Jakey’s Amish Barbeque

If you love yourself and your family do not eat here. Worst BBQ I’ve ever had. Staff was nice and accommodating but they either need a new cook or they need to buy good quality meat.

We wanted to go somewhere else… we really did.
The places we wanted to go, which had good reviews from Unilocal were closed. So we see jakey’s Amish bbq, and the Unilocal reviews are not good.
I’ll keep it short… your basically eating in a gift shop… the food is terrible but cheap, and big portions.(staff was friendly)
Run away from this place, or u will have the runs!

Wow, ate there a year ago and now it’s really gone downhill.
BBQ takes like fake smoke, even with them filling their own porch with real smoke from a nearby contraption.
Greasy fries, sub-​standard BBQ — only item worth mentioning was the fresh corn on the cob offered as you sat down also available as a side dish.
The young lady who was our waitress barely came back so we had to walk up to the counter for refills on our drinks.
Too many good places in Lancaster county, pass this one up, it will be gone soon.

Dear Jakey,
Your freakishly evil gnome sign is still haunting me two days after seeing it, and I found the music that you blast out into the parking lot to be horrendously loud, distorted and disorienting. (Won’t come back from Dead Man’s Curveee)
Why do you torture your visitors (and Dienner’s guests as well)?
Cheers~

Made annual trip to jakey’s … Never again
Service– was non existent. Table of two got one menu
Surly waitresses with food caked on her shirt
Brisket @ $ 9.95 was a joke… First it wasn’t brisket. second, the portion was like 2 oz. Third, the meat tasted like a crappy mix au jus that it was dipped in. Fourth, Carolina sauce was tasteless. Fifth, for $ 10.00 paper plate, crappy cheap utensils. Six, fries were like child’s portion no ketchup
No value, no service, no taste!!!
Check for two sandwiches and two drinks $ 22.45
Also half the dining was a t– shirt shop poorly merchandise and put together on a shoestring
What happened !!!

It would get a 5 for service but we are talking food here, so the place gets a two for food. The «BBQ» served here is barely better than what one might expect at an AYCE salad bar. The pulled pork was okay; the chicken was pretty gross (IMHO). The brisket was just roast beef. covered with sauce. They should send someone to Jack’s in Nashville to learn how to make REAL BBQ. On the bright side, the servers are super nice and get orders out fast. The spicy BBQ sauce isn’t half bad. The store next door (Dutch Haven) has kick ass hard pretzels and shoofly pie. If you decide to come here, try the sampler that way you get a broad range of tastes. It was plenty for the two of us and cost $ 17.00 Free refills on the large soda.

Service is VERY slow but the people are lovely. It really isn’t all that great but if you’re looking for an awesome place to eat then just eat next door and you won’t be disappointed.

We ate here. It was just OK. Nice people running it. Food on buffet was cold.

I ate here. It was okay. But I think given the number of choices in the area, you might opt to eat somewhere else. The only nice thing is they have outdoor seating and theres a nice view of a neighboring farm. The indoor seating is kind of scurvy. Very informal kind of place. Good for kids or a quick bite.

I’m aware of your questions and will answer them first.
1. Yes, this is a real place
2. Yes, this is real BBQ
3. Despite the numerous Amish living nearby, I don’t think this is Amish-​owned.
On a long drive out to the Dutch Wonderland theme park, during a quick bathroom break at an area Super Wawa, i spotted this business card in a rack by the exit. Good for a chuckle I supposed, but this happened to be on the very route we would take and we would pass it right about when we were hungry for lunch, having spent the better part of an hour in some inexplicable traffic jam that very well may have been caused by actual Amish driving on actual highways on an actual horse & buggy.
Good news is, for all its kitsch, this is actual pit cooked BBQ. Out in Ronks, PA the pairing of BBQ stables like brisket, pork shoulder and the like with Amish classics like corn fritters, funnel cake and shoofly pie qualifies as fusion cuisine. I will grant you that this is a fusion more pleasing to the palette than the stomach, but a worthwhile experiment nonetheless.
We tried brisket, we tried pork shoulder (oddly sliced, not pulled), we tried french fries, we tried corn fritters, we had a single bite of funnel cake, we tried tomato sauce, we tried vinegar sauce and some very sweet lemonade. Just about everything is hand crafted, all of it was tasty and there is nothing worth complaining about.
I don’t know if the Amish take any offense to the misappropriation of their image, but it occurred to me, later than it should have, that the internet wouldn’t be the best way to find out. Until next time, I suppose.