SmoQ

Even though my daughters' soccer team did not win their state soccer tournament, we wanted to celebrate the fact that they had made it to state by treating them to a good barbeque lunch following their final game. After perusing the Yelp reviews, we quickly selected SmoQ. Arriving just after noon, we were pleasantly surprised to be immediately seated, as the restaurant only had a couple of tables of patrons. After the waitress introduced herself and took our drink orders, the five of us proceeded to read over the expansive menu. Ultimately we selected the turkey bacon club, brisket pimento melt, pulled pork sandwich, pulled chicken sandwich, and chicken & waffle, with a water, two southern sweet teas, and two sodas to drink. Our bill before tax and tip was $70.31, which felt pretty typical.

Outside, the building was very attractive, with beautiful stonework and nice accents. The décor inside was what I call "barbeque standard," with solid hardwood tables, sturdy chairs, and deep, rich woodwork everywhere. Inoffensive wall hangings completed the traditional ambiance. Each table sported a trio of bottles of barbeque sauce: Kansas City Sweet, Carolina Hot, and the amusingly named Burning Peter. We also found the restrooms to be large, tastefully decorated, and immaculately clean.

After a reasonably short wait, our tiny waitress delivered all five meals to our table at the same time. My son said his pulled pork sandwich was very good, and my wife described her brisket pimento melt as being excellent. The elder twin said her turkey bacon club sandwich was good, while her younger sister said the pulled chicken sandwich was just average. Personally, I found my chicken & waffle to be absolutely fantastic, with the boneless chicken fried to crispy perfection, while the sweet potato and pecan waffle was simultaneously sweet and nutty and crunchy. The only bad thing about my meal was the fact that I could have used about 50% more syrup for my waffle. I suppose I could have asked the waitress for more, but that would have required me to pause, and it was too delicious to stop eating! Additionally I appreciated the steady stream of drink refills the waitress brought us.

We did not know it at the time, but when we departed the restaurant, I inadvertently left my credit card on the table. About 30 minutes later when I went to buy something, I realized what happened and immediately called SmoQ. The hostess who answered confirmed that a credit card had been turned in to her, and I could collect it with a photo ID. Right away I appreciated the fact that she told me up front I needed a photo ID. Returning to the restaurant, I was further impressed that she took the time to not just compare the names on the two cards, but to also look at both me and my driver's license to confirm that the picture also matched. Kudos to the staff for making sure my card was only returned to its rightful owner!

PROS: most of our party really liked their food selections, the waitress very attentive, and the hostess was top-notch on handling my lost credit card

CONS: the twins felt their food was just good to average, and as an admittedly minor quibble, I was a little disappointed that I did not get enough syrup to properly drench my waffle

Overall I rate SmoQ as being Very Good and would absolutely return the next time we are in the area!

Usually the food is good. Tonight it was terrible, and service was not great either. We paid a $100 deposit for the room to host a birthday party. Upon arrival we were told that the cake was not allowed inside the restaurant. Never in my life have I had a restaurant refuse a birthday cake for a birthday party! Some sweet 16!
More and more often this restaurant is empty when it should be busy. I understand why now.

SmoQ-
my issue is that not allowing a birthday cake inside of the restaurant is highly unusual and unpleasant. In order to serve the cake and sing Happy birthday, we huddled around my trunk in the parking lot.

I paid you $100 to reserve a room...a venue for our event. Would you agree that it would be strange and unusual to pay for a wedding venue only to have that venue tell you that your wedding cake can not come inside?

My family has held many gatherings around Cincinnati (Stone Creek dining company, The Oscar event center, The precinct) and have NEVER had this issue.

With all of that being said, the greatest issue was with the quality of food and the friendliness of the server and hostess. I definitely could have let go of the cake issue, if the dining experience was pleasant.
What happened to this establishment?

Lawd Hammercy Jesus help me!!! Those deep fried ribs almost most took me out of here!! If I don't every try anything else off the menu, I will
For sure have those, fried green tomatoes and an Arnold Palmer (light on the sweet tea).

Ok......let me back this review up..........Hubby and I find this place and I was eager to try the smoked bologna. To my saddened surprise they no longer have it on the menu. We ended up trying the following:

Rib Tips App: heavy smoked taste but not much seasoning on it

Deep Fried Ribs: Heaven on a plate!! Super tender ribs in a light, flaky buttermilk type batter

BBQ Bacon Cheeseburger w/kettle chips: typical burger but some chips didn't taste fresh. Almost tasted like grease. I think just added salt would have kicked up the flavor

turkey bacon club: typical Sammie served with kettle chips

Fried Green Tomatoes: The only thing that would have made this better would have been to soak up the extra grease on the plate. The sauce it was served with was fire!!

They also gave me the best Arnold Palmer I've ever had! Hubs killed the complimentary corn bread we received and everything was wonderful. I believe our server was named Amir. He was so sweet and genuine and has a beautiful smile!! There were a few minor hiccups with our dining but they were easily overlooked because of his awesome service. There was another young man that was on duty with him that backed him up. He was awesome also....lots of energy. We will surely comeback he next time we visit the Cincinnati area!!!

Went on a recent weekend, super busy so as a single I sat at the bar. Friendly staff, but clearly working in a frenzy that evening. Ordered my beer and meal to eat there at the bar-top.

I ordered a combo plate of St. Louis style ribs and beef brisket along with collard greens and mac-n-cheese as my two sides. Meal also came with fresh homemade corn muffins.

Let's start with those muffins...delicious! Hot and fresh with a little butter? Can't go wrong! Then my meal came. I love to have to "work" to get the meat off my ribs, and traditionally that is what you get with St. Louis style bones. This version was rather fatty and had a really tough bark to them making it hard to tear apart in my mouth. The beef brisket was very moist but lacked any real depth of flavor (needed sauce to get a true BBQ taste). Both of the side dishes were solid (especially the collard greens). But then again, I came here for BBQ's meat, not the extras.

So, all-in-all a rather disappointing meal given the star(s) of the show really did not shine. Sorry guys...

Our dinner here this evening will be the last time. It's just not good. The first time we had dinner here, about three years ago, it was pretty good. Then it just got worse and worse with each visit. The service was alway horrendous and after finding a hair fried into my catfish I vowed never to return. That was about two years ago and we decided to try it again this evening. Complimentary corn muffins were brought out before our meals and they were some of the most flavorless and dry corn muffins any of us have ever had. My husband ordered the half slab of ribs with two sides and my step-daughter and I both ordered the pulled pork sandwich with a side and my mother-in-law ordered the pulled chicken sandwich with a side. My husband said his ribs were so dry he could hardly eat them. He barely touched his sides because they were mushy. My mother-in-law didn't eat any of her meal. Nothing. She said the pulled chicken sandwich was terrible and the green beans mushy. The pulled pork sandwiches were ok but extremely dry and were helped a little by putting on a lot of sauce (that's provided on the table). They lacked flavor, as well. My baked beans were also mushy. My step-daughter said her side of sweet potato casserole was good. But that was the only good item out of four meals. The server was ok and I don't have any complaints about her. She did a decent job. It's the food that made for a poor visit and the reason we will avoid this place.

I say 5 stars, my boyfriend said 4 stars. Food & service was great!

We both had tried SmoQ at my best friends wedding & liked it a lot. They had pulled pork & chicken, grilled chicken breast, salmon croquettes (sooo good), green beans, greens, mac & cheese, corn muffins, & red potatoes. All of it was very good & flavorful.

What we got for dinner though our second time eating this was the pick 2 meats dinners costing around $16 a meal. We were starving obviously! Lol but the amount of food you get for that price definitely makes it worth $16.

He chose the brisket & the smoked dry rub wings with fries & mac n cheese. Both the brisket & wings were sooo good & flavorful. Brisket was very tender & juicy. But he thought the wings could have been more tender. He was hoping for fall off the bone tender. (Which is why he gives them 4 stars) Nevertheless still very good though. Fries were your normal good & crispy shoe string fries. Mac & cheese was creamy & flavorful.

I ordered what I thought was the weirdest combination of things ever. Lol for my 2 meats I chose the meatloaf & the fried catfish. I kind of just decided to wing it with my choices because usually I don't care for restaurant meatloaf but the description sounded delicious & that it was! It was the perfect blend of sweet & spicy. I wanted something seafood as well so that's how I came up with catfish. It was my first time trying catfish & loved it. It was so crispy & the seasoning in the crust was so flavorful. Top it with lemon & it's even better! Oh & for the record the portions are HUGE! I was thinking we'd get smaller portions of meat since you're choosing 2 but both meats were literally full sized portions. (No wonder Americans are so obese! Lol) But for my sides I chose red beans & rice & mac n cheese. Both of which were amazing!

We both left with leftovers that we were so excited to eat the next day! We definitely can't wait to come back again!

I'd really like to do 3.5/5 because this place isn't bad, it's just fine. I guess I've become spoiled after traveling and finding some truly awesome BBQ joints.

Luckily, my first time was with friends, which allowed me try a little of everything...

STL Dry Rub Ribs - just fine. A little sweet and decent flavor.

Rib Tips - treated with a dry rub only, not a lot of flavor, mostly bone.

Prime Rib - only on Tuesday nights, a huge chunk of meat, not thinly sliced as I'm used to. But nice - tender and juicy.

Memphis Ribs - comes with sauce. Definitely like them more than just the dry rub.

Mac N Cheese - just fine. Not cheesey enough for my tastes.

BBQ Chips - under seasoned/not very flavorful

Sweet Potato Casserole - very simple and lightly sweetened. Nice!

Red Velvet Cupcake - Fine.

If I ever have reason to back, the Memphis Ribs would be worth getting. Or maybe try their andouille sausage?

Strange that it's the first time I've been here as it's local to me and I love BBQ. I've eaten it all over the country, and the different styles may be what I enjoy most.
SmoQ has an array of sauces at the table with each being from a different type of BBQ region. The house rub with 13 spices that comes pre applied prior to smoking the meat is tasty and not overpowering. You can still really taste each sauce you try, but plain with the rub is good as well. The 4cheese bakes mac&cheese side was delicious.
Overall, it's a good BBQ place, priced accordingly. The service was excellent. So I'm sure I'll be back.

Two stars because our server was the nicest person we dealt with all day...everything else was awful.

Came here to for lunch for my mother's birthday with some friends and family. My mother, who is disabled, rides in a scooter that we had tied a single birthday balloon to because...it was her birthday! While we were helping her out of the car, a staff person decided to come out and tell us that she could not enter the restaurant with the balloon. Strike 1.

We had made reservations for our group, and they had finally been seating after the restaurant made them wait in the lobby for no apparent reason, and after we had to call them to ask that our friends be seated. Another strike.

The entire experience there felt like nothing but micro management and a bunch of ridiculous rules that I've never seen at other restaurants. On top of all of this, the food was not that great. I ordered the BBQ nachos in an attempt to be different but it was not good. Very little meat, mostly chips, cheese and a crazy amount of jalepenos. My cousin's buffalo chicken dip was good (wish I would have just gotten that). Portion sizes, as many other have mentioned, are very small and do not match the hefty price.

The service was pretty abysmal. From the constant micro-management and rules given to us, people consistently forgetting drinks and bringing out the wrong dishes, the entire experience made me regret choosing this place for a special day. I mean they made a woman on a scooter remove her freaking birthday balloon?? Seriously?? The only semi-nice thing they did was store the cupcakes we'd gotten for our mom in the fridge since it was crazy hot outside AND we were not allowed to even give an individually packaged cupcake to our friends or birthday girl inside the place.

Don't come here if you're celebrating anything or have a large party or if you just want to have fun with your friends and family.

My review is gonna be based off of the and service.

For starters we got word to make sure we make a reservation for a bigger party, so we made reservations and ended up waiting a hour after our reservation was set. We can understand waiting 20 even 30 minutes after but a hour was a little overboard.

Let's get into the food, I started with the fried ribs for a appetizer and I've never had fried ribs before, but I most say I really enjoyed them it kinda had a taste like a fried pork chop. It comes with this molasses and black pepper glaze, which was a little sweet for me but others like it. I'm a BBQ PERSON so I prefer BBQ instead. Overall this appetizer is great.

Now for my dinner I did the Pick 2, I order the Baby Back ribs and the SmoQ Fried Chicken with the sides of Mac and cheese and sweet potatoes casserole with oatmeal toppings. Let's start with the meats the ribs would be good if they didn't burn the outside so much, you taste more burnt then flavor on the outside of the ribs. But once you actually got 2 the meat it wasn't bad, so just watch it and make sure you don't burn the outside of the ribs. Now the SmoQ fried chicken was great the chicken is smoked and then lightly dusted with SmoQ's special breading and fried and it's a different taste but I really enjoyed them. The Mac and cheese is very good and the sweet potatoes casserole was very good and the cornbread is good as well

Also they have 3 SmoQ sauces Memphis mild and the Kansas City sweet I enjoyed the most.

Overall the food was pretty good wouldn't say the best BBQ I've ever had but was pretty good with the different ways they approached BBQ