Lucky's Smoke House Bbq - Clancy

Love supporting local... The food was far from amazing, but I had a decent experience both times...

Decided to try this place one more time. The first everything was ice cold. This time the bathroom had no hand soap or paper. They said were out of salad and when we ordered our drinks they forgot we ordered them and we had to go to the bar to get them. My wife had the smoked chicken it was very dry. Tried to use the house made BBQ sauces they make but they all tasted watered down. I had the brisket and pulled pork platter. Both were over cooked, as we're the fries. I boxed the meat up and brought it home hoping the Famous Dave's sauce I have will make it taste better. Have friends who day this place is good but I don't see why. I have been to several BBQ places and this is the worst.

I'm not sure where to start. This was our third trip, but only second meal. Our first for lunch on a Sunday was a disappointment. Apparently for lunch on Sunday they don't have any smoked BBQ. Well except for cold pulled pork on a salad. They did have burgers and salads, but that's it. My burger was ok, but over priced, and it took almost an hour for our party of 5 to get all their food. Three people were served after thirty minutes, one 15 minutes later and one 15 minutes after that. Our second trip was our best experience, they were closed, shuttered. So we see an ad on television for a groupon like local deal recently. That led us to our third and one of our worst dining experiences ever. Four people ordered their $22.95 tri-meat platter. All four people chose brisket as one of their meat selections. All four brisket servings were ice cold and old and extremely tough and dry. Absolutely inedible. The ribs three people ordered were charred black on the outside. The pulled pork and chicken on two peoples plates were also cold. One serving of pulled pork had a piece of gristle and bone that made up at least 1/2 of the portion. Which leads us to the portions. Out of the 12 meat portions on the four platters, 7 of them were obviously less than 3 ounces. One of the rib servings was three tiny ribs, with no meat on the outer sides. One of the brisket servings was 2 pieces, less than 3 inches long and a half inch thick. If it hadn't have been inedible, it would have been even more upsetting. The server, apparently mother of the chef/owner, did reduce the platters to Bi-meat platters but the damage was done. In my 3+ decades of being an adult, it was one of my three worst dining experiences. PS The server told us about desserts, and one of our party had a free one coming as a birthday gift. We had two young children and she told us about the desserts they had. One was apple crisp with vanilla ice cream. We ordered two for the kids and got another birthday present when we received the bill, they were $6.75 each. The total bill was over $100 for five people, a bit over priced for a worthless dining experience.

We had dinner here last night. The ribs were amazing. They are smoked and served dry. They were delicious without any sauce, but the inferno sauce did add a large kick. Another person had a large salad with smoked chicken and grilled pears and other fruit, and a strawberry vinaigrette. It was great. Ended up the evening with an amazing desert that was some kind of pumpkin cake like things served with both pumpkin mouse and marshmallow mouse and finished off with vanilla bean ice cream from the Big Dipper Ice Cream shop in Helena. Overall it was a great dinner. I have been here before, and it seems like every time I visit this place they have improved. Their menu continues to expand, and as they dial in the smoker, the consistency continues get better.

I have waited a few weeks to write this review because the experience of dining at Lucky 's was so bizarre that I was having trouble putting it in words. It was all-in-all a weird experience, so weird that you may doubt my descriptions and anecdotes, but I stand by them. There was an attempt at service by a poorly trained and awkward server. He tried his damnedest, and was quite solicitous and polite, but his demeanor couldn 't overcome the surreality of the experience. When asked about beers on tap, he replied we have a bunch of them, they are our specialty... When asked to list them, he couldn 't, and he couldn 't provide us with a printed list of them. The appetizer we wanted (the only one that looked appealing wasn 't available (early, on a night that they should have expected to be busy . The ribs were chewy and flavorless (but we sell out of them every night . The pulled pork was... watery. Instead of succulent pig juice squeezing out when you bit in... water. Perhaps someone in the kitchen thought this looks a bit dry, I 'll just add some... water... to this flavorless shredded pork sponge. The brisket was OK, and had a lot of what looked like desirable bark , but the bark was a lie. It was soft and tasteless, like it too had been soaked in tepid water for a few hours. They burnt the corn muffins that night, and decided not to serve them. They didn 't attempt to make any more, or even offer a substitute, or even admit the omission until asked about it. Imaging going to a burger joint, and not getting a bun with your patty, and being told, after you were served, sorry, no buns tonight. The slaw and beans were fairly tolerable, but the beans were a weird mix of black and kidney. Perhaps I should have added the bacon on top that the server tried to up-sell me. As much as I like bacon, I 'm not sure it would have helped much. The smoked corn, I am pretty sure, derived all of its smoke flavor from a bottle, and a fair bit of its sweet from our friend the sugarcane. Of the five BBQ sauces on the table (the meats were served dry, and barely lukewarm three were pretty much indistinguishable from one another without reading the labels. The fourth tasted like yellow hotdog mustard, and the fifth, Angry Ginger , just like the first three, but with a bit of pickled ginger. More like Slightly Bothered Strawberry Blonde . No depth, and very little differentiation. Strikingly, the best thing on our table that night was a grilled cheese sandwich. A grilled cheese sandwich of American cheese and white bread. The (owner? head waitress? openly, cruelly, and loudly berating the obviously poorly trained and inexperienced staff within just a few feet of our table in Siberia only added to the ambiance. You go, lady, with your petty power trip. I hope it makes you feel good. It made me feel pretty uncomfortable. A more fitting name for this place would be Kafka 's Smokehouse.