Hickory’s Smokehouse Review, Cardiff

Hickory’s Smokehouse opened in St Mellons, on the former site of the Melrose Inn / Wacky Warehouse, on 13th October 2025. The first Hickory’s opened in Chester in 2010 and there are now over 30 in the UK, with Cardiff being the newest. Hickory’s Smokehouse focuses on bringing the BBQ food from American’s Southern States to the UK, and advertises being family friendly. I visited in November 2025 and wanted to share my experience so you can decide whether to visit too.

I was not invited for the visit, nor was I compensated in any way. I paid the bill in full myself and did not let them know I was reviewing.

Location

First, I love the location of Hickory’s Smokehouse. I think that Cardiff city centre is inundated with restaurants, with many new ones opening all the time. Personally I find going into the city centre a bit of a chore. As my readers might know, we’re a family that has disabilities, including both physical disabilities and neurodivergence. As such, going into town, finding parking, getting to restaurants, can be challenging. Having a bustling and trendy restaurant with unique food options opening in a location that’s very easy to drive to and has a large car park on site is a great addition to the Cardiff food scene in terms of accessibility.

Our meal was on a brisk winter evening and the lights outside are such are welcoming and fun touch. The restaurant was already decorated for Christmas, with a super festive feel. I can imagine it’s amazing to eat outside or grab a drink and enjoy the sun in the summer, with lots of outdoor seating. In the winter darkness we headed inside quickly.

The Meal, including Allergy Handling

Our table was not ready upon arrival and it was clear that the restaurant was extremely busy – in fact it was fully booked for the entire day and night. We had to wait for about 15 minutes in the bar after our booked time for the table to be ready. The bar is great for sports fans, with two giant TVs showing USA sports, but the music was very loud and it was very busy – standing room only, and people were waiting four deep at the bar to buy drinks.

Once we were seated there were a few teething problems with the staff due to me eating gluten free. This required someone get us the gluten free menu and having someone trained in allergies take the order. I really appreciate the attention to detail over allergies, it was very thorough, but it was a bit chaotic and meant we waited another 30 minutes to order. I think this will improve over time as with it being such a new restaurant I imagine most of the staff are still in the training period. The staff were all high energy, working very hard and very friendly – but just in need of a bit more experience.

If you’re gluten free the gluten free menu options are amazing – in fact it’s most of the main menu and offers some of the most varied and unique options I’ve seen in Cardiff. I really felt like I could eat anything and wasn’t missing out by having allergies.

My husband and I ordered the gluten free Smokehouse Platter for two, priced at £70. This is a HUGE amount of food. Easily enough for three adults in my opinion (yes, we had to take some home with us!). It included beef brisket, baby back ribs, smoked chicken, a pork, jalapeno and cheese sausage, pulled pork with BBQ pit beans, pork belly, chicken wings, fries, slaw, pickles and gravy. Our server went through every item on the sharing platter and let me know that the sausage was a may contain, and could be served separately.

My mum chose the Southern Fried Chicken Burger (£18) and our son had the kids Hot Dog meal (£7.75).

We all gave the food a solid 10/10 – I really couldn’t suggest any improvements to the taste of the food or the portion size. My favourite was the pork belly, followed by the beef brisket, but it was all so full of flavour, perfectly cooked. Everything on the platter was absolutely delicious and there was so much food we had to get a takeaway bag as there was enough for us to have lunch the next day too! It was really fun to get a taste of so many different things.

For dessert we all had the frozen custard, something we’ve never had before. It tastes very similar to ice cream, the custard flavour is not strong at all. My mum and I had it with honeycomb, fudge and toffee. My husband had his plain. For kids, there’s a creation station where you get fun tokens (4) to choose your toppings and add your own sauce (there was chocolate, blueberry, strawberry, toffee). William really loved this and had a lot of fun using his tokens.

Family-Friendly

Talking of kids, in addition to the kids menu and the creation station, there’s also a cinema room! How is this not a thing in every restaurant! Basically kid-friendly movies are shown throughout the day and the kids can grab popcorn (free!) and hang out and watch the movie if they’ve finished their food and got bored at the table. I think this is just such a good idea to let the parents take their time over a meal.

A few teething problems

I will say that the restaurant was very packed, the music very loud, the tables very close together and not really enough space on them – getting our sharing platter on was a real struggle. The service was quite slow, we did have to make multiple requests to get things and there was a lot of hanging around. It took almost 3 hours between getting there for two courses and no one asked if our food was okay or if we needed extra drinks etc. If it’s taking three hours for two courses then I can see why the tables aren’t ready when people arrive. Overall it did feel a bit chaotic and frantic on behalf of the staff, but as already mentioned, with a restaurant that’s only been open a month, there’s a lot to learn and I’m sure they will manage to get a handle on streamlining things and it won’t deter us from recommending it.

Accessibility

For anyone with physical mobility problems, I had my stick with me and the bar, restaurant and toilets are all on one level and easy to navigate, but a lot of the tables are booths. Getting a wheelchair in for regular tables would be possible, but I would definitely call ahead and request an accessible table if you have mobility problems and don’t want to be seated in a booth. The disabled bathroom was spacious and clean and there’s parking in the restaurant car park directly outside.

There is a lot of sensory input here, so if you are a neurodivergent family who would not do well with noise, crowds and a chaotic feel, then maybe brunch (served until 2pm) or a week day would make a better visit than the weekend.

We’ll be back!

Despite the teething problems, the food quality and unique menu as well as the location makes this a thumbs up for us as a family. We will definitely be back to Hickory’s Smokehouse in St Mellons.

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