Tupelo Honey Southern Kitchen & Bar — Restaurant in Knoxville

My first time spending a few days in Knoxville. Spent a good bit of time looking for a brunch spot downtown since I had never been. Chose this spot because my husband is not a big breakfast eater but loves fried chicken. Very nice inside loved the look. I had a pretty good Bloody Mary. Asked the bartender/server what was good here. I got the typical “ you can’t go wrong with anything” . My husband made the mistake of ordering the sweet and spicy chicken vs. fried chicken. It was covered in a sauce. When he asked our bartender/ server about it, he was asking in confusion. You should have seen the look on her face. As if we insulted her cooking personally. We were just confused and asking. It all went down from there. She was not happy with us at all and let us know. I never ate my food other than the potatoes because it was not at all what I anticipated and did not expect cold green tomato salsa all over my food. I thought it was a side condiment. My mistake. Did the server ask me about my full plate of food when she took it away. Not a word! She just said are you done? Yep. Asked for a manager. She was nice. She offered to get me something else. I told her no. I was ready to be out of there. I told her we would pay for our food because quite frankly it was our mistake. The only negative I would say on her part, is why didn’t you just bring us our check when I requested it? Instead, you talked to an already hostile server and we had to face her hostility again. Thank you. She was so nasty, that I was not nice and said a not so nice word. That is on me, and I apologize. Quite frankly I have never been treated that way where I’m spending $50 and leaving hungry. There is no possible way that this server has not had issues before. It has just been ignored. I NEVER leave a $0 tip! Bad service gets atleast 10%. This was borderline hostile and I will not tip that. That was my first experience with Tupelo Honey and definitely my last. So to all of you that may still be reading this review. I’m sure they have some good food. The menu is not very descriptive so ask lots of questions. Look at the pics on the reviews. Whatever you do, don’t ask questions after your...

Short: Upscale casual dining spot. The food is overpriced for the mediocre service. The shrimp & grits is great; the burger is not worth $15. The hostess made us feel unwelcome.

Long: 1st wedding anniversary, wanted to celebrate at a nice spot. Wanted to try their shrimp & grits, I heard it's good. Get there 12pm Sunday, the hostess tells me that it's "40 minutes up to an hour" wait. No problem. Put my phone number down, walked around Market Square. We check out the Asian Festival.

1pm, no text message. We come back to the restaurant to check. Get in line at the door. To the customers in front of us, the hostess says, it will still be an 20-30 minute wait.

We get to her, I ask her where our spot is. She tells us it's a 20-30 minute wait. We say, we were there an hour ago. She says "other people came after us," what? She tells us that we can go sit at the bar, or at the chef's counter if we wanted to. Husband firmly says that we have been waiting over an hour. She immediately seats us only then.

There were no apologies from anyone, and definitely not from the hostess. She seemed annoyed that we were even checking our wait time, Our server was fine.

1pm Sunday, brunch time. They were clearly busy - everything came out a little slow, but still reasonably. The complimentary biscuit was rich and delicious. The shrimp & grits - I admit, my first one - was really good, made with the goat cheese and just a little spicy kick to it. Sweet tea was delicious. My husband got a $15 burger, which was just OK. We've had much better $12 burgers. :P

Would I go back? Maybe for the shrimp & grits... but I can't emphasize enough how much the hostess made us feel unwelcome. We're trying to celebrate and be generous patrons, so why make it difficult for us?

8 PM. I still haven't receive any other text than "You have been added to the waitlist for a party of 2 at...." sent at noon. Why couldn't they just admit that my number got lost, or someone screwed up? Trying to get seats was the worst part of the experience. Everything...

A group of us were on vacation in the Smoky Mountains area and decided to come here for a late lunch.

I'd never heard of Tupelo Honey restaurants before...this choice was a quick Google search. Once we saw their website and menu, we were hooked and knew we had to come and see for ourselves!

A few words come to mind immediately after we were seated and settled....clean, friendly, inviting and welcoming. Our waitress (don't remember her name, but brown/blonde wavy, long hair, wore a red flannel shirt that day) was sooo sweet and patient with us, as we all (8 total), asked questions about the menu and ingredients. Talk about patience!!!

Once we'd ordered, our waitress was still very accommodating, yet never overbearing.

Our food came out very, very fast. However, we were on a very tight schedule and only had a limited time before we had to leave & check into the airport. That was the only disappointing part of the visit, because we had to rush through lunch once our food arrived. I don't think none of us were able to finish our meals. :((

But fret not...I am from the Washington DC area and I just found out that there is a Tupelo Honey right by Pentagon City, in Arlington, VA!!! What! Say WHAT NOW! Won't He Do It!!?? Lol, I'm so excited...cause what I did get to eat at the Knoxville venue was soooooo scrumptious and now I get to try it again (at a much slower, comfortable pace, lol).

Bottom Line, this is an amazing place to eat, drink and socialize. I can't wait to visit the one nearby.

Highly recommend! You can't go wrong with...