The Tomato Head — Restaurant in Knoxville

I don’t ever post reviews, however, Hannah B, our waitress, left an impression that I will never forget. I would like preface that I love tomato head and have been there several times, but after this experience I don’t think I will be coming back. Now, my family is fortunate, however, we do not come from a lot of money and on special occasions we go out to restaurants. Tonight was one of those days and we were disappointed by the way we were treated and also the portions of their salads. Due to COVID everything was packed up like a to go box (which we were totally fine with) but it was obvious that our large salad was much smaller and almost the same size as the small (it was just in a larger container). We understand the ever evolving regulations due to COVID, but we also believe that the value of each meal should remain the same unless we were told otherwise. Anyways, as we continued to eat our dinner, Hannah abruptly came up to us to have us pay for the meal. We knew it was getting late, but we saw at another table that just got their meals, yet they were not being pestered to leave. As we checked out my father, who was paying, asked Hannah to place a 15% tip on her device since she wouldn’t reach it to him (we felt that Hannah did an adequate job as she did not give us any utensils or paper plates to eat our meals and we had to ask another waiter for them). Since there was no option to press 15% and we felt like we were rushed, my father quickly asked her to place a $X tip. Hannah replied condescendingly “that’s only 10%... I’m going to make it 15%.” We all we’re appalled by her response and refusal to do as we asked. We’ve never had a waitress with such an entitled attitude yet alone one that was trying to change the tip in front of us! She made us all feel very uncomfortable even though she couldn’t figure out what 15% of the total cost of our meal was or give us the time to do the math. Good thing I spoke up and stood our ground at our tip. She didn’t deserve a tip after that. The tipping system at Tomato Head is unacceptable as we were unable to control how we could tip in private. Unfortunately, a good dinner resulted with my family having a sour taste to...

I have been wanting to try The Tomato Head ever since I moved here. I really liked my experience.

There is an option to use handheld menus or scan a QR code to read the menu on your phone.

Well lit dining room, open space, outdoor dining available, calming music, servers were casually dressed but all super cute. You can see the kitchen through its glass.

I ordered: “Calm” Herbal Infusion Tea with Chamomile and Rose Petals (Tazo brand, also available for regular purchase). Came with tea pot, tea mug, tea bag, 1 ounce of honey, 3 packets of brown sugar(I used 1/3 packets). Sooo good!!! $3 -Tomato Chipotle Soup. Had a slight spicy tang (perfect amount) with courtesy bread (very soft) and spoon. Enjoyed this as well. $4.25 9” BYO pizza. Toppings/base/protein all priced by categories they name A,B, & C, C being most expensive. Specifically, I had my pizza with cheddar cheese, goat cheese, lamb sausage, portobello mushroom, pineapple(was cut very small chunks), spinach & sundried tomato pesto, & green pepper.

The only reason this restaurant gets one star is because the waitress was so nice and trying very hard to be accommodating.

There were three of us in our party. One member ordered chicken salad and it came very dry and without much flavor. I originally ordered a turkey sandwich and found out they were out of turkey. This was a little disappointing but according to another food service professional this chain's reputation is about not ordering enough food or supplies. I had to step away so I asked my friend to order me a chicken pesto sandwich that was supposed to have sun-dried tomatoes and I asked for it not to have pesto. I had wanted to replace the pesto with Benton's bacon (a local artisanal bacon) which my friend forgot to order. (I knew there would be an additional charge for those because it did not come with bacon.). It came without pesto and even with cheese it was completely tasteless. I asked for a side of bacon to go on it and the waitress brought me a cup of bacon crumbles. They still charged me $3.99 for it. It was hardly and the amount of bacon that I would've gotten on a side order but by that time I was pretty sure that I would be eating after my friends would be done. I just dumped it on.

Our third party ordered a veggie burger and she took one bite and said it was nowhere near as good as the last time she had it and she wouldn't be ordering it again.

We were getting ready to play our waitress offered to bring us to go drinks. When she brought them over we asked for lids and she said they didn't have any. Seems like the reputation holds true for not having enough.

Usually if a friend suggests we go someplace and it's not my favorite, I can find something to get by with eating. I can't say that about Tomato Head. I will make a suggestion to go...