Granny's Kitchen — Restaurant in Painttown Community

Well, it's Thursday and outside waiting to come in and we heard a fella ordered a hundred pieces of fried chicken. Now that we're inside getting the buffet, we see there's no chicken on the buffet and I was told that he won't put out no more chicken until the full tray of (LUNCH) turkey and dressing is gone. Well. If you look on Thursday Dinner, you'll see there's no turkey, it's fried chicken, this is on the Thursday dinner. The reason that we came in for. We came for the chicken so now we're going to have to Wait for the fried chicken, says the kitchen help that had the fuzzy mustache. So when we first came in our isolated tumblers was on the table in the view of the waitress and we asked her how much the tea was and if it was unlimited Sweet tea and she said yes. and we asked her how much the Pepsi was and she said only two refills on Pepsi. We both ordered sweet tea. When she came with a sweet tea we immediately took our cups, poured it into our insulated tumblers and she refilled the cups. No questions asked.... until the chicken problem came UP. Since we all, asked for the fried Chicken the lady manager came in and said that they were not going to put no fried Chicken on the bar. But if we were real nice and asked our waitress that she would bring us the pieces of chicken that we want. Well that was fine until we ordered a second. That's when the smiles turned into frowns, and that's also when our waitress says that she cannot give us refills on our drinks in our (she called thermos) It's called a tumbler, they hold about a cup and a half each. These were not hidden from her from the very first moment we came in and put them on the table. They were on the table, she saw again, take her cups and empty it into our cups and we explained to her since covic, that we've always done this instead of drinking out of restaurants glasses. She agreed, and said that was a good idea and laughed it off. Nothing was said. until again the chicken deal came up, when we ask for seconds on the fried Chicken, It got to the point we had to ask for the manager and she also said that we were not going to get refills in our tumblers again. As I was coming back from the buffet with my food. The lady manager got me so upset that I couldn't eat anymore and I just left on my table and told everybody I was going back to the casino. I just wanted to get the heck out of there and never come back. Next thing I know is that manager following me up to the front door and threatened to call the police on me. Yes, the bill was paid 20 minutes ago with cash. To beat the crowd. That was not any part of this problem. After Dwight came into the scene. Everything seemed so much better. He asked for his sister to go back into the restaurant and he and I sat down and talked. I do have to say something about Dwight, the brother manager that he was very professional. Thank you, but we still will never come back to this restaurant. but...

We traversed the Smokey Mountains from Gaitlenburg to Cherokee. We thought it would be a nice stop, as the place looked like it was rated fairly high.

To be fair, I hate buffets. And this may have been the worst buffet experience in my 50 years on the planet. I didn’t realize it was a buffet only as we walked in. So I will take the hit on that. Still, the buffet had ridiculously few choices. Liquid soaked beans, half of it was salad choices, bland collards, bland-dry fried chicken, warmed apple slices, baked macaroni and cheese, and a few other choices.

At this point, it almost feels like ganging up because it was that bad. We get in and sitted at a picnic table with chairs and some other diners, doesn’t bug me, I’ve seen this at many places. The thing that got me was server didn’t really tell us about the buffet or really anything about where the plates are or rules of thier little establishment. She took our drink order and was nice enough, I guess. At the lackluster buffet, they had a sign warning that excessive leftovers could be an extra charge. Pretty obnoxious considering how incredibly bland their food was. Think of school lunches without the seasoning or freshness. I had one serving of a few uninspired bites and one drink and left. My daughter had some Mac and cheese and maybe two small bites of the chicken and a dinner roll.

I would recommend this to anyone who has lost their taste due to Covid or old age as well as anyone who needs to bulk eat mass quantities and doesn’t care about texture or flavor.

Btw: please change the name from “Granny’s” to something that isn’t insulting to my long since passed...

We've been regulars at Granny's for a good year and a half since our first visit to Cherokee. This place was always our go to for good food while staying in Cherokee. Unfortunately, the last 2 visits within the last 90 days were extremely disappointing. We started noticing food at the buffet was not turning over with fresh additions even though it was very busy. Things like hardly any fried chicken, empty salad options to the point we couldn't even make a salad plate. Some dishes almost empty and others showing food that had sat way too long. We went for early dinner and this looked like food leftover from lunchtime. Also noticed that it was messy, with alot of spills and and no one wiping down and keeping things in order when in the past we always saw staff keeping on top of that. This most recent visit 3 days ago we were there for dinner and the mixed lettuce salad was completely empty along with other veggies, dressings were low and the part that grossed me out the most was the browning lettuce used for garnish on the ice around the salad like it had been put out at breakfast the day before. There was also hardly any chicken noodle soup in the pot. We also noticed the AC was off so it was unbearably warm and stuffy inside the restaurant. Not a pleasant experience and I'm not sure what's going on with this place now, if it's a change in management or financial issues due to the recession, or lack of staffing but whatever it is, it isn't a good reflection on the restaurant. After over a dozen visits, we do not plan...