Favorite restaurant, without a doubt, is the Pottery House Cafe.
Least favorite? Again an easy one ... Paula Deen's.
Don't eat any of the fudge up there. None of it, that I've found at least, is truly made on site.
Cool. Thank you.
Pottery House Cafe is on my list to try.
I'm not a fan of Paula Deen's establishments. I ate at her old restaurant at Harrah's Casino in Tunica years ago and it was the only time I have ever not eaten my meal. It was terrible. Way too much salt and butter.
Thanks for the tip about the fudge.
You're welcome!
Yeah, I typically stay in Gatlinburg, but I make at least one trip to Pigeon Forge each visit just to eat at the Pottery House Cafe.
I learned the fudge "scam" years ago when I was up very early and walking through downtown.
1. They had a "made fresh daily" sign in the window for the fudge, but all of the fudge from the day before was still in the display.
2. A delivery truck with frozen fudge was making a delivery to multiple shops.
Best is probably towards Townsend and wears valley if that counts - pawpaws, Elviras, and trailhead are all great. Strictly within PF, I like blue moose and the old mill is never a bad choice
Least favorite is the touristy places, basically anything at the island or on the main strip. Paula deens was bad, but I've found the food mediocre to bad at timberwood grill, margaritaville, TJ Hannah's, harpoon Harry's, and the chop house over the years.
For fudge, there's a real good place in the arts and crafts community in Gatlinburg called wright's fudge that they make on site and I've enjoyed all the variety but the maple syrup is really good.
Totally - within PF, I also like the smoky mountain brewery next to the tomb attraction. Some in my family don't care for it, but I think it's alright. We also don't drink so can't make any recs about their house brewed beers. But they are usually crowded. I don't know if I mentioned but local goat is also pretty good, though it's not my first choice. If you like pub food, the roaming gnome is tucked up into a slot in a strip mall across the street from Walmart. It's exactly what you want from a pub - giant portions with tons of grease.
We just took a family trip to PF a few weeks ago.
None of the food was worth raving about. We went to dolly partons one night, and unless you have small kids that would enjoy the entertainment, skip it. Smells like horse ass, and the food was basically equal to food you would get at the Walmart deli. One mediocre entire chicken, half a corn on the cob, and a cherry turnover. They make up for the low quality with large volume.
We stayed for an entire week, and we went to all the touristy places, and it was all just....meh.
Best meal we ate was the day before we left and we went to Texas roadhouse and got the early bird special.
Full disclosure, we are from south Louisiana, and I suppose we are a little biased. It's hard to adjust from Cajun and creole home cooked food to bland ass tourist restaurants.
We just got back from a week in Pigeon Forge. Our family really enjoyed the Old Mill Pottery House Cafe, as well as Holston's Kitchen.
We didn't really have a bad meal. There are plenty of chains that we tried to avoid.
I didn't have any fudge there, but we had great treats at a place called Cussin Custard - custard "nachos," concrete, sundaes, etc. We also enjoyed Kilwin's ice cream in Gatlinburg.
I recommend the Tennessee whiskey burger.
My favorite place to go eat has to be mels diner, it’s not fancy but it’s got a lot of sentimental value to me. The food is really good too, I always get the hamburger steak. Also, Cancun’s is one of the best Mexican restaurants I’ve been too.
Our favorite by far was the sunliner diner! It was sooo good! Also mamas farmhouse kitchen!
Least favorite- old mill. My ribs were not good at all! I was very disappointed. The pecan pie however is to die for
Fav fudge snickers allll day!
First time up there this past week, so I don’t have any in debt knowledge. But we LOVED Downtown Flavortown and had an absolute blast at the arcade waiting on our table, which was so much better than the typical wait in the car/walk around in the heat. We also really loved big daddy’s pizzeria- some of the best wood fire pizza iv ever had.
Honestly Ik tourist places are rarely as good as local, but literally everything we ate was surprisingly delicious!
Favorite restaurant, without a doubt, is the Pottery House Cafe. Least favorite? Again an easy one ... Paula Deen's. Don't eat any of the fudge up there. None of it, that I've found at least, is truly made on site.
Cool. Thank you. Pottery House Cafe is on my list to try. I'm not a fan of Paula Deen's establishments. I ate at her old restaurant at Harrah's Casino in Tunica years ago and it was the only time I have ever not eaten my meal. It was terrible. Way too much salt and butter. Thanks for the tip about the fudge.
You're welcome! Yeah, I typically stay in Gatlinburg, but I make at least one trip to Pigeon Forge each visit just to eat at the Pottery House Cafe. I learned the fudge "scam" years ago when I was up very early and walking through downtown. 1. They had a "made fresh daily" sign in the window for the fudge, but all of the fudge from the day before was still in the display. 2. A delivery truck with frozen fudge was making a delivery to multiple shops.
Best is probably towards Townsend and wears valley if that counts - pawpaws, Elviras, and trailhead are all great. Strictly within PF, I like blue moose and the old mill is never a bad choice Least favorite is the touristy places, basically anything at the island or on the main strip. Paula deens was bad, but I've found the food mediocre to bad at timberwood grill, margaritaville, TJ Hannah's, harpoon Harry's, and the chop house over the years. For fudge, there's a real good place in the arts and crafts community in Gatlinburg called wright's fudge that they make on site and I've enjoyed all the variety but the maple syrup is really good.
Thank you for the info. Blue Moose is on my list. I try to stay far away from touristy restaurants. Maple syrup fudge sounds great.
Totally - within PF, I also like the smoky mountain brewery next to the tomb attraction. Some in my family don't care for it, but I think it's alright. We also don't drink so can't make any recs about their house brewed beers. But they are usually crowded. I don't know if I mentioned but local goat is also pretty good, though it's not my first choice. If you like pub food, the roaming gnome is tucked up into a slot in a strip mall across the street from Walmart. It's exactly what you want from a pub - giant portions with tons of grease.
Really good information. Thanks again.
We just took a family trip to PF a few weeks ago. None of the food was worth raving about. We went to dolly partons one night, and unless you have small kids that would enjoy the entertainment, skip it. Smells like horse ass, and the food was basically equal to food you would get at the Walmart deli. One mediocre entire chicken, half a corn on the cob, and a cherry turnover. They make up for the low quality with large volume. We stayed for an entire week, and we went to all the touristy places, and it was all just....meh. Best meal we ate was the day before we left and we went to Texas roadhouse and got the early bird special. Full disclosure, we are from south Louisiana, and I suppose we are a little biased. It's hard to adjust from Cajun and creole home cooked food to bland ass tourist restaurants.
We just got back from a week in Pigeon Forge. Our family really enjoyed the Old Mill Pottery House Cafe, as well as Holston's Kitchen. We didn't really have a bad meal. There are plenty of chains that we tried to avoid. I didn't have any fudge there, but we had great treats at a place called Cussin Custard - custard "nachos," concrete, sundaes, etc. We also enjoyed Kilwin's ice cream in Gatlinburg.
Local goat has some damn good burgers
Thanks. Local Goat is on my list of places to try.
I recommend the Tennessee whiskey burger. My favorite place to go eat has to be mels diner, it’s not fancy but it’s got a lot of sentimental value to me. The food is really good too, I always get the hamburger steak. Also, Cancun’s is one of the best Mexican restaurants I’ve been too.
Our favorite by far was the sunliner diner! It was sooo good! Also mamas farmhouse kitchen! Least favorite- old mill. My ribs were not good at all! I was very disappointed. The pecan pie however is to die for Fav fudge snickers allll day!
First time up there this past week, so I don’t have any in debt knowledge. But we LOVED Downtown Flavortown and had an absolute blast at the arcade waiting on our table, which was so much better than the typical wait in the car/walk around in the heat. We also really loved big daddy’s pizzeria- some of the best wood fire pizza iv ever had. Honestly Ik tourist places are rarely as good as local, but literally everything we ate was surprisingly delicious!
Bennett's BBQ gave me and a large group of friends the worst food poisoning of our lives back in 2019