Smokey Bones (BBQ & Ribs Chain)
Town Center, Virginia Beach

Our party of 8 showed up at 11:50 (the place does not accept reservations and opens at 11). We put our name on the list (we were told there would be about a 20 minute delay) and waited. And waited. And waited. If it hadn’t been a special occasion, I would have suggested we go elsewhere.

Finally, at 12:45 we were seated. There ended up being 9 in our group, but there were two waitresses assigned to us. We ordered two appetizers of cornbread with pecan butter and gave our orders in. My meal came out about 10 minutes later, as did another one of our diners. 5 minutes after that, one of the appetizers showed up. 20 minutes later, two other lunches showed up. 5 minutes later, another 4 lunches, and finally, 5 minutes after that, the final lunch showed up (and it was only a Cobb salad!!!). We had been there and hour and forty minutes before everyone had their food. Then the other appetizer showed up. There was definitely some miscommunication between the wait staff and the kitchen.

The manager came over and profusely apologized for everything that had gone wrong, and in what may have been a saving grace move, gave us our meals for free.

Now, about the food. I had the #3 combo, pulled pork platter and 1/2 rack ribs (I substituted the baby back ribs for the St. Louis Style). It came with two sides (I had broccoli and french fries) and garlic toast. The fries were seasoned to perfection and the broccoli was cooked perfectly. The ribs, for baby back, had some of the largest bones I’ve seen, but were “okay” otherwise. The pulled pork was heavenly.

Some of our other diners had the baked beans (seasoned with pulled pork and said to be the best they’d ever eaten), cinnamon apples (a bit too sweet), onion rings (which also tasted like they had sugar in the batter coating), and green beans (done perfectly as well).

The manager provided the table with two free bags of donuts (made fresh, coated with cinnamon sugar, and served with a strawberry/sour cream dipping sauce). These were awesome.

So, on a five point scale:
Price (as listed in the menu): (4) (average entrée cost $10)
Food taste: (4)
Food appearance: (5)
Wait staff: (2) (while our waitress was apologetic, it seemed to be happening to other diners as well, she would disappear for quite a period of time, and we had to ask for a to-go box four times before receiving it)
Management: (5) (The manager came to us, we don’t have to go to him, and he seemed to be seriously concerned about our experience)

Overall Grade: (2)

My recommendation: Give the restaurant a few months to get into the swing of things. It’s a chain, which means don’t expect excellent BBQ (chains aren’t always the best place to get quality BBQ).

Suggestions to the restaurant: (1) Start taking reservations or allow people to call ahead and put their name on a list. (2) Have your wait staff work together. We never saw the second waitress after the orders we placed. If she quit, was fired, or decided to talk with her friends — we have no way of knowing. (3) Keep up the good work on management going from table to table. While it’s frustrating for your diners to have to wait an abnormal amount of time for seating, mistakes with orders only serve to frustrate them more, and you know what they say about word of mouth.

I’ll give Smokey Bones some time to find itself and will try it again. I’ll post another review when that happens.