Cook Out — Restaurant in Knoxville

This location was a “miss” today. Mind you, I have not visited THIS location before, but have been to several other of their locations, more than once.

To this locations credit, the drive through speaker works much better than the Powell Emory Road location just up the road aways.

The dining room was locked at this location as well, (like our previous visit to the Powell Emory Road location) as recently as 2 weeks ago. Therefore we “chose” to go through the drive-through.

The “menu-board” was a disaster at this location, no rhyme or reason to its organization. The prices were still very fair. We were THE ONLY Vehicle in the drive through this afternoon between 3:30 and 4:00 PM (Sept 11, 2022)

We ordered a “Double Cheeseburger and a Single Cheeseburger, a small French fry, and a Banana Berry milkshake” which only comes in medium size. The total was around $17 (US).

The single cheeseburger was well prepared and nicely presented, and very flavourful. The double cheeseburger was an absolute disaster. The two “patties” were less than half the surface area of the bun, and round like golf balls. The slice of tomato was 3/4 on an inch thick and the onion, was the same. The cheese was sufficiently melted, and the bun was literally falling apart. It was quite frankly ….almost too much of a mess to eat!

The fries were good, they were served hot and crispy, but they forgot to put ketchup packets in the bag and did not include napkins.

The “Banana Berry” milkshake was absolutely AWFUL. It was only filled 3/4 full, came with a broken lid, and had not been sufficiently blended so the straw could actually function as it should.

I assume, I suspect….heck….I HOPE they were just having an “off-day”, because I generally enjoy “Cook Out” as a whole, but TODAY was a sub-optimal experience, at...

I have visited this particular cookout twice this week since I am in the process of moving and my kitchen still needs to be unpacked. I usually love cookout. My experience has always been one where I can get great food at cheap prices, and they have lots of options for my picky preschooler. Unfortunately, this particular location has managed to mess up my order both times.

In addition, the food is sloppily made. Today, I was given everything individually (straw, napkins, 2 ranch cups, a paper bag with my side order and a foam to-go box containing my main meal). I had to ask for a bag. No biggie. I can deal with that.

I arrived home with my food to discover that the meat on my burger had only been placed halfway onto the bun. It's a mess. They hand wrap the burgers in tin foil. There's no way they didn't notice that the sandwich was a wreck. I had asked for two sides of the cheese bites with my combo order. I received one side of what could only be described as cheese crumbles. They gave me onion rings for the other side...I really hate onion rings.

They messed up my last order on my previous visit, as well It's no fun to get home and then have to deal with a tired and hungry 5 year old who had excitedly expected two corn dogs and starts crying. That day, we specifically went for the corndogs.

I have been to the Emory road location several times in the past The experience there was always great. I super disappointed in the cedar bluff location. At both visits, they weren't even busy. I recommend going to another cookout in the area. I don't plan to go back to this...

We were excited to see there was a Cook Out near where we were staying for the night, so we had high expectations, having been to several before. So first disappointment was that they were only doing drive through, which made it hard for the person in the passenger side to see the menu without leaning over on the driver. The microphone system was bad, so hard to understand what the order taker was saying, but we made sure the order was correct before we moved forward, not sure of what the bill was. The bill was $19 and some change, so we gave her a $20. She handed us a milkshake and over $80 and change, I guess thinking we gave her a $100 bill! Being honest people, we alerted her to her mistake, and she corrected it, and asked if we had everything. We said no, only one milkshake, so then she handed us our two meals, and kept talking to the next orderer. When we continue to sit there, she finally asked if we had our order yet, and we said no we're still waiting for a milkshake, which she then found and handed to us. So the drive-thru experience was less than desirable... she was very distracted. Then we pulled forward to eat, and in my order, four out of six of the hush puppies were soggy on one side. There was no ketchup for the fries, some of which were also wet, guessing from the cole slaw. Other than that, the milkshakes were ok, and the pulled pork tasted good. Won't rush to another Cook Out on this trip...that was not worth...