little hard to find as the sign is small and it looks like vacuum store from the street. When you come in you get the feeling of lots of stainless steel and plastic wood looking booths giving you a sterile "national chain" feel. HOWEVER. When you take a few steps in the place has charm and atmosphere and the aroma gives you a big hug.

While I was not greeted on entry and was the only person in the place when I did step up to the window 3 people we there, smiling (behind those masks) and cheerfully asking if they could help me.

People were very nice the place extra clean and the food? Well, EXCELLENT.

Top 10 Ribs that I have ever eaten and the best in Dayton for sure. The Ribs are huge and tender. Real fall off the bone meat. The sauces were excellent I got Hot spicy and sweet ( no rubs available i saw).

Very happy and will return. This would be a five star review except for no one helped be decide how to order. No one asked if i'd been there before, they kind of assumed i know what they had, what the menus items were, how they were served ect. Not a bad thing I could have asked more questions ....just an afterthought. don't get be wrong The service was great for a walk up restaurant for sure four more questions and could have been world class. Instead of walking out with a slab and a half of ribs i most likely would have double the cost of my order with suggestions of what they thought was good there had been any suggestion...