Pete's Restaurant & Coffee Shop — Restaurant in Knoxville

On the way back from North Carolina last week Melanie found a jewel of a place for us to eat breakfast in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee on the internet. The name of the place is Pete’s Restaurant and Coffee Shop. The atmosphere is charming, the food is great, and the service is vigilant, friendly, and done with a smile. The most amazing food items in my opinion are the biscuits! They are large and soft like I like them and the taste is phenomenal! I first turned my biscuit on its side to slice it and put butter and jelly inside. All I did was make contact with the knife and the biscuit split down the middle, which somehow reminded me of the parting of the Red Sea. The biscuit’s flavor was a mix of butter with a light flavor of bacon on the outer crust. It was the best I have ever eaten! The owner of the restaurant is Jake La Grander who bought Pete’s from the original owner whose name was Pete. There were a few people who as they were checking out, spent time complimenting Jake for their great breakfast and their whole dining experience. I was one of them. I noticed how well he handled himself with the customers in speaking to them, making them feel important and appreciated. I asked Jake about his biscuits. He told me that he went to a lot of restaurants, trying their biscuits in order to decide the biscuit he wanted to make and to serve. I would say that Jake has hit the biscuit jackpot! So, if you are ever in the Knoxville area treat yourself to a Pete’s breakfast! You will greatly enjoy...

Long time and frequent customer at Pete's for years. Love Sutton and Stormi. They're wonderful people to see during the day.

Unfortunately, the quality of the food preparation has deteriorated. I have, for over a decade, ordered a sandwich for takeout both in the dining room and for takeout that has one ask: no mayo.

Twice in the last month it has come out slathered in mayo, contrary to my order. This was an issue months ago when the new owners first opened and I took a break after it happened twice then as well. It is a major issue with take out orders. They're wrong about 1/3 times, and even when they're right the presentation is terrible -- an obviously hurriedly slapped together sandwich that is coming apart and messy and a meager portion of fries. I've watched the servers check and catch multiple other mistakes too. The inexperienced servers do not usually catch the errors.

This was not the experience with previous owners and cooks. Just not worth the cost anymore or the missed meals.

Unfortunately, today was the final straw. Not going back for awhile if ever. I encourage others to look elsewhere and for the ownership to remedy the problems with their cooks.

Many fond memories here,...

Pete's usually has great breakfast, but unfortunately I wouldn't know about it recently considering every time we've stopped in for food, they've told us they had stopped serving breakfast. This cafe is only open until 2pm, so I'm not sure why they would ever stop serving breakfast. If they can make eggs at 10am then surely they can make eggs at noon.

I asked if they would be able to make me a bacon cheeseburger with a fried egg on it, which they said they could do. So if they can make bacon and eggs to put on a burger, why could they not make them a la carte? It might sound petty, but it's pretty frustrating to wait 20-30 minutes for a table to open only to be told that it's 11:01am so they've now stopped serving breakfast. They have the ability to make the food, so they should do it, but obviously the customer service is somewhat lacking.

So future customers be warned: if you're lucky enough to get in before the rush and they are still serving breakfast, you might get good food. Otherwise, check out Ramis Cafe just a couple miles away, you'll get food just as good for a much...