O'Charley's Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Knoxville

The food tasted good (Prime Rib) but it was kind of cool when it got to the table. We waited almost one hour to be served or order. The entire night the waitress was our delay factor. She finally got to our table after waiting for her about 15 minutes. Took our drink order, but it took another 15 minutes for them to arrive. A few more minutes we got the wonderful bread basket...delicious I might add.

However, we did not go to O'Charley's to eat bread for dinner. The manager finally showed up to the table and the first thing we asked him, can you please turn up the thermostat because it was 66 degrees in the area we were seated.

We went on to explain to the manager about our small problem with this delay in getting served on a timely manner...his response really was challenging but we tried to understand... He told us that our waitress had been on the job for only 4 days...but she had worked at O'Chaley's before so it was all coming back...

Our waitress should have had more training and or been shadowed by another more qualified waitress...in our opinion. She was told 3 times what each of us wanted, and for some reason she wanted to write down each word...

I wanted their special for example; Prime rib dinner, med rare, baked potato with butter only and a house tossed salad with blue cheese dressing...how hard could have it been....well it must have been real hard because we ordered two of the same and one regular steak dinner rare, baked potato and tossed salad...one hour from ordering to the time it hit the table...really....could have understand it better if the restaurant was full of people...not... maybe and I say maybe 25 people in the place and half of them have already been served their food...

This was not exceptable in any restaurant much less a big chain restaurant like O'Charley's. It was a joke and I not going to spend my hard earned money in there again. But after all that, she asked us if we wanted desert...we said no, she laid down our bill and waited for us to pay it...that was the only time she waited on us hand & foot.

Sorry O'Charley's for this bad review, but I expected better service from a restaurant I loved and enjoyed coming to for years...it will be hard but we want be back.

Sincerely, George...

Update: I have changed my one star review to a three star. The store manager of this location reached out to me to touch base and figure out what all happened and where any breakdown in our service occurred. She was extremely nice and courteous. I am thankful for the call and hopefully will try them again in the future. Because of the bad food and wait time in general I will keep this at three stars until I visit again.

Stopped in to this location on Saturday night for dinner with my family, during what normally would be a dinner rush between 6:15 and left after 8pm.

I don't know if it was a fluke or if this is the new normal but to wait 25 minutes before even seeing our server to get drink orders in an empty restaurant is ridiculous. Another 10 minutes before getting said drinks, plus another 15 minutes to get our food order. Now to the food... Three of the adults including myself ordered best of both meals with steaks. $19 a pop. The steaks were TERRIBLE! They were gray, under-cooked, had no seasoning, pretty much no flavor. Mine in particular was extremely fatty and gristly and I could not finish eating it and this Southern girl never leaves unfinished steak, but I did this time. Because of the ridiculous wait times in a pretty much empty restaurant we did not complain while we were there because that would only serve to wait even longer.

I know with COVID and everybody is short staffed and I understand having to wait for your food, but to have to wait and get mediocre food is not acceptable. I've already left "feedback" with corporate and got a generic apology email.

The point of this review is to warn others before going of possible bad experience like we had.

I will be somewhat nice and leave this on a positive note. The server we had was extremely nice, and I think she was doing double duty with bar tending at the same time (I cannot confirm this). Which would explain some of the time lapse in between her coming and checking on us and drinks and orders and all of that. Also they do still have bomb @$$ chicken tenders and the seafood platter meal my fiance had was...

O'Charleys wow. Our office orders food from your Kingston Pike location about once a week and today has put that to an end. First, your website would not work so I had to call the restaurant. The girl who answered the phone simply said "Hey". I told her I needed to place a to go order and without saying a word she put me on hold. Then the phone was picked up and put back on hold 2 more times. Finally someone picked up the phone and didn't say anything so I was able to hear the conversations going on in the vicinity of the phone. I had to hang up and call back and when I told the girl who answered I didn't get an apology. She took my order and said it would be 25 minutes. I picked up the order and when I got back several items had been left out and one order was wrong. I called and spoke to someone who apologized and said she would get it ready if I wanted to come back. I told her I would send someone right away. When my co-worker arrived she called and they said they would be right out. 10 minutes later still no one had come out so she called again and got put on hold for a long time so she hung up and called me. I called the restaurant and was put on hold. Finally Janelle answered and I explained what was going on and instead of an apology I was just told "the phones are ringing off the hook and we are very busy". Wow. Again I had to tell her what was wrong with the order and she got someone to take it out. When my bourbon glaze for my now cold salmon arrived it felt as if it had been refrigerated. I know everyone has an off day, but this is ridiculous and the lack of apology was the icing...