Chesapeake's Seafood Restaurant — Restaurant in Knoxville

My Google Guide Awards:

Chesapeake's is the best restaurant in Knoxville! (My opinion).

Dave : Best Bar and Best Bartender 2019 and 2022.. Try His fantastic Margarita!

Ben: Best Waiter 2020 - 2022...

My 2nd Visit: Chesapeake's is the best restaurant in Knoxville for atmosphere; a good place to meet nice people. My recent visit was very rewarding. I met a nice couple Jay and Kara and was invited to join them. As we were walking over to their table they told me I had to meet their Waiter, Ben. We sat down and Ben came over immediately to take my order. I told him that Jay and Kara were raving about him; they immediately asked Ben to introduce me to the desert menu. Wow, wow, and more! What a presentation! You have to see this remarkable presentation when you dine in this very popular restaurant (customers have told me the Crab they serve is fantastic)! I said it once and I will say it again, you just have to see Ben wax poetic about Chesapeake's very special desert offerings. I asked him to start over so I could take a video! Many a restaurant over several decades, hardly anyone goes to more restaurants than me... Ben is easily the very best Waiter and he is very genuine. I am exceedingly impressed and I believe you will be also, you just gotta love Ben and Chesapeake's.

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Review for my 1st Visit: Chesapeake's is a exceptionally nice upscale restaurant located in the downtown area of Knoxville, when I say nice I mean very nice. This is definitely a favorite of local influential people; upwardly mobile people that I love to meet and interact with, they have a purposeful reason to be in this area as well as they may choose to unwind in this comfortable space. I haven't eaten at Chesapeake's as of this writing but the menu is appealing and customers that I have talked with about their food are very positive.

The employees at Chesapeake's were all exceptionally nice and easy to talk with. I met Chasity (the Manager... Wise beyond her years), Bettina (Bartender... very personable) and Dave (Bartender (after 2:30pm)... interesting star quality personality with a dry wit about him and much more).

My experience at Chesapeake's was entering the restaurant, meeting Chasity and Bettina and requesting some latitude on parking with a promise to return soon and have a drink. They were readily accommodating to my request so I left for awhile and then returned for what turned out to be one of my best restaurant visits in years.

This is how it happened, I ordered a Margarita (not a special one.. just asked for the house offering, please), well surprise, surprise this drink turned out to be a Margarita of memorable excellence (this good and I historically will remember it for 20 years or more... no kidding, and don't forget, this Margarita was a Happy Hour drink at that. I had ordered my Margarita on the rocks, in a bucket with salt on the rim; served up as ordered but this Margarita was the best Margarita I have had in over 20 years and easily on the top three Margaritas I have ever had. 2019 Best Margarita for a certainty!

Dave not only served me a great Margarita he used my name repeatedly making me feel that I am important to him and to Chesapeake's... He knew practically everyone at his bar and engaged in conversation with many). He is very personal; sports a very dry sense of humor which he engages his captivated clients whilst they work at emptying the bottles of their select embibments.

Chesapeake's on Union: My Top Ten List for Best Restaurant Bar 2019 and 2022..

Best customers also, very friendly.

Note about parking: They have a large parking lot but it is closed from 2:30 to 5pm. Check out the times posted or ask as most of the parking is only available to customers during dining hours if I understand this correctly.

cmilton111 Google Guide (Level 9) Over 554,000,000 photo views on Google Maps as...

Whew... Look... This was one dinner that just didn't go well. My wife and I were in town for our anniversary and to watch Tennessee beat up on UConn. Neither of us are big seafood fans but my mother-in-law suggested Chesapeake since it was walking distance from the hotel, and she had personally called the restaurant to ensure they had plain Mac and cheese for my daughter. (She'll eat other things but that's her favorite)

Unknown to me, my wife had a family friend call before our visit to ask about whiskey options. She wanted to surprise me with a glass of whiskey ready when we sat down. As a bit of an inside joke she also brought rock candy to put next to the glass.

Well... When we got there they had no recollection of the whiskey conversation, the bar tender added ice after she'd already asked for it neat, and the whiskey was on the table with the rock candy dunked in the glass. Who puts rock candy in whiskey? I had a laugh at it but she was pretty upset about her plans being screwed up by the dismissive bartender. To make things even better, when she asked for a Malbec they brought her a Rose and the waitress argued with her about what it was. Hint: There are no light pink Malbecs.

Drinks finally sorted, we ordered our food... Or tried to. Guess what? No plain Mac and cheese.... Which would have been fine if someone hadn't confirmed with the restaurant ahead of time that they did have it, and then tell my daughter we knew they'd have it. Ok... Grilled cheese it is. Easily solved. Except when the food came out the grilled cheese was burned top and bottom and the burger my son had was nearly a cinder. They brought the wrong plate to me, having to go back and realize it was for a neighboring table. When I did finally get mine (few minutes after the rest) everything was perfect on my plate at least. I can say the potatoes were awesome so if you read this far and still go... Get them!

We probably should have sent the kids food back but we made them eat it after scraping off the burnt parts (sometimes life isn't perfect, sorry kids) and we were mostly just looking to leave. Maybe it was a bad night to be there but there were just so many things that went wrong I can't see us ever coming back when we're...

Had a reservation for last night at 6:30pm. We arrived a bit early but we were seated promptly. However, once seated it took awhile for our server to come by to greet us. So long in fact, that the server taking care of the table across actually asked the hostess as she passed by “whose table is that behind me?”.

Once our server did come, she was nice enough. We ordered our drinks and appetizers. My boyfriend had the “Ultimate Long Island”. The drink was underwhelming. We got the crab bisque and the calamari for our appetizers. Both were very good. Our server came back a few times, but each time it just felt like she was pushing us to order more, even though we declined each time.

For our entrees, we ordered the broiled seafood platter and the fried seafood platter, however shortly after our entrees arrived, we watched a ROACH crawl over the empty side of the booth at our table (we sat on the same side together).

Both of us lost our appetite and waited around 10 min for our server to come back. We’d had to stack up all of our appetizer plates and set them at the end of the table, since she hadn’t cleared the table between courses.

She came by eventually and asked us if we wanted to order more drinks (for the 5th time) we told her no, asked for the check and boxes. I informed her of the roach and she just said “okay”. She did not clear the plates.

Came back with boxes and our check, but didn't clear the plates.

We stacked up all of our plates and waited for another 12 minutes. Set our payment along with the check on the edge of the table. Eventually, I saw her at the POS system by the kitchen, we made eye contact, I visibly saw her try to remember what we were waiting for. When she finally realized, she came over with a portable system to check us out. Before she did so, she asked us once again if we wanted dessert. Though we had declined multiple times, and clearly wanted to leave.

Overall, we’d been at the restaurant less than an hour and though the food was good and came out quickly We couldn’t enjoy our entrees due to the roach, and we spent most of our time there waiting for our server.

I’m disappointed to say the least by the service and will not be returning due to that...