Smitty’s Barbecue & Salad Bar

Very good environment. I liked all the airplanes and general atmosphere. Staff was as polite as can be. Food was average.

I used to go here back on the 80’s! I loved this place. I live in Texas now and find myself comparing bbq places to smittys. …I haven’t found any place as good as I remember this place! …do you deliver. .to Texas? Lol

Came in about an hour before closing thinking I would be told take-​out only. Was relieved when Kayla, the server, asked if I wanted a booth or table. The pork was great but the sauce was bomb! Great service and eating. Will be back!
PS the fried okra was perfect.

Pretty tasty sauce on St Louis style cut ribs :-D Salad bar is decent. Cornbread has actual corn in it & is good. Try the corn nuggets if you’ve never had before. Beans are my favorite side dish

The 3 stars is generous and because I have come here for 20+ years.
Gotta say that I used to come here very often and each time I come I want to come back less and less.
I don’t want to use hyperbole here. I hope the owners and managers use this advice because this place used to be an iconic place in my mind at least.
1. The waitress had a less than attentive attitude
She forgot our salad plates
She didn’t bother bringing the complete order to the table. We ordered a rib combo and got ½ of the combo
2. After the meal was done I went into the men’s restroom and about lost my dinner.
The place smelled of urine and fermented urine was on the floor under the urinal and there was an unflushed toilet in the room also.
I know this because I had hopes of finding a towel dispenser with towels in the handicap toilet stall because the one above the sink was empty of towels.
No there wasn’t another towel dispenser so I eased out careful not to touch anything.
As I exited the doorway of the restroom the irony hit me. There sat a caution wet floor sign in front of the door.
I guess that was to let the boss know that the floor was getting mopped.
You know, because the sign said so.
It wasn’t and by the smell it hadn’t been mopped in days.
Here is a phrase that I find to be true.
The kitchen is usually as clean as the restroom.
Just a point to ponder.
Maybe that was slight hyperbole but, I like this place.
My kids like this place.
We will be back but at this rate it may just be one of those places that fade into Panama City obscurity as what is once was.
When I come back in a few months to allow the trend to change I will update this review and my hopes are that it will be a complete rewrite.
The value must exceed the price by only .01 cents.
Get it together and care about your establishment and get rid of people that don’t respect their employer.
Oh yeah one last thing
You don’t kill a snake by chopping off it’s tail.
So whether it be the manager or the owner ultimately it is you that sets the standard and right now the standard is well below average.

Pretty good. Salad bar is large and fresh. Pulled pork and turkey were average. House BBQ sauce is good. Atmosphere is casual and pretty cool with all the airplanes.

No nonsense barbecue but I opted to go for the white meat chicken plate. I also had the salad bar to start and I probably should have checked it out first. A little limited, but it had the usual favorites including sliced beets and chopped eggs and bits of bacon and ham. Not exactly a healthy salad, but it’s what you choose.
My two quarter chickens (white meat) arrived not much later. Not much sauce on them, but they were surprisingly moist and flavorful. I put a bit of sauce on them just to try the sauces, but they really didn’t need it.
For sides, I had the «Aunt Bea’s Potato Salad» and that was excellent. Nice pieces of potato and very moist, quite nice texture. The baked beans were very meaty and quite gloopy (is gloopy a descriptive word) and rich.
Overall, quite inexpensive as BBQ tends to be. Enjoyable experience. Not a «date night» kind of place, but as a «family night», excellent.

My wife and I live on Panama City Beach, but when we want barbecue we make the 15 mile trip to Smitty’s in Panama City. The baby back ribs are the best I’ve ever had, bar none. Great portions and sauces, always cooked to perfection with delicious pork falling off the bone. A few minor points distract somewhat. Would prefer a larger draft beer selection and the plates for the salad bar are small. However, Smitty’s still ranks 5 stars.

After reading the reviews I figured I’d give this place a shot. While I was not disappointed I was not overly impressed. However, this is a good place for those who enjoy a decent bbq. I’m sure I will go back on another day at some point as Sunday more than likely isn’t their strong point. The portions are decent for the price and filling. Certain seating areas echo more than others and noise was a factor. The place is clean and the food served hot.

Great service and CLEAN! That’s hard to find in Panama City. No disrespect, but with the humidity, keeping things from being sticky and smelly must be hard for restaurants. The meat is nicely smoked and stands on its own without the BBQ sauce, which is sweet and mild. The meat isn’t dried out and doesn’t taste like it spent a day on a burning tree stump. I’ve eaten a lot of BBQ in KC and Memphis and this is not disappointing. The sides weren’t great, but they weren’t the centerpiece of the meal. I’d recommend this for a good meal served by a great wait staff.

A Panama City classic. Great military aviation theme to accompany great BBQ and friendly service.

A well known landmark and iconic military aviation décor. Good BBQ but consistency is sometimes an issue here… So only 3 stars.
Dried out BBQ is a cardinal sin.

This I the best barbecue chicken restaurant I’ve ever had. I’m not a barbecue person but the chicken is the best.

I went to Smittys a few weeks ago and received horrible service and was given wrong food. The server gave me and my friend a coupon for free meal. Today I went to redeem the coupons and had to argue with the manager about it for 20 mins because the coupons weren’t signed. He accused me of taking them from the dinning room. I finally got the food and I was very disappointed. The bread on my pulled pork sandwich was so soggy I couldn’t hold it. And fries were old. I do not ever recommend anyone to eat here.

Order the all you can eat, because everything else is a rip off. I ordered a 2 meat plate for $ 13 and what I got was a 3 bites of pulled pork and a few ounces of chicken meat. I’ve never left a BBQ place still starving until now.

My expectations going in weren’t very high, but I was expecting some decent BBQ. I just left hungry and annoyed.
This place was way overpriced for how small the portions were and how poor the quality was.
I ordered the 2 meat plate ($ 11.99)and added the half slab or ribs ($ 7.99 more).
Brisket: Cut paper thin and reheated on the grill like strips of bacon. They were greasy and just disappointing.
Pulled Pork: Needed BBQ sauce because it seems to have been kept warm in water or something flavorless.
Ribs: Tiny ribs that had a minimal amount of meat.
For a $ 20 at a BBQ restaurant, I would have expected to get a LOT of meat. Instead, I received an extremely small portion of substandard food. I honestly feel taken advantage of… and I’m still hungry.
Where’s the pride in you food?

Today I ordered take out, but I’ve dined in before. Their take out is quick. The staff is always welcoming and friendly. I’ve had the BBQ chicken, ribs and pulled pork on garlic. They’ve all been delicious and I recommended either. I’ve enjoyed their coleslaw, BBQ beans and fried corn too.

My father and I used to come here when I was a kid. Before I was old enough to realize he was a cheap bastard [love you, pops!]. I used to think this place was AWESOME. Though you could attribute that to my 9 year old obsession with salad bars and a not-​yet-​developed taste buds.
My fiancé and I came here one night as I had raved about the salad bar and the BBQ every time we passed it on 231.
The waitress was rude [probably not there any longer as this was longer than 3 years ago]. So rude that I almost thought I was on a prank TV show. Lazy hostess who snarked at us to find our own table. Oookaaay? So we found a table we liked and sat down.
Since I had it in my head that the salad bar was the bee’s knee’s, I ordered that. What I got was strange tasting [and i LIVE for strange tasting things. hello, i’ve eaten crickets and enjoyed it]. But then after tasting a few things at the salad bar I realized that it was absolutely disgusting.
Not to mention I spied that most of their stuff was CANNED and then dumped into vats for your «dining pleasure».
My fiancé got some meat plate that I think was a selection of a different type of items and every single one of them were dry and tough; leaving us prying what seemed to be BBQ’d jerky out of our teeth for the next 6 hours.
I think the only reason it is still around is that is, for some reason, deemed a Bay County institution.
Will never come back.

Great BBQ and Salad Bar
BBQ Chicken is delicious. All their sauces are terrific. the sweet is my favorite
HUGE selection of toppings available at the salad bar.
Great place to take a client during lunch
Staff is extremely polite.
It’s pricey BUT quality food.

It has been about four years since we have been at Smitty’s and we have always considered their barbecue mediocre, among the worse in town. Some things never change, and management is still mediocre at best as well. Even Sonny’s is better, with Outlaw’s Barbecue and Salty’s Sues (on the beach) is the best in the area. Smitty’s just lacks the smoked wood taste of the best barbecue.
And for shame! The hostess is not aware at all of service dog laws, remedial training is in order for her and the manager, who came out and asked if Finnegan could wait outside! The more appropriate action would be to ask if a dog is a service animal FIRST, then proceed from there. Remedial training is required by law for all restaurant personnel and is highly recommended for this establishment, one of only two in Bay County that has been very lacking in this area. The American Disability Act, administered by the Department of Justice, can heavily fine businesses as much as $ 15,000 for inappropriate handling of service dogs!
The pulled pork barbecue is among the worse that we have ever eaten in over 50 barbecue establishments across the U.S. and Canada in the past few years; without any smokey taste or any taste whatsoever for that matter. Portions of the pulled pork were also a bit small as well. The barbecue chicken was average as were the french fries. The Brunswick stew, however, is among the best that we have every had and was very tasty! The key lime pie was above average. The service is fairly good with the exception of the service dog problem.
We will rewrite this review on a return visit, especially if they show on that visit that they can now appropriately deal with service dogs; but there is a whole lot of room for improvement in the taste department for their food!