Daniel B.
Yelp
My experience at this Big Dave's Cheesesteaks location in Doraville wasn't as good as my last experience at the original location on Winters Chapel Road. I rated that experience five stars: https://bit.ly/373hJ36. My experience at this location was worse in terms of both food and service so, three stars (OK). If you average my two ratings together, I think four stars is fair for Big Dave's in general. Bottom line: It's still one of the best cheesesteaks in town and the wings are great too.
This restaurant has come a long way since its humble beginnings attached to a Shell gas station. As it's gotten bigger, I'm not sure the quality in both food and service has been maintained. This business has become a much larger operation with more people spread across two locations - this one and Downtown Atlanta. You can find this Big Dave's in bustling Peachtree Pavilion (H Mart Doraville shopping center).
Since opening in November 2020, lines and crowds outside the front door have been a common sight. This was no exception during our Sunday visit around 2:45pm. Long story short, we didn't get our food until 4:01pm. We stood in line to order and were rung up at 3:03pm. So, we spent 58 minutes waiting *after* placing our order. They were backed up and apologized to everyone for the excessive wait times.
On the bright side, we had already planned to order some of Dave's water ice and received it immediately. We enjoyed it and ordered milk teas from Tea Top (our favorite bubble tea place in Atlanta) while waiting for the rest of our order. My advice: Order ahead of time.
That said, when I looked at the restaurant's online menu around 2:15pm (they open at 12pm on Sundays), the site said they were already sold out of a lot of items including beef cheesesteaks and all egg rolls. Say what? When we showed up in person, they made sure to mention several times to people standing in line that they had sold out of egg rolls. Beef cheesesteaks were in stock, however. So, there was a discrepancy with the online menu -- something to keep in mind.
The egg rolls here are popular. They're like cheesesteak sandwiches, but in egg roll form (meat, seasoning, cheeses, and onion). $3.75 per beef or chicken egg roll and $4.99 for salmon. During our visit, the lady serving up orders told us they had already sold "a thousand." I'm not sure over what time frame.
Here's what we got:
* Dave's Way Beef Cheesesteak ($12.99) - classic Philly cheesesteak with Big Dave's "famous" seasoning, mushrooms, onions, sweet peppers, banana peppers, and three cheeses: American, Provolone, and Cheez Whiz
* Dave's Way Chicken Cheesesteak ($12.99) - classic chicken Philly cheesesteak with Big Dave's "famous" seasoning, mushrooms, onions, sweet peppers, banana peppers, and three cheeses: American, Provolone, and Cheez Whiz
* 10-piece wings ($10.75) - fresh wings marinated in Big Dave's "famous" chicken seasoning and "dropped fresh daily" -- Mardi Gras sauce
* Water Ice (small, $2.75) - flavor combo -- pineapple, cherry, and blueberry cotton candy
The cheesesteaks were good. The beef cheesesteak definitely outshone the chicken cheesesteak, but I recommend both depending on what you're in the mood for. Big Dave's uses grass-fed beef to separate themselves from the competition. It's higher quality. I think they messed up our Dave's Way orders, and we weren't the only ones. Our friends, who had visited earlier in the day (two separate orders), experienced similar problems. There weren't any mushrooms in our sandwiches. Also, we could only tell that there were banana peppers in the chicken cheesesteak, not in the beef cheesesteak. While not getting Dave's Way *all the way* was disappointing, the meat, bread, and three cheeses (the main ingredients) still produced tasty and delicious sandwiches; they just weren't outstanding nor amazing, and certainly not worth the wait. If there wasn't a wait, they'd have been worth it.
The wings were yummy. We decided to try a different sauce this time, the Mardi Gras. I asked the lady at the register, Antonisha, what it tasted like and she described it as a Cajun barbecue sauce. Her description was on point. The sauce was rich, sticky, smoky, and savory. The wings themselves were crispy on the outside, meaty and moist on the inside. They forgot our ranch dressing.
Like the old location, this new location has a water ice bar. For the uninitiated, water ice is a dessert from Philadelphia similar to Italian ice. It's flavored ice. I think the difference between Philly water ice and Italian ice is water ice is finer, softer, and fluffier. Three flavors were available to us, scooped directly out of large white buckets like ice cream: lemon, cherry, and blueberry cotton candy. I asked for all three in combination (like the picture on the menu). The water ice wasn't bad. Essentially icy sugar water. The texture was airy and creamy, but without dairy, and the flavor was very sweet.
TL;DR - Good, but worth the wait? Questionable.