Smokey Bones Barbeque Offers Fair Fare (Business Lunch)

Smokey Bones Barbeque & Grill
643 E. Van Asche Dr.
Fayetteville
2 1/2 Stars

by Business Journal staff

We didn’t think there was anything remarkable about the food at Smokey Bones Barbecue. It was fair fare without a killer signature sauce to hang its hat on. All the dishes we tried were OK, but didn’t knock the BBQ ball out of the park.

With that out of the way, let us tell you what we did and didn’t like about Smokey Bones.

The service was good. It was fast, friendly, ready with refills and quick to correct minor mistakes (like bringing the wrong meal to the table). The atmosphere was clean and generic, super-loud with the lunch crowd, multiple TVs and music over the P.A. system.

Two self-proclaimed (yet ideologically opposed) BBQ connoisseurs and one Yankeefied reviewer went on this lunch. Of the two BBQ contenders, one claims a good sauce is more important, the other leans a little more toward the slow-cooked and smoke theory.

The trio ordered a round of the old-fashioned skillet corn bread ($4) as an appetizer. It came with a Crushed Pecan butter. Trouble was, the bread was more like cake. It would have been better as a dessert than an appetizer. We didn’t finish the 8-inch pan of corn bread.

One diner ordered the smoked beef brisket with fries and cole slaw ($7). The sides were average. He said the brisket was tasty, tender and moist with a perfect pink smoke ring on the outer edges. He was impressed with the good cut of the meat, but he had too many choices of accompanying sauce and he didn’t love any of them.

Smokey Bones leaves three sauces on the table: sweet, spicy and a mustard/vinegar style. They seemed to have similar spices so none were outstanding or distinctive.

Another diner at our table had the pulled-pork sandwich and soup lunch special ($6). He said the tortilla soup and pork sandwich were both good but weren’t as good as comparable fare at some locally owned restaurants in town.

The Yankee in the group opted for the Grilled Chicken Flatbread sandwich, which was a hearty sandwich/soup combo for a cool $6.

She had the same soup as her pork-pouty friend. She really liked the sauce drizzled over the wrap, although the menu gave no description what the wrap contained. The flatbread was a little bland for her gyro-loving palette.

All in all, we felt Smokey Bones was another so-so chain that failed to impress BBQ purists and a northern star.