G’s BBQ — Restaurant in Starke

Let me preface by saying we are long time G’s customers. We dined at the Orange Park location many times and even got our Thanksgiving turkey from G’s. That being said, I was so excited for the Starke location to open as we now live in Ocala. We went on Tuesday 10/1 and were seated around 3:45, hoping to beat the dinner rush. Our daughter and son-in-law from Jacksonville were meeting us for dinner. Our server E-Nijah came up without introducing herself and asked what we wanted to drink. We gave her our drink order and by the time she returned our daughter had arrived. She put our drinks on the table and walked away, never asking what they would like to drink. When she returned she asked what we wanted to eat and we asked if we could order them drinks first. When placing our order our son-in-law asked for street corn in addition to the Piggy Pile. She came back to the table a few minutes later and asked again what he wanted. Our food comes out after a 40 minute wait and is delivered by another server as E-Nijah can’t seem to step away from her Mother’s table (she introduced herself and we overheard) to take care of her other tables. I was shocked by the portions! I had 3 TINY slices of turkey the size of my thumb. The kids sliders had more pork than the adult pork platter. My son’s order was wrong, he ordered and sandwich and got a platter. Everyone’s drink was empty. We had no silverware. No BBQ sauce. And the street corn was never ordered. We felt horrible telling this other server the things we needed as we shouldn’t be her responsibility. E-Nijah brings over the street corn, slams it on the table, and walks away back to her mother’s table. We saw her grab the sweet tea pitcher and thought she was going to get us refills finally, but sadly, it was for her mother. I tried to get her attention and when we made eye contact she turned around and walked into the kitchen. After the meal was over, she finally asked if we needed refills but only refilled 2 drinks before walking away again. She brought our bill and the most attention she paid to us all night was while my husband was choosing the tip on the machine, she literally stood at his shoulder and watched. During the time we were dining she had another table sat and was so concerned with what was going on at her Mother’s table, they got up and left because they were never greeted. Another table was sat in their place and they had to ask for a server. When the other servers told E-Nijah she needed to get the drink order she couldn’t be bothered with it so another server ended up taking care of them. Being a long time customer I know that is not how Mr. Gary likes his restaurant run. We were severely disappointed and apologized to our daughter and son-in-law for making them drive over an hour for a very...

My wife and I went tonight 11/09/2024 with our 10 month old son, walked in and the Hostess was more worried about everything else but actually what she was there to do (we seemed like we inconvenienced her). She wanted to put us at a high top (with an infant), we declined and asked for a table. She said hang and went to talk to someone. She came back and said she had to bust the table that just left, which was fine, it accommodated the three of us. We sat down and asked the waitress for a high chair for the baby (10m old), she said they had a booster seat (with no seatbelt) because they only have one high chair and it was already in use. We said we would try the booster seat but ended up going to the car and grabbing his stroller, so he was safe. Meanwhile, a drink was spilled on the table and at least three front of the house employees walked by, looked at the mess while I was trying to clean it up and didn’t offer to assist with the spill. Our waitress had walked by and asked if we had decided on food and if I would not have said anything, the mess would still be there. After it was cleaned up, we ordered fried pickles $8.00, the pulled pork plater $14.50 with Mac n cheese, fries, extra meat (+$2.00 & the pulled pork Big Deal at Sonny’s more meat than what we paid EXTRA for) and side of toast $4.00 to split between my wife and I. When the food finally came out the portions were not worth the money. The pork was burnt, full of fat (also cold), fries were cold and the Mac n cheese was cold and burnt, the toast was cold and so small that you couldn’t make a sandwich out of. We had to ask for refills, took 30 mins to get our check. She read us off the total of the bill (we never seen and itemization prior to our card being ran). The handheld machine never left her hand except for me to add a tip. I had to ask for a receipt and noticed it wasn’t our bill. The manager on duty took almost another 20 minutes to figure how to refund my money and made it seem like it wasn’t her problem to handle this (which we felt like was VERY unprofessional). When I asked why the refund receipt was different than what I paid, she could not tell me right off hand (the difference in price ended up being the tip). After all that, they still charged me full price for what we had. I would NOT recommend it and will not be back which sucks because Starke is a small town with not very many sit down restaurants. We are bummed because we were excited to try it even though the reviews on...

Ate there for lunch 12/12/20. Food was good, wasn’t great. Service was pretty good. Questioned some of the food quality. We ordered in front, a big order too, got our drinks, sat down, all that took 3 minutes about. Then the food was there. Came out extremely quick. It was clear all the food was made well in advance, some of it you have to like the meats and stuff. But the Mac and cheese tasted like it was days old, like the cheese wouldn’t cling to the noodles. It’s like when you eat fettuccine Alfredo for dinner at Olive Garden or something and you have left overs and take it home then heat it up the next day in the microwave and like all the sauce is gone and there’s just that butter glaze on the noodle and kinda bland tasting. That’s what the Mac and cheese tasted like to me. Like it was made a day or two before, refrigerated and then heated back up. Now again I understand they make large batches of this stuff in advance and they have to, but I expect things like French fries to be made to order and ours clearly had not been. They had definitely been pre made and sitting there a while. Order was out in 3 minutes maybe less, no way fries could’ve been made fresh, if they were, would’ve been piping hot and they were barely like warm.

The pulled pork sandwich was good and I liked their sweet bbq sauce. I don’t want it to seem like I’m being hard on the place. It was our first time and the food was good but not great. I think it’s a great spot if you are on the go and you need a meal quick and need to be in and out quickly, then definitely try it.

On a side note, please update website and menu board at the restaurant that advertises that potato special with the nacho cheese I. It, we saw that listed online on your website and it was on the board when we got there. Was the main reason we came too try your place and the lady said “oh we don’t have nacho cheese anymore, they need to change the sign.” Let down by that

Not a deal breaker, I’m sure we will be back to try other things, the ribs mainly. It’s still One of the better bbq places in the jax area you can try...