Smokey Bones BBQ Sports Bar

I did it again at Smokey Bones. I didnt leave enough room for dessert. I guess my problem was I was really hungry and everything sounded good. One of the people I was having dinner with just raved about the beer-battered onion rings, and I really enjoyed the bacon and cheese potato slabs the last time I was there, so I started off by ordering the appetizer combo. Four chunky fried chicken fingers, four bacon and cheese potato slabs and a half dozen or so of the beer-battered onion rings make up the combo. Even by sharing the combo with three other people, this was a huge portion, and yes, the beer-battered onion rings are worth bragging about. For the main course, I let my stomach do the talking again. I ordered combo platter No. 3 a half rack of St. Louis-style ribs and a pile of pulled pork with two side items of baked beans and cole slaw. St. Louis-style ribs are prepared with a spicy rub and from a different cut meat. They arent as juicy and messy as ribs prepared with sauce. Smokey Bones does them well. They advertise that they smoke the meat for 12 hours every day and once you taste them, I think youll agree, theres truth in their advertising. Along with the ribs was a pile of pulled pork served dry so you can add your choice of sweet, vinegar-based, or hot sauce. All three are very good and I varied my choice throughout my eating. For the first time in recent memory, I left Smokey Bones with a to-go box of leftovers. On top of that, the folks we were eating with decided to really rub it in by buying me a bag of donuts, which Smokey Bones calls their signature dessert. Their donuts are vanilla cake donuts made fresh to order and coated with cinnamon and sugar. They are served with strawberry cream dipping sauce. They came to our table piping hot and I knew these wouldnt be as good leftover, so even though I was stuffed, I had to give a half a donut a try before we left. It was an unusual combination of flavors, the donut was not greasy, and the sugar and cinnamon mixed with the strawberry sauce was full of flavor. Smokey Bones is a huge place that looks like it should be set back in the mountains. They make liberal use of natural materials to give the restaurant a Rocky Mountain rustic look. If you have seen El Tovar restaurant at the Grand Canyon, the look is very similar except these logs are light colored, and of course, not as old. Above the center bar is a bank of TVs and throughout the restaurant there are TVs within easy sight because this is a sports bar. Each TV is numbered, and each booth has a speaker so you can tune by number to correspond to the event you want to watch on TV so you control the volume. This also means youre not locked into watching basketball while the restaurant speakers play sound for a football game. The servers greeted us promptly and were pleasant and helpful. I enjoyed our experience at Smokey Bones and think you will too. By the way, I had a great lunch the next day of my leftovers and only had one problem: I wanted more. From high atop the soapboxAttention servers: While I appreciate you checking from time to time to see if everything is OK, please dont interrupt a conversation. This is a widespread problem among all kinds of restaurants. If youre a server and you approach the table or booth, please give your customers time to finish their sentences before you start talking. And if they are having a good time and nobody gives you the I need something look, its OK to just move on with a smile and a wave. The reviewer, who pays for his/her own meal, doesnt mind at all equally sharing appetizers just dont expect the same courtesy when it comes to dessert. Restaurants are not reviewed until they have been open eight weeks. To comment, call managing editor Mike Alexieff at 783-3235.