The food is beyond subpar. Anyone who grills makes better food than this.... the brisket is fatty and looked like dog food on the plate. The sliced chicken breast was barely warm and tasted manufactured. The fried green tomatoes were not authentic but ok tasting. Garlic bread is a frozen product. The sweet potato fries were over fried and chewy and came cold. The pulled pork had a huge 6 inch long tendon running through it and we just couldn't eat any of this. After living in the south where this type of food is in their blood, Smokey bones is a frozen, manufactured joke of a restaurant. If you go, I suggest drinking so you won't realize you're eating garbage. read more

November 21, 2019 I personally hate having to write bad reviews and I base it off the whole experience and not just the food and/or wait staff, but here we go. Tonight walking into the place is as if nothing is going to go wrong. The parking lot was half empty, or half full, your call. We, mother/father-in-law, my wife, son and I. My son chose this place for his birthday meal. As we walk in we were greeted nicely and was able to sit right down. Going good so far. As we were seated or waiter came right over. Still all is good. We ordered our drinks but waited a bit to order the food. 10 minutes has passed and we were ready. We ordered, and our drinks came right on que. Still all was good. After ordering our food it was as if we did not exist anymore. I had to use the touchscreen on the table to order more drinks. Felt as if I was at self checkout at Wal-Mart. Sorry I don't go out to eat to have to use one of those things. That is why the waiter/waitress gets paid to do there job along with tips. Unless I start paying a computer my tips. Finally our food came after about 45 minutes. Did I mention that there may have been maybe 20 tables full in the place. Maybe. Then the food came out. Waiter "Careful, the plate is extremely hot." I.E. the food is cold. And so it was. The plates were extremely hot from sitting under a heat lamp for such a long time. Just a side note, heat lamps heat porcelain faster than it heats food and also has been known to glaze over the food and make it dry. My son and I ordered the Bone Fire which was supposed to come out smoky and hopefully hot. That was not the case. Sent it back and said, "Do not bring out the same one." Well guess what, it was. Because this time the Manager finally came and brought it to us and disappeared before I could ask. As if he didn't care. Yes, some of it was hotter, not by much, this time but it also was burned and a little dry. Against my better judgment and according to "N.Y. Comp. Codes R. & Regs. tit. 10 § 14-1.41 (c) Food is considered served when it has been offered without protection to the consumer." my son and I ate some of it. Still no sign of management or waiter until the bill came. More to follow......... read more

Had a great meal! Awesome chicken sandwich! Some of the best service I've had from an awesome waitress JORDAN! Loved her! Made our experience even better! read more

Smoky bones is a restaurant we go to frequently. The price is right, the food is excellent and the wait staff has always been a joy to deal with. read more

Enjoyable dining experience. Portion was ample and had good flavor. Being a bbq pit master I maybe more critical of the final product flavor then others. It was good flavor just not great The atmosphere was comfortable and our waitress was average. read more

Went here for a weekday evening dinner. Good environment for parents with young kids: crayons & a kids' menu, lots of screens, decent amount of space between tables, and enough noise that fellow diners won't feel bothered by children. Ribs were decently cooked and tasted great. Broccoli on the side was mediocre (probably out of a freezer) and the garlic bread tasted like something that was premade as well. However, IMO you judge a chain known for barbecue primarily on the meat, and that end of the dish delivered. My toddler's chicken tender meal included a generous portion as well. All in all, I'd plan to return and try some other dishes on the menu. read more

Ok for a dinner got a hamburger and salad. Fast and great servers. Very noisy so great to go with kids: I don't have young kids so the little 2 year old who was screaming in my ear the whole time made me want to drink more but other than that it was good for a quick average dinner read more

My wife and I love Smokey Bones. We go about once a week, and rarely change our choices. My wife is gluten free and has had no problems with the barbecue ribs, broccoli without butter and apples. I get the beef brisket, broccoli and apples. There are types of sauces. We both like the "green" barbecue sauce. The wait staff is always friendly, the wait is usually minimal and I like to be able to pay at the table through the "Ziosk". Also, of real benefit is their reward program which has regularly knocked $10 off our meals (basically 10% off). It's definitely a chain restaurant, but chains exist for a reason: they cater to the masses. This is very above average food for a reasonable price. I highly recommend. read more

Stopped by while on a family visit not sure what to expect, and was thrilled with the whole experience. The waiter told me about the Smoke Stack, which I had to see for my own eyes... I swear, you need a... two car garage for that thing! I couldn't come close to finishing. Bob, the manager, happened to come by the table and made sure we were well taken care of, a subtle and simple way of making the experience top notch. In summing up, the moral seems a little bit obscure, but what ever you do... go to to Smokey Bones- finest in the nation! read more

First time here in many, many years. I had pulled pork tacos and baked beans, food companion had St. Louis Ribs with Memphis dry rub. The meat was all properly cooked, but ... My pork did not have much flavor from the smoking, the majority of the flavor came from the KC sauce included on the tacos. I found the tacos benefitted from adding some of the Carolina sauce (vinegar based). The berms were also competent, but nothing special. In terms of the ribs, the dry rub was added at service time. If your not going to smoke them with the rub, why offer it, it's a dry rub, not a condiment. The rub and applied sauce completely overpowered any smoke flavor. Companion had a rum drink that was tasty, I had a bourbon drink that was good once I mixed it (they had put the bourbon and other flavor ingredients in the glass then added the seltzer on top). Our sever was attentive and orders accurate, so service was good. At payment time we had to use the Ziosk terminal. After paying, it asked us to take a survey, mid-way through entering our comments it decided we were done and dropped back out to the rolling adverts, maybe it submitted what we had already filled out, or not. So the 3 stars are for the service and competent food. There are many local bar-bee-que joints that do a much better job on the meat, and that is the point after all. read more

I love this place. The BBQ sauces are awesome and the smoke flavor of the food is great. They have cool tablets for kids as well to keep them entertained while you wait for the food which I'm sure most with kids will appreciate. The food usually comes out quickly. They used to have a pool table and a few other games which was cool but they removed them. Overall a great place to get some traditional smoked food in a decent clean restaurant. read more

WHAT DA HECKS? listens dis place is weirds! Dere are posters all over heres with weird messages likes "If da musics too louds talks louders" and other tings dat I do not gets but it seems pretty snottys. NO SNOTS WHILE I AM EATINGS PLEASE. and all the other signs are kind of mean and stupids like dey are writtens by a guy in his garage who was doing whipits or somethings. And dere are all dese tings called "boneisms" which are like advice or sometings when dey should be a bone in my mouths what da hecks? Da food is fair (but I'm a dogs so all food is fair pretty much and I eat stuff off da floor too) and da wait staffs is friendlys. Da sign says dey are open til TWO a.m. ! Who comes here late at nights? drunk peoples? Do dey get ribs? I should come den because drunk peoples drop tings and I could have AWESOMES SNACKS DEN even with all the snotty posters. So all in all- the decors is stupid, da food is decent and da wait staff is nice. And dogs loves bones so I should love dis place but I don't really. read more

Smokey Bones - Me eatings a bones (AT HOME WITH NO SNOTTY POSTERS AROUND) - Barbeque Near Me - Colonie, New York

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The food is decent. Some reasonable quality mixed drinks are $4. Plenty of parking. The kitchen is open until 2am.

Can I just say great and delicious food.. Servers a very polite and attentive.. Looking forward to going back really soon! :)

I normally frequent dinosaur bbque and love it there. I was skeptical to eat here but I was pleasantly surprised it was so good. THe ribs are probably the best I ever had..very tender and flavorful. The pulled pork sandwich awesome. The only reason I gave it a 4/5 is because the sides are limited. I wish they made a few more options. Otherwise great place for takeout. read more

Very good food and good service. The kitchen staff gave us the wrong type of wings. They fixed the order for no extra charge and let us have the wrong ones as well. Our waitress came back several times to check up on us. The three of us enjoyed the food. No complaints. read more

Smokey Bones - Pulled Pork, 1/4 Chicken and beans. - Barbeque Near Me - Colonie, New York

We used to come here often and it was great. Always packed and the buffacue wings were amazing. That was years ago. Very bland and empty now. Not sure how this once great place went downhill. They do have decent drink specials but it's an ok place to watch the game. We used to have to wait an hour just to be seated because of how packed they would get but now you should have no problem getting a table and a speaker box. Hope this was helpful. read more

Tasty barbecue. The ribs fall off the bone. The staff are friendly and the food is delicious. The prices are between $10 and $20 on par with other bbq establishments. read more

Got sick after eating an Angus beef burger from here yesterday. It was definitely food poisoning, however when I called and spoke to the manager on duty Bob, he said it couldn't of been food poisoning because it takes 24hrs to manifest and Smokey bones' beef is stored correctly. Our issue was not well resolved, did not appreciate being brushed off by manager on duty. read more

I order the Salmon without any sauce on it and it was pretty good. (Mine's better lol) They have some pretty cool drinks on their menu and they always have something going on after 9 p.m. like half priced items and what not. It takes a while for your food to come out however. We also got the new Kettle Chips, which are really just french fries. I like their steamed broccoli, it has a lot of flavor to it. read more

Smokey Bones - Original burger - Barbeque Near Me - Colonie, New York

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Before I wrote my review I read previous reviews back as far as January and discovered what the problem is. They don't care or have just given up. How else to explain the same complaints from previous diners over and over again. Either Corporate is unaware or they just don't read reviews and this is unfortunate as I really liked this location as it is just down the street from me and the food and experience was always enjoyable. But now meh maybe it is COVID aftermath but I've gotten takeout during the pandemic and food was still up to par but no longer, tonight's order was not only incomplete but barely edible. Brisket was dry, no sauce on or included with order, loaded baked potato was lacking I mean if we wanted a dry potato we would have ordered one and chocolate chip cookie skillet was just a plain chocolate chip cookie, period and on top of all that I threw them a tip when I picked up the order silly me. How hard is it to read off an order and complete task as written? Sadly what was once a very good restaurant has now become just one of name recognition only. People passing through will go because it is a recognizable chain and if they get a lousy meal or service so what they're just visiting but sooner or later that well will dry up and the locals me included who have been burned once too often will avoid this place like the plague. I know I'm done after tonight and reading previous reviews I know I'm not alone read more

Decided to order Smokey bones for delivery tonight. Last time my order never even showed up, but I was craving barbecue so I decided to give it another shot. I ordered a very large meal so I would have leftovers for tomorrow lunch. $25.49 for one meal that you could not even eat! What should've been four servings of barbecue look more like two stacked on garlic bread. Paid extra for brisket and nothing but fat! Yuck! Pulled pork had good flavor but the portions were minuscule compared to what you get dining in. Same with the mashed potatoes and corn. Ended up being about four bites of each... Literally. Between that and a sandwich it was $50. I will never do this again. Very, very disappointing. read more

Typical smokey bones. Good BBQ and good prices. Service was average and food was good. Not crazy busy on weekdays but weekends get crowded.

Had to kill time while waiting for our muffler at Midas, so we waited here. It has a chain like atmosphere. Great list of beers and many choices of food. I went with a burger and was delicious. The added avocado was actually soft as opposed to the avocado I had on my sandwich at Panera. My husband had the Pork Cuban sandwich, both were good and beers were cold! Wish we had one of these where we live! read more

We ate here today,craved bbq. Very nice inside a new table mini computer to help with ordering and paying,interesting gimmick. I had the pulled pork, brisket ,1/4 chicken with potatoes and grilled corn 18+, pork was dry brisket was decent,chicken was very good,sides were ok. Portions very healthy I thought. My fiance had the baked salmon which was a little dry but very tasty with their sauce, I guess the grilled is not as dry we were told. With an app of buffalo chicken 1st 1 beer 1 wine with tip 75.00 total...our server Tyler was perfect with knowledge,timing and charm, no complaints. It was good not perfect food but good. read more

Johnny and Dani are the best bartenders!! They're the type of people you can talk to and develop a friendship with. I'm thankful that I've met them and that they've become a part of my life. I can truly call them my friends. Besides that, they're very attentive to their guests and always make people feel like they're at home. Plus they deal with my annoying modifications and somehow always remember what I get. Oh, and the nachos are bomb. :) read more

Food was very dry and fried much darker than I prefer. Mac and Cheese was very dry and fried chicken on top was almost burnt. French fries were dry as if warmed up in oven. Fried fish was oily and oil tasted like it was used too many times. Buffalo Chicken sandwich was fried chicken with some hot sauce on top. Hamburger was very dry as well. Not happy with the $75 plus spent. Service was extremely slow. Took forever to get attention from staff. read more

Good food except the chicken. Don't even get it. Seriously. The Cuban pulled pork was awesome though. Along with the Brunswick Stew. The Carolina mopping sauce is exactly what you've expect to find with the rich tangy flavors of a real Carolina barbecue sauce. (I'M FROM SC, I KNOW)! Always had good experiences always friendly staff. The chocolate cake is to fur for, only surpassed by the warm donuts with sauces! Definitely worth the money! read more

I sit at the bar every time I'm here. I tip about 50% and still cannot believe the poor service i receive. As soon as i walk in they rush over with my beer and then i wait for everything. Absolutely the worst service and it doesn't matter who it is they are all terrible. I bring friends here and they always ask me why do i come here because the service at the bar is so bad. read more

My wife and I eat here fairly often. We have always had excellent service from the friendly waitstaff. While they have several decent apps we enjoy, lately we have been getting the tot-tini. Fried potato tots, topped with melted cheese, bbq meat, green onions, and sour cream. Always very tasty. I frequently get the ribs or brisket and am happy with the quality. My wife usually gets a sandwich or burger, which she usually enjoys. I did not like the beer can chicken, as the skin was like leather and I did not enjoy what I thought was a weird flavor. I will admit to also not caring for their beans, but their apples are delicious. I like that they have 4 sauces at the table, so I decide what to use. Overall, we always have a good experience with the staff and almost always with the food. read more

If your looking for good ribs in the Albany area you wont be disappointed with smokey bones. Sometimes they offer all you can eat ribs, I recommend you bring a designated driver because you will be in a rib coma by the time you leave. read more

It's okay, the portions are decent, the service fairly prompt. I went with a friend on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, so it was pretty empty. I got a brisket and pulled-pork combo, overall, it wasn't bad, but the overall BBQ was a little dry and overcooked. If it weren't for the coupon my friend have, I'd have to say it wasn't super worth it. I thought the portions weren't great for the price, but it wasn't horrible. Could've been better, could've been worse. read more

This place was great. The nachos app amazing. Our waitress was one of the best. My steak was cooked perfectly, my mom's as well and my dad had the brisket. Music was loud but I enjoyed it. The corn for a side was so tasty. I also had the cinnamon apples omg delicious. Loaded mashed potatoes were good too. Coffee was fresh and hot as well. I would definitely return. read more

Greeting was unwelcoming. Our server was fine if unconcerned with our enjoyment. Food was mediocre at best and burnt at worst. Overall downhill. read more

Below average. Appa were cold. Salad was so so. Meal took forever to arrive. Waitresses covered with tats. Great family place, not.

Never so disappointed in a rack of ribs! I was at this place for the first time in May 2012 and was very much looking forward to some some hearty grilled food, but much to my disappointment, this place was terrible. Here's why: 1.) The quality of the meat could have been much better. The baby-backs were not that meaty or tasty. I have had better at other national chains. 2.) The smoked brisket was nothing more than deli roast beef! This was horrible, and I only ate it b/c I was so hungry. Here's what was good: 1.) the pretzel bones appetizer 2.) the sweet potato fries. So if you want to eat crappy BBQ or if you want good appetizers and sweet fries, then, and only then is this place worth checking out in my opinion. Save your money and time and research better ribs. This place charges too much for mediocre garbage! read more

Had a really unsatisfactory meal here last night. The ribs both types were dry and over cooked. The new cucumber citrus drink was watery and tasteless and when our server asked how our meal was and we complained nothing was done to address it. One bright spot was our app called the tot-Tini it was really good. read more

I have never been to a place where it took so long for Uffel to come out we came in it was eight of us we sat down for about 20 minutes they took our order we waited about another 10 minutes. Finally we got a water we waited about another 20 minutes before we realize it's taking a long time for this food now it's been an hour and 20 minutes we asked the server was taking so long for the food we find out that a cook it worked out so we were asked for the manager he told us the manager was working in the kitchen to try to help get the food up finally the food start coming out after one hour and 20 minutes it took 15 minutes to bring out about 10 different dishes I ordered a Hawaiian steak medium rare they came out well done I also ordered an order of chicken wings they came out burned so bad I want to give it to my dog finally after all of that the manager comes out he tells us that he had to cook work out and that's why the food took so long. He addressed one person at the table never said sorry to everyone at the table never apologize for taking so long at the food came out late he just said I had a cook work out we asked was it gonna do anything for us being that we said did I want 20 minute wait for food he said no and he told him I'm sorry about the food being so late what the way from the table still never addressed no one else at the table I am a food lover I will wait for food but this was ridiculously long and I would not send my worst enemy to this restaurant to get food and less I get a twisted server was extra nice Steve the manager shouldn't be a manager no customer skills nothing of the sort . read more

Some of the best BBQ Ive ever had from a chain...let me clarify, My folks live In North Carolina, ie BBQ country. There are not many good spots around here for real BBQ. PJ's up in saratoga is the best yet only opened in the summer. So if you want BBQ in the winter smokey bones is a good option, the pulled pork and brisket are very well done. read more

After a TERRIBLE experience down the street at another restaurant, we decided to check out Smokey Bones. We've frequented the chain before but this was our first time in this location. Casey & Sylvia were super friendly and it was much appreciated. We ordered just some apps and some beers. It was so great we went back Sunday after our beloved UVM lost in the AE tournament to drown our sorrows. Casey remembered us and was just fantastic. I don't plan on coming back to Albany any time soon but if I do, I'll be in! read more