Hungry Bear BBQ #1 — Restaurant in Pittman Center

WISH I COULD GIVE IT NO STARS. My husband and I went to the Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg area for our first anniversary. There are few things we were more excited about than getting some good, Tennessee barbecue. We are by no means picky people, especially me; I will eat just about anything. This place had the best reviews and so we decided to go here. It was the WORST meal of our trip. As soon as we walked in, there was this awful smell that I thought smelled like urine. (Eww, right?) I looked at him and asked if he wanted to leave. Wrong choice: we decided to stay. We went to order (and I am NOT prejudice) but we did see that all of the staff was from Asian descent. The only reason I mention that is because Asian flavor comes through in their barbecue. I ordered the beef brisket sandwich with potato salad and macaroni and cheese; my husband ordered the pulled pork sandwich with coleslaw and macaroni and cheese. The mac and cheese was mostly edible because it tasted like Stouffer's frozen. It was pretty runny. All of the sides came in a small plastic cup with a lid like you would get salsa in at a Mexican restaurant. The potato salad was not impressive. Must have been mayonnaise based, but there was just baby reds and a bunch of Italian seasoning with some kind of mayo/oil mixture on it. My husband said the only good thing about his meal was his coleslaw. If you can even call it a meal considering we THREW IT ALL AWAY. Yes, I am not kidding you at all. Our buns for our sandwiches were old and squished. The meat was the worst I have ever had. I was so disappointed. I usually do not put a lot of sauce on my sandwich because I like the smoky flavor of the meat. It was so dry and chewy that I had to cover it in sauce and take a drink of tea just to get a bite down. Even worse, the sauces were BAD. They had sweet, mild and hot. I usually prefer sweet and my husband hot. The hot BBQ looked and tasted like Frank's Red Hot with some sriracha in it. The sweet tasted like an Asian sweet BBQ you might get on some chicken at a buffet. The mild tasted almost the exact same. I ate two bites before I decided I was done. My husband took a bite or two more than me. I even tried his pulled pork and it was terrible. We saw a man outside putting sauce on meat and putting it in the smoker. We had no idea how it could be SO BAD. This was our first meal we had in Tennessee at all. We went for lunch our first day. Like I said, we threw it away and then left and had lunch at Bennett's...

I haven't written many reviews. Always thought it was a waste of time, but for this place I am making an exception.

A couple of months ago, my girlfriend and I decided to hike up to Ramsey Cascade. We had never been there before and it was a beautiful spring day. We did not know until we got there that the trail was closed, so we hiked another trail close by. On the way back out to go home to Knoxville, we passed the Hungry Bear BBQ, did not stop but we thought it would be a good idea to stop there when the trail to Ramsey Cascade reopened.

Fast forward to today. The trail has reopened. We made it a point to eat a light breakfast so we would have plenty of room for some bbq after the beautiful hike to the falls. After all, the place for some reason had a 4.4 star rating so it must be good...or so we thought.

By the time we finished our hike, we were starving and couldn't wait to eat. We both ordered the dinner four meat combo meal which included ribs, pulled pork and chicken. It also came with two sides. I chose potato salad and baked beans.

I sat down outside at a picnic table, mouth watering in anticipation and took a huge bite of chicken. Horrible horrible horrible. It was very apparent that the chicken had been boiled. Absolutely no flavor. I tasted the ribs...same thing. Boiled meat, no flavor. I tried the pork. Nothing about this was bbq. I doused everything in as much bbq sauce as I could and ate it anyway because I paid for it and I was very hungry.

The sides, potato salad and baked beans were even worse and did not finish them. I couldn't. The potatoes were undercooked, no seasoning at all.. basically just potatoes mixed with mayo. The baked beans were obviously warmed up generic Sam's Club beans from a can or something.

Nothing about this place is bbq. The smoker outside must not ever be used. We watched a bird enter the smoke stack and suspect there was a nest inside.

Disgusting food. I will never go back. My advice is keep driving. I have no idea how this place has such a high rating. Must be friends and family leaving comments to pump it up. A Chinese Buffet has better BBQ...

The restaurant we planned to go to Saturday night unexpectedly closed early. Hungry Bear BBQ #1 was close to where we were staying, and we saw that it had pretty good reviews. We decided it was a good, safe pick.

First let me say, I've eaten a LOT of BBQ in my life. I've eaten it from gas stations to some of the most famous BBQ joints out there. One thing I have always said is that I've never had bad BBQ, just some BBQ is much better than others. After eating at Hungry Bear #1 the other night, I can no longer say that. The food his was terrible, borderline inedible.

We came in after a full day of hiking, and I was very hungry. I decided to order the pork sampler. Ribs, pulled pork, sausage, two sides and a roll for $22. Maybe a little pricey, but so is everything in Gatlinburg. For good BBQ, I'm good with that.

First, the ribs. I hate that a pig had to die for the ribs only to be cooked this poorly. When I picked them up, the bone fell out, and if the charred skin didn't give it away, I now knew they were overcooked. I tried a bite and it was incredible how badly overcooked these ribs were. Tough, charred meat. Not the subtle sweet meat that we all love. I took that one bite and threw the rest away.

Next was the pulled pork. Imagine a pork butt cooked in the oven with absolutely no seasoning. That's what this tastes like. It was just...there. Not a pleasing experience at all.

Finally, the sausage was edible when drowned in sauce (I'm usually not big on sauce). The biggest thing with the sausage was they had been under a heat lamp for a long, long time. They were so dried out that the skin had wrinkled.

Overall, the only thing I remotely enjoyed eating was the baked beans. They were actually pretty good. I have had bad meals before, but I've never been one to go out and review something just to blast it. However, this was such a bad experience that I just couldn't let it go by without commenting on how incredibly bad our...