Downtown Grill & Brewery — Restaurant in Knoxville

UPDATE AND RAISED FROM 1 TO 3 STARS (see review history below). Improvements in service made. Been back 4 times now between Sept 2017 and Nov 2017. The staff seems to be more cohesive and the grill more consistent. I never been left waiting with no server again. The vibe is still as cool as always for an old place. The food is still some days better than other days, but never been served anything terrible yet again. Are there better places downtown, sure. But for the price and value and experience, this is not a terrible choice. And is the best choice if out after most all other places are closed. /////////// WOW. UNBELIEVABLE. GOT HERE AGAIN FOR A TRY AFTER A LONG BREAK. BUT ONLY FOOD PLACE OPEN. SAYS OPEN SEATING. GOT HERE 11:16. NOW 11:42. WALKED OUT. NEVER GREETED AT THE TABLE. AFTER 15 MINUTES GOT A GALS ATTENTION AND SHE SAID SHE BE WITH IN A MOMENT. SHE NEVER CAME BACK AND EVERYONE ELSE JUST IGNORED ME DOING SIDE WORK AND CLEANING A LOT OF DIRTY TABLES FROM PRIOR CUSTOMERS . WHAT A JOKE! SERIOUSLY. HOW CAN IT BE THIS BAD!!! The worst part is I now have to walk back home and go drive elsewhere outside the city for dinner now. Thanks again Downtown Grill for nothing. Now here are prior reviews..... Maybe I should reach out to management now per their response below which encouraged me to return. Just speechless at this! Been 3 times. First visit was surprised. The grilled chicken was flavorful and the potato skin appetizer topped with taco mean was terrific and fries were decent for what seemed to be frozen steak fries. The blue cheese slaw was terrible and tasted flat out bitter and bad. But one miss sometimes happens. Second visit had the steak. Big mistake. The steak was the least tender piece of meat I had in years. Was absolutely terrible and full of gristle along with chewy toughness. Maybe I was served the cows leather? The mac and cheese was also just shells with little flavor and the salad an expensive heap of lettuce with the house dressing that tasted way too sour and bitter. Tried them one more time hoping for improvement. I flat out felt sick. Went for a repeat on the great tator skins but this time the taco beef was dry and tasted terrible and there was very little of it. And this time tried the pork chops and those were a complete miss. Dry and leather just like the steak. Not sure how this place with such an amazing ambiance along with a menu of food that sounds so fabulous can be serving up such garbage while keeping decent ratings. I see a lot of potential here if the kitchen can bring quality to where it needs to be. Maybe try here again in the future. But until the kitchen improves, best to be avoided. UPDATE: Since they are one of the few places open late, went back for try number 4. Result. Well. Same result. The chili came out ice cold. The jerk chicken was excellent quality and flavor and warm. Yet the fries I enjoyed before were cold and old this time. So once again. Kitchen and consistency issues. Hoping some new and better late night grub places open soon in the area. UPDATE AGAIN: The Chicken Wings are good and seem to always come out fresh. Seems to be the only item I have got that has been consistent and good. Opt for the Caribbean style with a side of hot sauce for a good experience. The fries still old and cold most times so quit ordering those. And actually now when forced to go here when all else in the area quit serving food. The wings are my go to item and only item I will order from...

This restaurant was classic casual inside. It had a nice environment feel to it. The tables and chairs had a nice tavern touch, so did the bar in the center. The lights were dem which made certain things shimmer and shine (Absolutely Beautiful In My Opinion)

•Overall Inside Look 10/10

The food's texture, taste, quality & temperature was excellent! The cook himself brought out the food and was very friendly and kind. (Although beware you will be charged extra on foods that should already include certain condiments or meats. )

•Overall Food Quality 10/10

The Martini's weren't all that in my opinion, The one I ordered was way too sweet and luke warm. (Not even Cold At the slightest. It had NO ICE. The appearance of this drink was poor. I looked flat & watered down. Example: Kool-aid grape) (My fiance's drink was too bitter, they provided ice in her's, but she did not appreciate the taste.) The Bartender could have made these a lot better, but perhaps decided to slack.

•Overall Alcoholic Beverage / Appearance 5/10

The waitress was very friendly & outgoing, but a little on the slow side of service. My fiance and I weren't served in a proper manner or correct order. ( I always expect an introduction & what drinks to start out with ) She did introduce herself, but I did notice she was multitasking (Eg: Would take down everyone's orders at once, would have medium conversations with dine-in guests, & also speak with other waitresses, or just disappear ) to the point we had to wait an additional amount of time to actually have her write down what it was we were wanting. (Our food did arrive quickly as I said earlier, the waitress did check on us often. When we were handed our receipt after finishing our meals, we were ready to pay, but then noticed she stepped away instead of waiting for us to hand her the money so we could leave. We waited out of respect, but eventually it became at least a 15-20 minutes wait. So we decided to pay up front, but they refused to let us pay up front & told us we had to wait at the table for the waitress.. so we went to wait at our table because we couldn't do anything else.. ( I myself found that very inconvenient) when it was actually time for us to be on our way. Finally after waiting an additional 5 minutes another waitress had asked if we had been giving a receipt..we explained to her that we were given one. She said that she was going to take care of us instead. (I kind of wished that was said earlier otherwise we wouldn't have waited so long for the lack of poor service.) Before the 2nd waitress cared for us, the main one popped up out of nowhere. She did apologize due to an issue, but as I said before the 2nd waitress should have cared for us even before the 20 max minute wait. (The restaurant itself wasn't even that busy when we arrived and was practically empty by the time we could finally leave.)

Overall service 5/10 (Regardless, Both Waitresses Were...

I had the absolute worst experience I ever had eating at a restaurant today with my friends. My boyfriend and I came to the Downtown Grill and Brewery today with friends that were only in Knoxville for two hours before they headed back to Michigan. We picked the Downtown Grill and Brewery because we had been multiple times and loved the atmosphere. We arrived at the place at 2pm. We got a table right when we walked in. The place wasn't busy from what we could tell. The server got the drink order and our appetizer order. We received our appetizer 5 to 10 minutes before we received our drinks. The appetizer was given to us without any plates ( split by 4 ppl ). We finally get our food from another server. We get asked if we need anything else and we said what all we needed. We needed drink refills, extra ranch, napkins and ketchup. Another server brought the ketchup and napkins but didn't refill drinks didn't bring ranch.. nothing. We didn't see our server for the remaining time we were there. We were done and didn't have a drink refill the whole time we were sitting there... didn't have anyone check on us THE WHOLE TIME WE WERE THERE!! I finally asked to speak to a manager. The manager comes over there and says that it was his fault we weren't waited on because he had put our server on a party AND FORGOT ABOUT US!!!! He didn't offer ANYTHING... all he said was he was sorry and walked off!!!! So he brings us our check ( didn't even ask how it needed to be split) ... gets our credit cards and it takes another freaking 20 minutes for him to come back with our checks!!!! We were in there for almost the whole entire time our friends were in town. The manager and staff ruined what time we had with our friends. We didn't even get our drinks refilled while he was over there! I have been a server for 10 years and even I expected him to do something for us for how TERRIBLE our time was. I will never go back to this establishment again... EVER... And anytime someone asks me about a place downtown I will ALWAYS tell them to never go to Downtown Grill and Brewery!!! Terrible freaking place... And if I could rate this a zero I would for how...