What's a good vacation without great food? Here are some of our favorites as well as some of our no's! Most of these are located in Pigeon Forge because it's so much easier to park there where you want to eat. In Gatlinburg, you're going to have to pay usually $20 for parking and then have to walk.
FAVORITES:
-Cracker Barrel is always a good go to.
-Golden Corral is usually busy for a reason. It is a massive buffet with a huge variety of food. And not too expensive.
-Bullfish Grill was a really good restaurant where I had a great steak.
-Johnny Rockets has some really good burgers. This is a good little 50's diner for great burgers and shakes.
-Red Lobster is another beloved by many for seafood. My daughter wanted some crab legs, so we decided to come here and it was so good.
-Mountain Edge Grill-This place offers some really awesome bison burgers, and the restaurant is just super cute. We were walking the streets of Gatlinburg and my blood sugar got really low. This was the closest restaurant so we just went in. The server got us sat down really quick and got me some crackers and a drink to help get my blood sugar up before the food got there. I always appreciate that kindness cause I hate being an inconvenience like that.
-Fried Oreos & Funnel Cakes-If you are walking through Gatlinburg, you MUST stop in at one of their fried Oreos, funnel cakes, and shakes stands. They are SOOOO good.
-Space Needle Arcade-If you want a slice of pizza that is bigger than your head, this is the place! The pizza was SOOO good, reasonably priced, and you'll probably only need one slice.
NOT BAD/NOT GOOD:
-Shoneys- We love buffets. So we try to find places that have them. Shoney's doesn't really fall in the favorite category but isn't really a bad one. Some of the food is good but some of it is just not good.
-Wood Grill Buffet is a lot like Golden Corral with a huge variety of food. It's not really super great though. Some of the food is pretty good, but most was bleh.
NOOOOO:
-Dicks- If you want to go here for the experience, I understand, but just get drinks. Their food is some of the worst food I've ever gotten in a restaurant and is way too expensive for the quality. My blackened chicken had so much seasoning on it that the food runner thought it was pork chops cause she couldn't even see the meat. I've eaten here twice and both times were terrible. Steak, chicken, green beans, corn, etc...all bad!
-Captain Jim's Seafood Buffet-My daughter wanted seafood so we decided to try it. When you get the buffet, you can choose to add on crab legs for either $15 or $25 more, I can't remember. There was only one other table in the entire restaurant. And they sat us right beside them. Then every table that did come in, they once again sat them right beside us. But the food was just terrible. We were so disappointed and almost wanted to stop at Mcdonalds on the way out. You shouldn't leave a buffet hungry. The fish was sitting in a pan of water and tasted just like water.
-The Diner not to be confused with Sunliner. We wanted to try this because I love 50's diners. This one just was not it. The prices were really good, but the food was so bad. My daughter's spaghetti was a weird jelly like substance. I ordered banana pudding and it was just weird cheap pudding, with rock hard wafers. I was so disappointed. Then they didn't tell us there were upcharges on so many things like adding a meatball to the spaghetti, choosing blueberry cheesecake instead of plain, etc.
