Basecamp Bar and Restaurant — Restaurant in Chattanooga

Visit date: 5/1/2021@4:30 ish pm. Definitely not the worst place my boyfriend and I have eaten, but also will not be returning. I'll try to take it step by step. I meant to put two stars, but it won't light up for some reason.

I did like the patio area and the fact that there was a menu on the window outside where you can go ahead and figure out what you want to order to get faster service. The total time to receive the food wasn't bad.

It's a bit awkward when you enter. I highly recommend investing in a bigger building. You don't really know where to stand. They said we could sit wherever we wanted, but there was no place. We saw a family with kids come in after us and the same thing happened. They just stood kind of awkwardly on the patio waiting for something to come open. You could tell they were uncomfortable. Luckily we were just ordering to go, so I sat at an open bar stool since my back is currently injured. My boyfriend just stood next to me until the guy beside me left.

It took a minute to get acknowledged, but not too bad I guess. Finally a server asked for our order. I have to say though, no one smiled. They all looked stressed out except for one guy. I mean I get it, I've served before, but it makes for a bummer atmosphere. It would have been nice to have the closed captioning on the TV we were trying watch, but I guess not that big of a deal unless you're deaf. Speaking of, I'm not sure about the patio, but it's not really wheelchair accessible to get in.

So anyway, I ordered a Sprite and the Fire in the Hole Potato with BBQ sauce and pork with a side of FRIED squash and zucchini. My boyfriend ordered the pot roast. 15-20 minutes I believe we've by before I got my drink, but went I tasted it... obviously the syrup was out. I told the server, but no apology was given, just, "Thanks for letting me know." It was another 15 minutes before she came back and said there was no Sprite. That's definitely aggravating when you're thirsty. I chose sweet tea instead. Eventually we received our food.

So fast forward to when we got to my work to eat before my shift. The quality is just terrible and definitely overpriced. The menu said that the zucchini and squash were "fried." This is incorrect. They need to switch the wording to "sauteéd." "Fried" implies breading. In any case, they were also inedible...no seasoning. The potato had no butter. So it was really dry. The menu says "creme frâiche" is included in it... Maybe one dollop. I couldn't tell because it was placed under the sauce and pork. I'm pretty sure they were just trying to be fancy instead of saying sour cream. The portioning of both pork and sauce was skimpy. I don't know how to describe the pork...it didn't really taste smoked. It almost tasted like it came from a bag. The worst part was the "BBQ sauce." I put the quotations because it tasted and had the same consistency as tomato paste. I tried to force it down because I was starving, but I just couldn't. I asked my boyfriend about his plate he said it's definitely nothing to...

Had kind of a disappointing meal here last night - it started ok, we all had beers and shared the pimento cheese arancini. The appetizer was way more spicy than two of us liked and I didn't love the pepper jelly (tasted like black pepper?) The third in our party loved both, however. And I didn't love the beer selection. I ended up with something that was fine but I wanted something light and good for hot weather and really found it hard to put my finger on one (and the waitress was no help.) We came for the "Chattanooga Burger Week" burger, the Lookout Burger. The patty and bun were very good and the bacon onion jam was fine tho I wished for more of a whiskey flavor, it was pretty sweet. There was supposed to be some creamy horseradish on there too, but the amount was far too miniscule to register. The regular fries are FAR better than the sweet potato fries - I'm not sure what seasoning they were supposed to have but I didn't taste any. Desert was a big disappointment - one of us asked if the banana pudding was made with nilla wafers and was told that it was - when it came, it's just a to-go plastic bowl of banana-flavored pudding with three nilla wafers stuck into it. I ordered the DIY s'mores, which, #1, is a huge portion - you get 5 marshmallows and stuff for four s'mores and each of the four came with thick slabs of hershey chocolate - too big to ever get melty. It would have been much better shared between 2-4 people. #2, the marshmallows come in a little skillet and they're supposed to be broiled or torched or something and mine came out completely cold! They weren't even browned. You could tell that the top half of each had been warmed but by the time I got them, they were totally cold. They just weren't broiled near enough. I did eat them, but there was nothing melty in the entire situation.

So the food was about 4-star, I would say. Good concepts, if poorly executed. Folks were nice and it's a cozy atmosphere. About half the seating is indoors and half is outdoors. The ENTIRE kitchen is in the same room as the indoor seating, down to the line cooks and the dishwasher. We sat inside and I smelled like diner the rest of the evening.

But what really brings it down to 3 stars was the service we received. Visits from our waitress were few and far between, like 20-30 minutes between. Enough that it was not worth waiting around for her to show back up to redo my s'mores marshmallows because I knew the wait would be too long. Maybe she was the only one there that night, but she came off as more incapable than overworked. It was just a disappointing...

Sunday June 1st 2025 3:30pm I’ve got to stop taking restaurant advice from people who’ve already had six too many. This place is definitely a "young crowd with earbuds and Instagram" kind of vibe. They have outdoor seating, which sounds great until you realize the entire patio smells like hot garbage. Literally. The concrete was stained with what I can only describe as dried trash juice, slippery, sticky, and stomach-turning. That area needs to be pressure washed weekly, minimum. Right now, it’s a slip hazard and a nose assault. The food? Meh. The patty melt was a joke, the patty didn’t even cover the bun and wasn't butter toasted on a griddle either. It looked sad and tasted worse. Next time I'll leave the patty melts to the Waffle House. Wings were meaty but lacked flavor. They had the color of buffalo but none of the heat or tang you'd expect. Just bland but moist. My wife had the chicken salad sandwich. Zero flavor. The fries, both regular and sweet potato, were actually good, I’ll give them that. She did enjoy her beer (Naked River Cosmic Turtle IPA), so there's one win. Now for the low point: our waitress (with the black hair). Absolutely awful. Her attitude hovered somewhere between “I hate my job” and “why are you even here?” Her energy alone could ruin a decent meal. The only reason she got 20% is because my wife has a soft heart for service workers. I was ready to leave cashless out of principle. The only redemption for the wait staff were the redhead and the blonde, both of whom actually looked like they cared and carried themselves professionally. Bottom line: we won’t be back. There are too many good spots in Chattanooga to waste time on a place that smells like a landfill and serves cafeteria-tier food...