J&J Smokehouse BBQ - Catskill (NY)

1 /5 S M: Lord forgive me for speaking the truth but it must be said. The restaurant is nice, limited parking but cozy inside. There is no table service, you just have to get your food and go to the tables. The cashier was very very nice and you can see the guy preparing the food behind her. Now, the food. I got the jerk chicken, pulled brisket with mash potatoes and cauliflowers. My husband got a pulled brisket sandwich with mac and cheese. Please believe the one star reviews on here for the taste of the food. It was SO BAD I couldn’t even finish. Dry isn’t even the word. West Indian’s would be rolling over their grave if they tasted this “jerk chicken.” It was terrible! It was so dry and no where near the taste of jerk chicken. The pulled brisket was dry, the bbq sauce that came with it helped a little but nothing was saving this horrendous taste for the meal. My husbands mac and cheese lacked salt pepper and flavor. The cauliflower was a bad choice, idk what I was thinking. The mash potatoes were mediocre. The portions were generous but with the lack of taste I ended up throwing most of my food away. I felt bad but I just couldn’t eat it. The only thing that tasted good was the soda. The soda that came in a bottle from Coca Cola. Edit/ Add after the owners reply: Yes let’s please speak the whole truth. 1. Could you please check your footage again and see how long I waited at the front of the door for the parking that I found 5 spaces apart? 2. This is the husband: I am not a believer of wasting food, had to drench the brisket in the bbq sauce, ask for salt and pepper to fix the Mac and cheese to actually finish my food. And was my plate clean? 3. Could you check your footage and see how many times I spat out your food in the sauce cup? 4. We were laughing and joking because we did come out of the city for a visit for a weekend gateway and chose this place for lunch, were we supposed to cry that the food is bad? and we were baffled cause we didn’t know what to do!! we didn’t want to hurt your feelings and tried very hard to finish the food. We overlooked the one star reviews on this place and gave the place a chance and sadly it didn’t work out. As a small business if you can’t take feedback then why even bother? Instead of checking the footage and attacking a customer, maybe make better food? And you say to come up to tell you in your restaurant, tell you what? You would’ve given me my 43 dollars back?

5 /5 Geralyn Fuller: We stopped here on a visit to Hudson New York. I was blown away by the size of their sandwiches. My husband got the pulled pork and I got beef brisket and the sandwich was so big that I literally had three meals out of it. Huge huge servings. I got a side of mashed potatoes with it and they were good. Everything was seasoned perfectly.. Its a small restaurant inside with limited seating but the food is out of this world delicious. Did I mention how huge the servings were?

5 /5 David Fuller: Stopped here on the way to a family gathering. Selected it because of the good things found on Googles reviews. We have to agree that the high star rating is justified. We ordered the brisket sandwich and the pulled pork sandwich. Both were piled with what looked like over a half a pound of meat each. The sides were equally as immense. Large portions and very tasty. We had the carrots, and the mashed potatoes. Both were tasty and filling. Would certainly recommend coming here to anyone in the area. Well worth the price!

5 /5 A C: Delicious bbq and generous portions. Tried the brisket, pork ribs and pulled pork - all good but favorite was the pork rib! Loved all the sides I tried - potato salad, pasta salad, baked beans and mac. The nice girl who helped us order steered us in the right direction! I always love and appreciate the recommendations. The very kind man bbqing in the back gave us a little taste of the mushroom dish he was cooking up. So so kind and generous. Hospitality was top notch. It made what was already an incredible meal even more spectacular. Cant wait to come back!

1 /5 FinchRichPap: Hello. Hope all is well. I had to wait a few days before I wrote this review because I didn’t want my personal information like my make, model of my car and etc publicized like other negative reviewers of this establishment. I visited Catskills a few weeks ago with my friends and girlfriend and ate at a few restaurants including this one. I saw amazing reviews about this establishment and immediately gravitated towards eating there. The service was nice, the employee was nice, atmosphere was cozy and parking was fairly easy to find. Please know there is no waiter service, which I liked. I liked eating without being bothered. The food was not up to par at all! Everything was very dry. We tried a bunch of items from the menu and sadly nothing tasted anything like the positive reviews I read online. To my disappointment I even tried my girlfriend’s dishes, they were horrible as well. No flavor, bland and dry. None of my friends liked the food either so I looked unreliable for taking them to this establishment. Before I get attacked for not going up to your establishment to complain about the taste because I read some of the negative reviews to make sure I am not crazy, please know I am on the spectrum, speaking isn’t my greatest skill. Please just make better food.