My husband and I were visiting Gatlinburg, TN and felt like Ole Red was the place to eat. We arrived around 3PM and were promptly sat right in front of the stage. The ambiance of Ole Red is the highlight of this restaurant. Unfortunately, the food and service leave something to be desired.

Atmosphere The ambience of Ole Red is the highlight of this restaurant. There is a big stage in the center which either features live music or a large projector screen of country music videos. During our visit, we started with music videos and ended with Peedy Chavis (The Voice Season 21) performing live. The restaurant also had fun photo opp areas.

Service The service we experienced at Ole Red was absolutely horrible. It wasn’t busy; we were sat immediately. There were plenty of employees and yet our server was BAD. We were there for almost 2 hours bc our server was endlessly out of sight. We were his only table. He came to our table few and far between and then would dart away quickly. Our food also appeared to have sat before it was brought out. Other tables were sat after us, received their food before us, and left long before we even received our bill.

Food The food at Ole Red was promising but fell flat. My husband had a beer and I had the Hillbilly Breeze. The drinks were good, came in keepsake glasses, and were VERY pricey.

We also ordered Fried Pickles for our app. I LOVE Fried Pickles, and thus these are always a must. They were the best part of our meal, although they wouldn’t be in my top 5 best fried pickles. You get a large portion, like possibly a whole sandwich sliced jar of pickles. That being said, they were lukewarm at best.

For our main dishes, I had a burger and fries. My hubby had Chili Mac. Both our entrees were once again lukewarm and they looked like they had been sitting. My burger and fries were pretty blah. I’ve had worse burgers but I’ve also had way better ones. My husband’s portion was quite small for the price and would have been better having not been sitting around.

Price Ole Red is extremely expensive considering the quality of food and service. Most items on the menu are around $20; it doesn’t matter if it’s a drink, an app, or an entree. When it comes to Ole Red, you are absolutely not getting what you pay for, you are getting far, far less.

I would not recommend Ole Red in Gatlinburg. I would recommend trying one of the many other eateries on the downtown strip; that’s absolutely what we’ll be doing.