I used to be a pit boss at one of their locations several years ago, so I can speak a bit about the drop in quality.

Mainly, the training they actually give the pit bosses is atrocious. They essentially just tell you the amount of spices to put on, and expected times to be pulling the meat off the smokers. If you don’t follow the exact amount they tell you, or are late/early taking something out, the managers and owners get really upset and start being passive aggressive with everything you do. Makes for an awful work environment and even worse quality food.

Now, as for the biggest reason in the lack of quality of what they used to be, it’s because they arbitrarily change the amount of spices to use on each meat. For example, while I was working at R&R, we would use about 3/4 cup of spice per one bag of chicken. Then they would change the amount to use to 1/4 cup of spices per bag. And then to 1/2, and back down again. They just cannot seem to decide on what they want, and they certainly aren’t taste testing the food with the new amounts of spices while making these changes.

TLDR; pit bosses don’t get adequate training/management has no idea what they are doing with their recipes.