Local Smoke BBQ Sea Girt — Restaurant in Wall Township

Will never come back!

A month ago, I had the displeasure of writing a poor review of my favorite local BBQ restaurant that my girlfriend and I had been previously enjoying take-out from for quite some time.

Local Smoke not only revised their menu making it more difficult to create custome platters, but they vastly downsized their portions. They attempted to fix something that was not broken.

The original review is below and it comes with a response from the manager or owner promising to look into the complaint about the downsizing. Normally, these sort of replies don't mean anything but I had thought, okay, maybe the owner will rethink the decision about reducing the portion size.

So, we tried Local Smoke in Sea Girt again this weekend. And not to much surprise, the portions remained downsized -- particularly the sides which they charge $6 for and come in these tiny cups.

Imagine ordering Hush Puppies and getting 6 for $6. That's $1 each for a tiny piece of fried dough. How crazy is that?

This saddens me. This was once a great place to order food from. The portions were reasonable for the price. The staff is always tremendous (they still are) and we loved the food so much we visited it regularly.

I would rather see Local Smoke raise its prices ever-so-slightly to match inflation rather than insult the customer by charging $6 for tiny cups of sides. $1 per Hush Puppy? That's robbery.

And please, don't respond as a manager or owner promising to look into the matter and a month later, change nothing. It would be more honest to say this is a result of inflation and nothing is going to change. This is the reason why more people no longer go to restaurants or do takeout. Too many games being played with prices and portion size. Everyone is looking for the best bang-for-the-buck when they dine out, and Local Smoke is no longer that kind of eatery.

My original review is below.

Holy downsizing!

I can't believe I am giving my favorite BBQ place a 1-star review

My girlfriend and I have been doing takeout here for the past two years and we have always enjoyed the quality of the food and service.

Yesterday, we were shocked to see that the menu has been completely revamped with some favorites taken away and combo platters becoming difficult to put together.

The worst shock came when we got our order. They downsized everything. The portions were smaller. The sides, which they charge $6 for now come in these tiny little cups. It's barely enough for two people. A huge rip-off that customers are being charged this much for so little.

Local BBQ has fallen into the same "shrinkflation" trap of other restaurants (mostly fast food and Supermarket). The prices may have not gone up but the portions have shrunk.

And while I may get some sort of generic apology from management that followed the last complaining review regarding downsizing, we all know nothing is going to be done about this. These smaller portions -- particularly the tiny sides for $6 each -- give me pause to whether I will ever order from...

Be CAREFUL when ordering not to pay extra!! they changed their menu around and if your not careful you will get ripped off.

MENU - DO NOT ORDER THE 2 MEAT and 3 MEAT OPTIONS. Just order by the pound of the different meats you want. The platters no longer come with a side so there is no reason to get them. They have worked it out for you to pay extra if you order the wrong way. They also changed sweet potato fries to an appetizer instead of a side to charge more. They stopped including cornbread.

If you don’t believe me just take a minute and do the math before you order.

FOOD - the PULLED PORK was actually not good. I was very surprised that’s usually my favorite but it just had a bad taste. The PULLED CHICKEN was very good. I was shocked that’s usually the chicken was better than the pork. I did get some bones but that happens. The SWEET POTATO FRIES were definitely burnt a little so they weren’t as good as they used to be. Burgers are overcooked and dry.

SERVICE - not great service unfortunately. The manager seemed to have no concept of the new menu and did not know how to explain it well. After ordering I asked him if I would have been better just getting by the pound but he couldn’t understand the math.

LOCATION - nice new place plenty of seating, plenty of parking.

I totally understand having to increase prices but this is not the...

Did my first takeout Saturday evening and thought the entire experience went extremely well.

It started with the online ordering which went smoothly. My girlfriend and I picked the 3-meat combo and as we went through the ordering process, we were easily able to select what sides and extras that we wanted. We completed and submitted our order and then were given a time that it would be ready.

We arrived a few minutes early and the girl at the counter told us our food was ready to go. There was a condiment station inside that allowed us to throw in napkins, utensils and various packets of toppings.

When we got home we were quite pleased that what was inside the bag was exactly as ordered.

The food was fantastic! Ribs were fall-off-the-bone. The chicken was so tender that we were able to cut ourselves pieces without using a knife. We had sides of string beans, Mac and Cheese, cornbread and onion rings which were all quite good.

It seems to me that this restaurant works better for takeout than dine-in. While there is seating to dine there, it comes across as more as a fast-food type setting than a nice sit-down restaurant. That's fine. The food is superb and we plan on doing more takeout from Local Smoke...