The Ole Smokehouse

I don't think these other reviewers ate at the same place.  

I can't think of a worse place to eat in St. Lawrence County.  And that's pretty bad, considering that there is really no restaurant scene up here to begin with.  I have been here 4 times in the 3 years I have lived in the area.  I decided to give it one last shot, and kept track of everything I experienced, in anticipation of writing this review. Every-time has been the same in terms of service and food quality; disappointing.  Very disappointing. (With the acceptation of their smoked wings, which are very good)

Being a BBQ fan, I was excited to check this place out when I moved to the area.  After going in the first 3 times, I should have learned my lesson. But alas, I did not.  

My party consisted of 6 people.  We came in on a week day around 7. It was as busy, both at the bar and the adjacent dining room.  

On that note, I must say that the Ole Smokehouse is set up well and is aesthetically pleasing. It's got a tongue-in-cheek western theme that works in a weird way, and is unique to the area.  It's fairly clean and spacious inside.

After standing at the hostess podium for about 3 minutes, someone finally came over to us and inquired as to how many people she would need to seat.  When we told her 6, she replied it would be a few minutes.  As I stated before, the place was busy.  Not insane busy, but what a place like that should be operating at.  Most tables were filled and there was one party waiting in front of us and one behind us.  Somehow, the people behind us were seated first.

15 minutes later, we were lead to our table.  A table that had been empty for at least 20 minutes, as it was unoccupied when we first came in.  We hadn't waited 15 minutes for a table to become available.  We had waited 15 minutes for a table to be cleared- as in remaining silverware and dishes removed and the top wiped down.  Unacceptable.

Waited for our server.   Conservatively, 6-8 minutes went by and she showed up.  She was polite but inattentive.  We all ordered mulitple drinks and our meals at the same time, as we'd had plenty of time with the menu and didn't want to have to wait for her to show up again at some random point during the night.

About five minutes after placing our order, our drinks show up.  

10 minutes after that, our waitress walked out of the kitchen with a large tray of food, that from a distance I could tell, consisted mostly of salads.  She set the tray down and slowly served this large table of 7-8 people their food.  It took a bit.  She picked the tray back up, which had two items left on it, and walked towards our table.  Oh goody, it's the "hot" appetizers my buddy and I had ordered.  Besides the time it had taken her to get them to the table after she had entered the dining room, who knows how long they had been sitting in the kitchen, waiting to be picked up.  Needless to say, both were lukewarm at best.  Had they been hot, they would have been the best food we got all night.

Our main courses came out pretty quick after we were done with the appetizers, and it all arrived hot.

But it was terrible.

I ordered a pulled pork sandwich.  I find it hard to believe the pork was smoked.  To me, it seemed as if they had taken a pork roast, slow cooked it in a crock pot, and then dumped some cheap brand of BBQ sauce on top of it as they pulled it apart.  There was a lot of fat in the meat, which is inconsistent with real bbq.  Absolutely zero natural smoke flavor.  The green beans I had were not all cooked- that seemed impossible.  The coleslaw however, was awesome.  Some of the best Iv'e ever had.  Thankfully, it was served the way they do it in Memphis- coleslaw on the sandwich.  This masked the flavor of the smothered in generic sauce pork and soggy/flimsy bun.  

My girlfriend had a prime rib sandwich.  It was worse than my pork.  Grizzle is a part of prime rib.  You expect some.  But what one doesn't expect, is their entire sandwich to be grizzle.  It was.

We made the mistake of ordering dessert.  10 minutes of waiting for stuff that tasted like it was pulled from a box in the freezer.  

Then, I had to deal with some drunk moron that tried to harass my table- why was that guy still being served when he was in such a belligerent state?

We asked for the check after dessert.  By this point in time, there was almost no one in the place. But we waited a solid 10 minutes for our checks to come.  

I really want to like the Ole Smokehouse.   It's a neat setup and unique to the area.  But unique isn't a substitute for quality.  There is another BBQ place close by to this one.  While it doesn't have the same atmosphere, everything else about it is vastly superior.  It's real BBQ.  Really good real BBQ.  And great service. Go there until the Ole Smokehouse ups it's standards.

Best place to eat in St Lawrence County! Great food, great atmosphere, and great prices!! Eat there at least once a week

We visited The Olde Smokehouse after commiserating to North Country friend about the lack of good barbecue in Canada generally and Ottawa specifically and he invited us down for some relief.

This place is a little under 90 minutes from Ottawa, including the border crossing, and totally worth the drive if you've been waiting and hoping for good barbecue.

You'll want instructions, since it's in the middle of nowhere, but there's no chance you'll accidentally pass it since it has a big yellow sign out front and a huge, billowing cloud of smoke rising from it all of the time.

Come inside, take a seat and help yourself to some very tasty cornbread and garlickky cheese biscuits*. The decor is exactly what you'd expect from a smokehouse out in the middle of nowhere. Don't dress up, but other than that pretty much anything goes.

Despite our worst fears for beer (Bud Light with BBQ? Sacriledge!) they had the Sam Adams Oktoberfest on tap, which was good drinkin'. We trusted our guest and started off with the wings, which are smoked and baked, then tossed in the Smokehouse's delightful medium sauce, which does have a bit of a kick to it. These wings were dangerously tasty - it's a good thing they're 90 minutes away.

For dinner I had a combo with the baby back ribs, fried catfish and beans. The beans were a bit sweet for my taste but still very good. They would have benefitted from a little heat. The ribs were falling-off-the-bone delicious and the catfish was crispy and tender (though it would have been nice to have a cajun remoulade or something similar to dip it in rather than not-so-Southern tartar.)

The boyfriend also had the baby back ribs, but with pulled pork, which was quite good.

The Smokehouse has a few house-made sauces on the table, and of them the vinegar one is the best. The hot sauce is not very hot at all. However, after visiting it occurred to us that you could probably order the medium wing sauce on the side with your meal, and our friend went back and did just that with great success. We'll do the same on our next visit. (And there will be a next visit.)

(And, in case you're curious, leftover ribs make excellent morning-after-smokehouse hash. *If you do this, don't eat the cheese biscuits while you wait, but wrap them up with your leftovers and fry them until they're crispy in a pan to accompany your hash along with a fried egg.)