Smoke Bourbon Bar-B-Q House

Went to this place on Friday for my friend’s birthday dinner.
We ordered the family sampler for $ 80, 5 main dishes and 4 sides. The waitress was very polite and ensured we understood what was on the menu, specials, and all the different sauces. The only downfall is that the place is super dark so it was difficult to read the menu.
We ordered baby back ribs, corn beef brisket, texas style brisket, pulled pork, and texas-​smoked beef ribs (I just remember we had 2 ribs, 2 briskets and 1 pull pork). The sides were macaroni and cheese, collard greens, coleslaw, and waffle fries.
The brisket, pulled pork and waffle fries were the highlight of the night for me. The coleslaw was overwhelmed with vinegar so after a few spoons, it felt it was burning the roof of my mouth a bit. The collard greens was meh, nothing special. The macaroni and cheese was super bland. I didn’t taste a hint of cheese. The corn breef brisket, I didn’t touch it.
The meat itself didn’t really taste like much, except for pulled pork so we had to put a lot of sauce on it. Is that normal?

Made reservations. Their website allowed us to and said we were confirmed. Went all the way there to find out they were closed. We were there at 8:30 pm on a Saturday night (Jan 2^nd)…Should probably fix the website so that this won’t happen to your customers in the future. So that when you are closed it does not allow us to make the reservations. This could turn a lot of business away due to this inconvenience. The food looked good but too bad we didn’t get the chance to try it and probably won’t make this trek ever again.

Went to Smoke Bourbon last night with two friends — they were closed! Despite no notice of being closed on the 27^th on their website! Will never go there!

Every time I have ever tried to go to this place they are either closed or closing. Like just now, it’s not even 8:30 pm and the waitress just told me they’re closing and sent me away. I do my laundry at a laundromat across the street and always thought wouldn’t be nice to have a beer or a bite to eat while waiting for my laundry, but I’ve never had the chance because there is no logic to the hours.

Huge portions, great value for money.
The platter is great for sharing. They make all of their own sauces and they are all SOOOO delicious. Its so nice to support a local restaurant and hidden gem.
I think the drinks are a bit over priced and I am not a huge fan of their Ceaser with burbon.

Food is good, service is unacceptably slow even when it is quite empty. A simple menu shouldn’t take 10minutes.

Massive portions… Just massive.
And the meats are incredibly tasty and authentically BBQ’d. Home made sauces, sides that are every bit as good as the main attractions and a friendly wait staff make this one a winner!
Insider tip: try a bit of the pulled pork on top of one of their waffle fries and top it with a squirt of whichever of their 100 homemade sauces and you’ll be in BBQ heaven!
Ok (not great) selection of pints and they were on the pricier side but if you pick the right day, there are drink specials to compensate.
Don’t miss out on this place, it’s the real deal!

Came here with a bunch of friends. They are really good with big group of people.
I ordered the pulled pork. The portions are Massive, but I love it! I got to same me some for later. The taste is really good and the pricing was magnificent ($ 16 and you get to choose 2 sides). I had some of the Texas style brisket and it was great too. Very tender.
I liked that they don’t charge little extra if you want to get the sweet potato fries which I loved. The waffle fries were good too. But the mac and cheese and the corn bread were even better!
The only thing I didn’t like was that, yes they do have a selection of sauces (4 types), but as a BBQ house I was expecting more choices of BBQ sauces. I only kinda liked one of them, the Texas rich and bold.
This place is recommended if you like BBQ food for really good price!

Went here with the fam to grab a bite to eat. After reading some of the reviews and getting to the place, I wasn’t expecting much (I am a skeptical American after all).
After being seated, we decided to split one of the family platters and ordered baby back ribs, pulled pork, and beef brisket. We had sides of potato salad, sweet potato fries, coleslaw, baked beans, and cornbread.
Baby back ribs (4 stars) – these were pretty tender but lacked a little bit of flavor in my opinion. The sauces were decent enough to help with the overall flavor.
Pulled pork (5 stars) – the best meat of the night, tender and flavorful
Beef brisket (4 stars) – this was pretty tasty as well but was not as tender as I am accustomed to
All of the sides were decent, with my favorites being the cornbread and cole slaw and my least favorite being the baked beans.
Overall, the service here was very friendly and the portions were huge. I was a little bit disappointed by the sauce selections and wish they had a better dipping sauce for the fries, but you definitely get good bang for your buck.

Went for my 2^nd time to Smoke and was thoroughly satisfied! Started with a «cup» of the gumbo — a small bowl, really! — which was excellent! And the accompanying cornbread muffin was moist and tasty.
Had the Sampler For 1 — my two meats of choice were the St. Louis dry-​rubbed ribs and the beef brisket, with a fresh baked bowl of brown beans (sweet!) and the potato salad. With a taste of the various sauces, I preferred the ribs on their own — the sauces are great, but these ribs were perfect by themselves for me! The brisket melted in my mouth, and combined with bites of the sides, I was in heaven!
The service was superb — friendly and attentive — and I will definitely be bringing others with me next time I come, which will be soon and regularly!

First of all there are several refinements this place needs to make. The cigarette tray by the front door, the décor, clearly understaffed service and blaring music would all make me pause before considering coming back. But the food and by that I mean the Texas dry rub BBQ ribs were simply falling off the bone and mouth watering. Forget the sauces of which they offer plenty – this stuff doesn’t need any sauce. The sweet potato fries and freshly baked corn bread were also excellent. (Hint: I would prefer real butter). The have a decent beer selection and the prices were very reasonable. So for the product alone they get ⁴⁄₅. I’ll be back.

They say on their web site that they accept bitcoin payments… But they currently don’t. Big disappointment.
Now for the food… The beers on tap are good. Only I pints… Not half pints… The sauces are almost all home made, and delicious. And the main courses… Well… This is a meat place and the meet is really fantastic. You can take a sampler menu which will let you enjoy more than one main course and it’s worth it.
The waitress was really nice and her advice on dessert was spot on.
All in all a very nice experience!

I was extremely excited to try out this place as I was craving for some good meat in the city. I booked a reservation for 8:00pm, but things came up and I called them to change the reservation to 8:30pm. The lady on the phone told me it was «NO PROBLEM, TOTALLY FINE», I arrived at this place at 8:40 (parking took awhile, couldn’t find a spot), to my surprise, it was CLOSED! Some waitress saw me looking through the window, she didn’t even bother to open the door, she basically told me that they thought we weren’t going to show up, so they closed the restaurant. I said, huh? Your website said you are closing at 10pm, it’s 8:40? If they decided to close the restaurant early, why didn’t she give me a call knowing that I had a reservation? I went all the way downtown, found a parking spot, only for her to tell me that they decided to close early? How unprofessional & ridiculous is that?!? I’ve never been to a restaurant where they decided to close down early regardless of people’s reservations, and if someone is late by 10 minutes they just ASSUME that person isn’t showing up, rather than calling them to confirm. She wasn’t apologetic at all, and made me feel like it was MY fault for showing up 10 minutes late. This was so disappointing, and I will not be trying out this place. I can’t believe a restaurant would have such poor management, and management actually thinks it’s okay to screw customers over regardless of their reservations, and to close the restaurant down at any time whenever they feel like it. If your website says your hours are until 10pm on a Sunday, then own up to it! Or else, do not accept my reservation for 8:30 since you were planning on closing at that time anyway.
Terrible, horrible, never go there. Rude staff too on top of everything. What a waste of time finding and going to this place.

Pretty good. Brought my family and we tried a lot! Meat was cooked nice and tender, but maybe could use a bit of seasoning on their own. They have sauces that they made there, but I didn’t think they were amazing. Just good.
The sides were okay. Waffle fries are best. The mac and cheese wasn’t anything special and this comes from someone who is fine with the kind I can buy in a box at the grocery store, but obviously, I expect better when I go to a restaurant. I’ve only heard about collard greens from TV and I thought I would like them, but I wasn’t a huge fan of it here. Sure there’s bacon in it, but not really noticeable when I ate it.

Really disappointing. Had the baby back ribs which the waitress recommended. Dry and not very flavourful. This place is about the sauces, but they weren’t anything you couldn’t make with the stuff already in your fridge (bbq sauce, ketchup, vinegar, sugar and mayo).
Mac and Cheese was pretty good and the fries were great.
Service was a joke. We asked for water and the waitress came back, put 3 glasses on the table with a pitcher of water, didn’t say anything, no eye contact. I poured for the table.
$ 150 isn’t bad for 3 people, except when you factor in that this was a step below Kelsey’s in quality.
The chicken wings were flavourless and dried out.

Huge portions and incredible value. Came here with a large group and ordered several family samplers, so we basically got to try everything on the menu.
However, the meats were just okay. You would think a place that specializes in BBQ would have perfected their meats, but they were unfortunately dry and overcooked and lacked seasoning. It’s no wonder they have house sauces because the meat really needed help. My favorite thing of the night was probably the waffle fries.

We came here with low to medium expectations because of the Unilocal rating. The service was perfect. The food was good, in fact much better than we expected. The portion sizes were way too big. One appetizer was enough to fill what I consider be my normal appetite (we ultimately ate less than half of what we ordered). Just seems a bit excessive.
A number of Unilocal posters before us complained the sauces were too sweet — we didn’t find this to be the case and I’m usually very sensitive to something being too sweet.
Nice music. I love Sixto Rodriguez.

A friend that I had not seen in months wanted to meet for dinner on a Sunday evening. He loves meat, so I suggested we do BBQ for dinner. Normally I would go to a restaurant that I know will be good, like Smoque N’ Bones on Queen West, but on this particular evening, I was feeling under the weather, so I wanted to go to a restaurant closer to my apartment. After doing some research, I decided to give Smoke Bourbon BBQ House a try. Though the reviews were mixed, there have been times when I have loved a restaurant that got mixed reviews – or so I tried to tell myself.
When I arrived at 6pm for dinner and saw the deserted restaurant, alarm bells went off. I told the gentleman who greeted me at the door that I had a reservation (not that I needed one since at that time I had the whole place to myself), he looked in a book and then went to speak to a second gentleman in the kitchen, and I heard the second gentleman say to the first, «it’s okay, you can sit her.» Huh? It’s okay to sit me? I made a reservation, so why do you think you are going out of your way to accommodate me?
Anyway, I sat at the back (I did not want to go home smelling like BBQ), and browsed through the menu. Several minutes later my friend arrived, followed by a large party. Slowly but surely, the restaurant started to fill-​up – not all the way, but almost 50% of it now had patrons. I told my friend that I thought we should share the Sampler for 2 for $ 36. The sampler came with three meats and 2 sides. It sounded like a great deal. So my friend and I reviewed our options and decided on the items we wanted to order. However, when we told the waitress our choices, she said that we could not choose from all the mains, only from the ones with an asterisk. Mmmm, I did not read that anywhere on the menu. So we settled on the pulled pork, brisket, baby back ribs, waffle fries and macaroni and cheese. I did not bother with a drink because their beer options were pathetic. Can’t remember the last time I visited a restaurant with such few, and crappy beer options.
We received our food within 20 minutes, and when the food arrived, our waitress took a moment to explain the differences between their BBQ sauces (they give you a basket/​box with an array of sauces). Once she left, we quickly grabbed a rib. We both took a bite and looked at each other in confusion. Did they put sugar on the ribs? As in, raw sugar as a rub? Not even caramelized? Disgusting! All we could taste was sugar — granules of sugar! So we went on to the brisket. Oh lord, it was worse than the rib – it had absolutely no seasoning — completely bland. With apprehension we moved on to the pulled pork, and were relieved by the fact that the sauce was not «all sugar» and that it had flavor! I tried to salvage the brisket by coating it in sauces, but it was no use. And to make matters worse (can it get any worse?), the sauces – all 4, had a sweet undertone. My guess is that the chef and/​or owner (whoever calls the shots) really loves their desserts.
The only saving grace were their waffle fries and macaroni and cheese. So we ordered a second round of waffle fries and munched on those while our meats sat in the corner, completely abandoned. When we finished our sides, our waitress came around and asked if we wanted to take the meat to go. I told her our concerns with the food – aka, we were unhappy with them because if it was not bland, it was swimming in sugar. She apologized and stated that she would talk to the chef. 20 minutes later and we had not heard anything from her. So we asked for the bill. She came back a few minutes later with our bill, and we were charged full price for everything. I don’t know what I was expecting, but usually when I receive terrible food, they either a) offer to get us something else, b) give us some type of discount, c) apologize, d) CARE! So here we sat, staring at the bill wondering where the hell our food went. What if I wanted to give the leftovers to my dog (which I would not – I am not that evil!)? I couldn’t believe it! We ate maybe 25% of our food; our waitress then takes it away seemingly to address our concerns, and returns with a bill and no explanation! So I asked her to please return the pulled pork, the only edible meat we received that night. And hell, we paid for it!
What a horrible experience!

The place offers huge portions of meat and sides. Went here with a big group for a friend’s celebration and six of us decided to have the $ 80.00 sampler of five meats and four sides, but I only got to try three sides, not sure if the other half of the table received the last side, who also ordered the family sampler. Anyways, the brisket and corned beef were ok but not great. The smoked tilapia was tasty. The beef ribs was just ok as well.
I think the main entrees were okay, but the sides were a bit better. The waffle fries was great, along with the potato salad. This a great option instead of a Brazilian all you can eat steakhouse, at least you can bring your sampler home, because with these portions, you’re gonna have to.
They do not offer individualized receipts which is not good, especially if you come in with a group.
This place gets an OK only due to the large portions.

Cela fait un bail que nous devions y aller, puis grâce à notre ami nous avons pu découvrir ce lieu pendant un soirée sociale. Les portions sont généreuses, la viande excellente, les saveurs succulentes. Bravo !

In the dawn of such places as Electric Mud BBQ, I can see how this place isn’t the «coolest» place in Toronto, and I couldn’t care less. The BBQ here is better. Full stop.
Hay-​uge portions! Each side is a meal, and if you’re starving you can get mixed platters for only $ 20. The smoked chicken, baked beans and ‘slaw were what I was all about, and I look forward to returning for their ribs and Monday night wing night! Be sure to wash whatever your pleasure is down with a bourbon Caesar.
PEPPER’S PISSED: It isn’t just the sauces that’ll stick to your clothes. The smokiness of this joint lingers in fabrics, so be prepared to have dogs follow you home.