Smokey Bones Newport News — Restaurant in Virginia

Fake burger, dirty, grimy restaurant, service extremely slow.

We went shortly before 5pm on a Saturday (today), and there were less than 15 other patrons in the restaurant. Food took an hour and 20 minutes to arrive for our table of four.

Our waitress was fine but observed all other waitresses standing around, not checking on tables. As a result, two groups (group of 8 and group of 5) left due to inattentive service after they sat for 30+minutes. On the rare occasion that a waitress was bringing food out, they were all standing by the kitchen doing nothing other than mostly talking or on their phones. Meanwhile, customers are leaving, drinks are going empty, and there is no reassurance or updates as to why things are taking so long. There were two tables behind us that never got busted, and they were like that when we arrived. So now there is half-eaten food, trash, and drinks on tables for almost 2 hours.

The hostess was very absent-minded and not able to keep track of who came in first or why they were there after having already asked a few times.

We ordered 2 x bacon cheeseburgers and loaded nachos... both appeared to be a fake burger similar to a BubbaBurger that was cooked and sat around for a while, reheated and served to eat. After I tasted one because my son said it tasted gross, it was indeed a fake preformed patty that tasted as if it had been mircowaved and was chewy. Nacho chips very stale, like they were made yesterday or sat out all day.

Grime, slime, flies, and visible dirt on floors, divider wall surface tops, and male bathroom.

At one point, I went to the restroom and had to walk through a narrow space between the hostess station and handicap-accessible ramp when another employee walked in the front to start his shift. It's as if he didn't even see other people were around him, his eyes widely dialeted, and he appeared very detached from reality. I moved to the side after I realized that this guy is unaware and making no attempts to express courtesy to avoid walking into each other. It's like when a person walks through a ghost in a movie except there are no ghosts.

Recommend getting a better manager and providing better training for waitresses and staff. Encourage employees to take care and responsibility for their workplace so as to present a comfortable environment that people will enjoy and will want to return to.

Everything observed or experienced is completely preventable, and it begins with the leadership. This Smokey Bones location is in need of better leadership and better training to create better quality...

EDITED. Went in tonight for a meal aftet church, sadly the night started when we stood at the counter while the two employees were training? Finally got noticed and asked.for the booth by the window, she asked us to wait a second went in the back, came out and said follow me, she.walked us to an end booth, no window, when I pointed to the booth I had asked for, by the window, she said "its not clean" , but cleaned a few minutes later for another party, The server came took our order and took an order behind us, there we sat for 35 minutes waiting for our food , our server never came by to give us amy update, the table(s) who ordered after us were served, the restaurant was about half full another nice server (Jonathan) came by and aaked if we were okay, I said no and explained, he checked and said the manager was working on it, 3 minutes, 8 minutes later our original server showed, apologizing saying they would discount the meal, the manager was personally working on the order and it would be out any ninute we said no thank you we have someplace to be, walked to the counter and asked for the manager, she came out and I explained, she looked confused thinking we had gotten our order, then tried to say they got slammed with a big party and were trying to catch up, because they were short staffed the big party left while we were waiting for our meal, The birthday crew, I then said please don't use that when other orders were comming out who ordered, she then said our order takes longer because of all the ingredients , well it would be nice to know when orderimg or have updates while we sit there they then they said our order was done and we could take it to go, I guess they didn't get it, we came in to sit and eat. The manager said I hope you come back so we can make it right, a nice gesture, but a little late. adding to review. UPDATE. Smokey Bones your automated response made me belive you might care a little bit about your customers, I did as you asked in the response immediately and here I sit still waiting on my order (response) but you were able to have me change my one star review to a NO Star review Thanks for the lack...

I went to this restaurant yesterday for the second time and I was more disappointed than the first time. My birthday was yesterday and my Fiance took me and the kids out to celebrate. It was not very busy when we came in so we assumed we caught them before the rush. Our to go order was taken and we were told 15mins. We ran a couple errands and came back and our food still was not ready. I had the whole rack of ribs and my Fiance ordered the pick three deal, the kids ordered the burger and the steak from the kids menu. When we finally received our food we checked to make sure we had everything because of the first experience we had with this restaurant, I wanted to give them another try because the looked to be short staffed the last time. Food was missing from our order and I only had a half of rack of ribs. One kid meal was missing fries and a side was missing from an entree. We went back inside and they corrected our order with nothing for the inconvenience, only to finally get home to eat and our food and it was not up to standard. My ribs were over cooked and burned on the bottom and very dry and my loaded baked potatoe was also over cooked and dry. The chicken which equaled up to half of chicken was poorly portioned for the price of everything we paid. I was really hoping to enjoy my birthday meal at this establishment but I was sadly disappointed. I will not be giving this business a third try as a paying customer. I don't know whats going on with the kitchen staff but my experience with my order yesterday was highly unfavorable and disappointing. I will not recommend this establishment in the future nor will I be returning. We might have saved money and had better quality of food at Golden Corral. My Fiance also tipped the nice fellow who took our order, the staff in the front of the house was very helpful and pleasant, but the food was not worth the money. UPDATE: This business replies to their reviews with no intention on trying to right their wrong. No one has reached out to me yet. Do not waste your money. Worst birthday...