Smokey's On The Gorge — Restaurant in Fayetteville

So much to say, where do I even begin? I initially selected this restaurant because on their site, it said that it had a wonderful view of the gorge. Immediately upon entering the restaurant, we asked for a table for two. It was not a packed restaurant. The hostess led us to an indoor table right away. When I innocently asked if there were tables available outside, she immediately said, “No, sorry,” and walked away. However, I noticed there were tables outside…. Slightly irritating, but I have been a server before and know that there are sometimes rules of where you need to place customers, but to not even offer a “not now, but maybe in like 10 minutes” would have been better than the curt response that she had, especially because in 10 minutes, they did sit someone outside. Moving on to the food, I ordered salmon with sides of a side salad and “country” green beans, and my husband ordered ribs with sides of mashed potatoes and “charred” asparagus. The salmon was okay. I have no doubt that these green beans were from a can. My husband said that his ribs were barely warm, and his asparagus, not only was nowhere near “charred” but was the blandest asparagus he has ever had even with the amount of salt and pepper he put on it. I never received my salad, and at the end when a waitress finally came to check on us, I told her this and just asked if it could be removed from our bill. This began a 20-plus minute ordeal of her bringing the bill (with the salad still on it) and telling us the salad would be out soon. I had to wait for her to come back again to again ask if there was any way the salad could be removed. We watched as it took about four staff and a manager about 5-10 minutes to put a discount on the bill, and then our waitress to bring it over and ask us one more time if we were sure we didn’t want a salad which I proceeded to tell her, no, we are camping, I don’t really have a place for a salad. If the food had been great, all of the other back and forth would have been worth it. I do not necessarily blame the waitress, she did what she could even if it took a very long time to get everything squared away. I know that the response to this review will be something along the lines of “we will pass this up the chain” as I see this is how all recent reviews are being answered, but I hope that eventually something is done to make this a better experience for future customers as you can get a much better meal at many other restaurants in the area for much...

This place has potential but is at best the equivalent of a military chow hall. We had reservations on the evening of October 11, 2014 at 7pm. We arrived about 20 minutes early and I am glad we did because it took the unorganized hostess that much time to seat 3 parties in front of us. The place was busy but not full. We were seated on time and greeted by a very friendly waiter, Michael. The best part of the meal was the SALAD. The menu was cornbread stuffed chicken, Pork Loin, Short Ribs, Salmon, Green Beans, mashed potatoes and Couscous. We had to wait quite awhile for some of the food to be served on the buffet. While waiting for that we had the chicken, salmon, green beans and potatoes. The chicken and green beans were cold and not very flavorful. The salmon turned out to be a whitefish that I later discovered after questioning Michael they had substituted because they ran out of salmon. If the place was properly managed it would not be difficult to determine the number of packages sold and the number of reservations with your average walkup to have enough salmon on hand. When we tried the rest of the food that was served it was barely warm at best and nothing had a quality taste to it. The deserts were cheap crap you can get in box's from SAMS.

Once we were eating our server Michael seemed to show up everywhere in the restaurant except at our table. Even after we were finished eating and we told him so and turning down his offer for coffee he never returned with our check. He came back at least twice to offer coffee and was told no we are finished. Michael must have been a little confused. I had to go to the hostess to ask for my check.

Poor service, Poor Food. May give them a second...

This was our second time visiting as we visited about 3 years ago. We were so excited to eat dinner here as we loved it last time.

We came a little after 5 and the place was empty, so we were able to get a table outside on their patio, which is beautiful.

Our waitress was very prompt in getting us our drinks and taking our order. When our food arrived it was a huge portion to really fit the $28 dollar charge per meal for the brisket dinner.

With that said, the brisket was absolutely dry. I was trying to get the waitress attention as the staff was all inside the restaurant just chatting up a storm with each other. One of the other server’s noticed I was waiving my hand for help. A gentlemen came over and I asked for a different dressing and that the brisket was very dry. Then our waitress showed up and told me she would replace my dinner with another brisket dinner that was less dry at no charge. I thought that meant she was going to comp the meal and get me a new one, but no, she said she would not charge me for 2 meals. I just had to laugh at that comment. Anyway, she was super sweet and probably just got confused. In any event, she did replace it out and it was certainly better than the first plate, but still awful!!!

That was very disappointing to say the least. I left half my dinner there without finishing it. We love the environment of this restaurant, but for a $84 dollar dinner check with tip for 2 meals and 1 beer and 1 tea I doubt we’ll visit again the next time we...