TheSmoke

Collingwood, Canada

3.8

20 reviews

Contacts

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Telephone:
+1 705-293-5522
Website:
www.thesmoke.ca
Address:
498 First Street, Collingwood, ON, L9Y 1B8
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Bussiness info

Takes Reservations
Yes
Delivery
Yes
Take-out
Yes
Accepts Apple Pay
No
Accepted Cards
Credit, Debit
Good For
Lunch
Parking
Private Lot
Bike Parking
Yes
Wheelchair Accessible
Yes
Good for Kids
Yes
Good for Groups
Yes
Attire
Casual
Ambience
Casual
Noise Level
Average
Alcohol
Full Bar
Outdoor Seating
Yes
Wi-Fi
No
Has TV
Yes
Dogs Allowed
No
Waiter Service
Yes
Caters
Yes

Today

Today –
Local time (Collingwood) 9:43 PM Monday, June 2, 2025

Business hours

Monday –
Tuesday 11:30 am – 8:30 pm
Wednesday 11:30 am – 8:30 pm
Thursday 11:30 am – 8:30 pm
Friday 11:30 am – 9:00 pm
Saturday 11:30 am – 9:00 pm
Sunday 11:30 am – 8:00 pm

Description

Specialties

We have taken BBQ to a Whole New Level! From Award Winning Brisket, Pulled Pork, Ribs and Chicken, to Smoked Trout, Smoked Burgers, Wild Boar Bacon Sandwiches and Brisket Poutine. Everything we do is from Scratch, and Made with Chef Cams own Recipes.

Tuesdays are Sandwich Days — Try our Wild Boar Bacon Sandwich, or our Cow Meats Pig (a Pulled Pork and Beef Brisket Sandwich in 1)

Wednesdays are Rib Days — For Lunch, Enjoy a Half Rack and one Side for only $ 12, or Dinner a Full Rack and Two Sides for $ 19

Thursdays are Burger Days — Try our Smoked Beef Chuck Burger, or our Turkey Burger, or the Poutine Burger. All Burgers are $ 2 OFF on Thursdays.

Dessert? Try our Smoked Banana Ice Cream, or our Wild Boar Bacon Bourbon Ice Cream! Yup! Bacon and Ice Cream, Amazing!

Like our Facebook Page to find out Specials and Events, or Make a Reservation online from our Website.

Come and Check us Out, at TheSmoke.

History

Established in 2012.

Started in December 2012 by Chef Cam Dyment. Cam is a Business Person, with a Passion for Food. His Goal is your Enjoyment of his Food, Service, Atmosphere and Value. On June 9, 2013, TheSmoke received the Peoples Choice Award from the 2013 Collingwood Taste of the Town.

On June 15, Cam entered his first BBQ Competition, and competed in the Blue Mountain 2013 BBQ Championship, and became the Grand Champion, with a 1st in Pork, 2nd in Brisket, 2nd in Chicken and Overall Grand Champion. He competed against some very experienced teams with many championships under their belts.

Meet the Business Owner

Cam D.

Business Owner

While Cam has been involved in many businesses over the last 30 years, he has always had a passion for food. He was always looking for different ways of bringing flavour and enjoyment in food. He began smoking meats in 1999, and since has created his own rubs, sauces and techniques. All of his friends had told him over the years to open up his own restaurant. In the Summer of 2012, he developed a business plan, and opened up in December 2012. This Restaurant is his first, and is a prototype, as he intends on expanding his unique concept to more locations.

Vicinity

Near this location:
80
ft
Ski Shop of Collingwood
498 First Street
110
ft
Northwinds Brewhouse & Eatery
499 First Street
120
ft
Topper’s Pizza
499 First St Unit 4
170
ft
Kamikaze the Outdoor Store
470 First Street
200
ft
Ashanti Coffee
510 First Street
290
ft
Pie Wood Fired Pizza Joint
499 First Street

20 reviews of TheSmoke

No registration required
Place rating: 4
London, Canada
Well, the food was REALLY good. If I had one complaint, and I know it seems silly, it that it might have been TOO popular. If you can someone time your visit when there is no line you’re sure to love it – oh, and try the meat!
Place rating: 4
San Diego, CA
Lots of good food. I had the half slab of ribs and husband had the pulled pork entrée. This gave us four total choices of sides. These are a good size, not a mini dish. The beans were hot, the fries plentiful, the potato salad fresh and the coleslaw crisp. I had leftovers of the latter. I didn’t plan to finish my slab but did because it was so tender I couldn’t stop eating. Nice variety in the sauces. The spicy definitely is hot. Add it at the table rather than having it cooked on.
Place rating: 3
Mississauga, Canada
Food: 3 stars
Service: 5 stars
Value for money: 3 stars
Net rating: 3.6 stars
My family and I ate here last week and ordered the following:
Pulled pork Nachos — extremely SALTY. Too much cabbage and not so much pork
Sampler platter — ribs, chicken and brisket with sweet potato fries and baked beans. The ribs were dry and the chicken was forgettable.
Kids meal: Mac n cheese with coleslaw — biggest RIP OFF EVER!
However, our server Jenny was great and made sure to take care of us as we had two kids with us (22 month old and 5 month old).
Our bill was $ 70 (exclusive of tips). Not sure if this was worth it.
Place rating: 5
Tampa, FL
Excellent food and ambience from appetizer to main and dessert. Two of us busted here from Toronto and were impressed by the pull pork, beef brisket and the back ribs. Authentic BBQ and slow cooked with just the right amount of sauce and tenderness. Sides (smoked beans, yam fries, coleslaw) were also made to perfection. Other patrons seem to enjoy they signature burgers which make this a sure place to come back to when in the collingwood, blue
mountain and wasaga area.
Place rating: 4
Markham, Canada
You gotta eat here ;)! Yes this restaurant was featured in food network. Had to try it and it did not disappoint! My friend and I shared a sampler platter and wings appetizer. They also had favorite beer (beaus)!
Food:4/5. Highlights– fall off the bone back ribs, tender beef brisket, wings. So so items — dry ¼ chicken, bland penne & cheese
Service: 3.5÷5. Poor wait time estimation (said it would be 40 min. Actually waited 15min). Service was slow but not bad
Ambiance: 4⁄5 cool industrial looking restaurant. Lots of advertisement about food network feature. Nice patio
Place rating: 3
Toronto, Canada
I came here based on Jason M’s suggestion. Wow, what an elite Unilocaler.
Food: It’s ok. Pull pork was great. Ribs and brisket were on the dryer side. Mac and cheese was weak — it had a gritty texture and wasn’t all that flavourful, as if they added a lot of flour. Shame, because I love mac n cheese. I wasn’t too fond of the red cabbage side either.
The sauces are really good. They’re made in-​house and available for purchase as well. The sauce pairing guides at each table are a really nice touch. Bottles were always full, which I definitely needed for the dryer meats.
Service is amazing! Waitresses were super friendly and really make an effort to brighten your day.
Place rating: 5
Richmond Hill, Canada
So i came here on wednesday after a full day n night of snowboarding at blue mountain. Having already tried out all the food across the three chalets i figured i’d Unilocal something close by. I had been craving some bbq so thats what i searched. this cozy place popped up first and i decided to check it out. I was seated immediately cuz i think i came at a good time. Waitress didnt tell me her name but she was cheerful and explained that wednesdays were rib night specials. Done deal for me (especially cuz i had seen pics of the ribs beforehand too)! I got a full rack with smokey and sweet bbq sauce. I also ordered two sides: mac n cheese and sweet potato fries. To top it off, I settled with a pint of creemore (they actually have a nice variety of beers on tap as opposed to the regular domestics). My meal came SUPER FAST and steaming hot. OH HOW GLORIOUS THAT FIRST BITE OF RIB WAS. FINGER LICKING GOOD INDEED. You could definitely taste the smokiness in the meat. My waitress also brought over a bunch of different sauces for me to add to my meat (i tried them all and they were all delicious; smoky n sweet my fave). Whole meal came to around ~$ 30 so definitely not cheap, but hey, great quality food so i didnt mind! gave my waitress a big tip on top of that cuz she was awesome (just wish she had told me her name so i couldve name dropped her here). They also have a bunch of HDTV’s showings sports. Too bad I’m from toronto otherwise i’d definitely frequent this place more often. Nevertheless, you can bet the next time im in collingwood i’ll be back! (the bbq sampler looked amazing)
Place rating: 5
Toronto, Canada
TheSmoke got me excited, from seeing their banner outside of the restaurant stating that it was featured on the Food Network, and their TV display upon entering, which showcased all their sandwiches/​burgers. There was a crowd waiting at the door, but no hostess, so there was a bit of a wait. It appeared understaffed — management should get on that…
Aside from the initial wait, the service was okay. I’m giving the restaurant a 5-​star rating because although the service was average, the food was delicious and reasonably priced to make up for it.
I shared the meat platter with my boyfriend which includes back ribs, pulled pork, and beef brisket. It comes with 2 sides and we substituted one with poutine — and it was a huge plate of poutine! I would recommend doing the same; it was more than enough to feed the two of us after a day spent skiing! The other side we had was coleslaw to balance out the meat intake.
What’s unique to TheSmoke is that they have 5 different sauces at the table (sauce boss). I liked the Carolina mustard sauce (similar to honey mustard) and the smokey sweet BBQ sauce which went really well with the meat. You can have fun with it and experiment the various sauces with your food.
Overall, I had a great experience and would recommend anyone visiting Collingwood to check out this restaurant!
Place rating: 5
Markham, Canada
Outstanding food. Like holly grail of BBQ good. Just finished sking and cane here from the good reviews and everyone is right. Their food is amazing! Heaven for any meat lover!
Place rating: 3
Mississauga, Canada
After watching the episode on You Gotta Eat Here my wife and I were super excited on eating at the Smoke as we’re both Meat lovers.
We ordered a platter of brisket, half rack ribs and pulled pork.
The brisket and the pulled pork were really good but the ribs were a bit of a let down.
It fell nicely off the bone but it lacked flavour.
I also recommend the baked beans. A variety of sauces are very tempting as they have a sauce list that shows what goes with what.
A bigger let down was that we had to wait for 40 mins for our food which is very unacceptable. I know it takes hours for the meat to get the right kind of smoke but I’ve eaten at other smokehouses where I got my food 15 – 20 mins from the time I placed the order.
Place rating: 3
Toronto, Canada
This restaurant is really famous for locals and listed as one of the best restaurants available in the area. When you walk inside you will notice a lot of awards for the ribs and sauces they use for bbq. We came in a party of 40 ppl. The restaurant was pretty spacious and had more then enough room to accomdate us. Me and another ordered the ribs and the chicken.
I was very much looking forward to the ribs as i heard such good things. I have to say that the sauces were good as they place sauces at the table for you to use. So you can try all of them. They were pretty unique. However when we got to the ribs. Unfortunately im not sure if its because we had a large party or such. But the ribs were very overcooked. And the meat was dry and rough. Instead of tender. This was a major disappointment for me. As i was hoping for it to be better. The sides with sauces was decent. And they had a lot of choices for you to pick.
The chicken at this place was not bad. It was not over cooked. And a noted is if a group of 6 or more they charge mandatory 17 percent tip.
The restaurant had a few speciality ice creams such as a bacon rum ice cream we tried and it was unique however i feel the ice cream is better without the bacon as the flavours dont really work well together.
Overall the dining experience was nice. But they simply lost 2 stars because the ribs in which they are famous for was overcookedand dry. Something you would not expect from a rib restaurant that is focused on it
Place rating: 3
Toronto, Canada
I’ve been to the smoke over a dozen times since my first review of this place. I gotta say, that it’s not the same as when it opened. As soon as we entered the restaurant, we tell the hostess how many people we have usually 2 or 3, and EVERY TIME she’ll ask «do you have a reservation?» and since we almost never make reservations, we tell her «no we do not» and she then makes a disappointed face, sighs and says «errrmm ok… let me see what we have.» And looks at the tables and her reservation system… and EVERY TIME she will say «we recommend that you make a reservation». This is usually proceeded with, «it will be xxx minutes for a table» or, «we have a table, please follow me». I thought it was just me, however on 4 four of occasions my friends had actually noticed this too — they make you feel bad for not making a reservation. It’s a turn-​off. The majority of people that pass through Collingwood are people visiting from other cities and I doubt they are aware of this ‘preferred reservation’ policy. — there’s really no need to shame people for it.
In addition, the food seems to take longer to come to the table and the waitress is often not around for long periods of time when we needed her. — this only happened on 3 different occasions but we found if very off putting. I’ve deducted a star due to those two points.
Place rating: 4
Toronto, Canada
I loved my back ribs!
As for sides, I ordered sweet potato fries, which was amazing and corn breads, which were okay.
I enjoyed trying five different kinds of sauces that they provided. I liked blue and purple ones best. Their menu started with a page containing a personal message from the chef saying he won some awards in BBQ competitions, which set my expectations high but the food did not disappoint. The service was friendly and pretty fast as well. One thing that annoyed me was seeing a fly trying to land on my food. Shoo. Not for you. If I’m in the area, I’d definitely be back.
Place rating: 4
Hamilton, Canada
It has been almost 2 years since I first came here and I’m still a fan. We arrived just in time and filled their last empty table at dinner so we didn’t have to wait. I got the pulled pork with the grilled bun add-​on. It was absolutely delicious. They have many different sauces you can slather on and most of them worked well. The meal also included 2 sides. I got the caesar salad and the mac and cheese, both of which were pretty good. I recommend the mac and cheese if you’re looking for something a little different. My date got the sweet potato fries, which were good but a bit bland this time. I also tried some of the ribs and while pretty tasty, it was very dry and firmer than I would’ve liked.
The other side we got was the corn bread and it was probably the only true disappointment. It tasted like any regular bread.
P.S The portions are huge so order accordingly.
Place rating: 5
Toronto, Canada
My friends convinced me to take one of the two eating challenges offered at this establishment.
I had 30 minutes to finishing eating a burger consisting of four 8 oz. beef patties, four bacon strips and four slices of cheddar cheese, alongside one pound of french fries. Being the absolute monster that I am, I managed to complete the challenge in just under 28 minutes (you have to complete the challenge in under 10 minutes to eat for free, which is nigh impossible) and got on the Wall of Fame!
While I was slaving (read: dying) over that meal, my friends ordered from the regular menu and had nothing but positive comments. Prices are very fair and the portions are absolutely monstrous.
According to the folks in the area, this is Collingwood’s not-​so-​hidden local gem, and you should definitely check it out next time you head up to Blue Mountain.
Place rating: 3
Markham, Canada
Good food overall. The server was nice enough to recommend us a large platter that is good for sharing. The platter has brisket, coleslaw, ribs, and chicken wings. There are many choices for flavour, either the kitchen will cook the food in that flavour, or customers can mix it themselves with the sauces presented on the table.
However, it seems that the restaurant closes early (at 8pm on a Sunday). We were eating outside at the patio and several customers try to get into the restaurant after 8pm. It was weird when they see the restaurant closed already but still see customers (i.e. us) eating at the patio.
If you want to eat here for dinner on a Sunday, come early!
Place rating: 5
Toronto, Canada
PROBABLY THE BEST BBQ YOU WILL EVER HAVE.
Our two platters could have fed an entire African village for a week. We got the Meatery and Wings+Ribs meals and jesus christ they were amazing. Our favourite sides were the mac ‘n cheese and beans. Our server was so cute and nice.
WILL COME BACK.
Place rating: 1
Mississauga, Canada
After few weeks, I finally have time to review this place.
When you read the review from Unilocal «The Smoke» page, you see 4 stars right? I don’t know what happen the day me and my gf went, but I would say my ribs tasted BAD. The worst ribs I have had in Canada. If I could, I would just give them 0 star.
My ribs was dry and the coleslaw was alright. I know some people might like dry and chewy ribs but I don’t. It was not even chewy, it just DRY. I want ribs to fall off the bone. The price wasn’t cheap too. However, they had tons of sauces to choose.
My gf’s burger was alright but I won’t say its very good…
The funny part was Swiss Chalet was right across them. I would rather go eat my ribs there instead. I am very disappointed with the reviews here and will never and recommend this place again to my friends and people.
Place rating: 2
Markham, Canada
Im quite disappointed by TheSmoke.
With such a high rating, I was expecting TheSmoke to blow me away like Stack (North York) and Le Boucan (Montréal) did.
Ordered the platter, from which we selected two ½ rack ribs and the beef brisket. The 2 sides we ordered were a garden salad and mac and cheese.
In my opinion, there was not one superior item. compared to the restaurants named above. I expected my taste buds to have a party in my mouth but the beat never dropped.
Place rating: 5
Markham, Canada
We came because of the high Unilocal rating. The decoration is urban, energetic, casual, yet it doesn’t feel like a pub. The kitchen is visible from the dinning area, which I appreciate. There are TVs at the front showcasing pictures of food in their raw (fresh) and cooked (mouth watering) states.
Between my BF and I, we ordered a chicken wings appetizer ($ 10) and a Pork Platter ($ 21). The chicken wings are a must-​have. We ordered the Franks Hot sauce version. It stimulated the palette but not burning it. We tested with the various sauces and decided that the wings tasted perfect as they were. Adding a sauce just messed the flavour up. The Pork Platter had their award winning pulled pork, a sausage and a 1⁄3 rack of back ribs. All were infused with bold flavours. The textures of pulled pork and the ribs were just right, but the sausage was firmer than I liked. We played with the sauces again. I enjoyed the Mustard sauce with the sausage, the Smokey Sweet BBQ sauce with the pulled pork and any of the three BBQ sauces with the ribs. BTW, none of the sauces are suicidal hot.
For dessert, TheSmoke rotates its offering weekly.
A heads up that the portion of the main is huge, so much so that my friends joked that this was «American portion». One main can feed 2 females to full or a male to stuffed. Hence, one appetizer and one main were enough food for both of us.