Applewood Farmhouse Restaurant — Restaurant in Sevierville

Dinner review: Applewood Farmhouse Restaurant doesn't quite live up to the hype; the food provides a good enough home-style meal that will really fill you up, but the interior's harsh cool white lighting creates a strange uncomfortable atmosphere.

At first the prices seem a bit expensive with nearly all entrees costing $20-22, but this price includes a small side salad or cup of soup, mashed potatoes (for some reason), an additional side, and a choice of apple cobbler or apple spice cake dessert. (Ice cream can be added or other desserts can be substituted for a small price.) This is all in addition to a complimentary small cup of juice and apple fritters when you're seated. This ends up being a lot of food, so only go if you're ready for a full meal as "a la carte" doesn't seem to be an option on the dinner menu.

The food itself is good, but not great. It's a step above Cracker Barrel for sure, but we agreed that a lot of what we ate tasted extremely salty. I had the pot roast, one of the restaurant's "signature dishes" and loved the big chunks of hand cut carrots, potatoes, celery, and onion that accompanied the tender meat, but the broth was too salty, to the point that anyone with even minor sodium dietary restrictions would be wise to avoid. The chicken and dumplings were also heavily salted. The ubiquitous mashed potatoes though were very creamy and buttery and I'm glad they included them with the meal. For my included dessert I had the apple cobbler and I paid $0.99 extra for ice cream, and that was the best dollar I have spent. The apple cobbler alone is excellent, but having it "a la mode" takes it to a whole new level and really balances out the strong spices (cinnamon?) in the cobbler. The pre-meal apple fritters were great, but the juice was watery since it was served over ice. Maybe warm apple cider would have been better, even in the summertime.

My biggest disappointment with the restaurant though is the atmosphere. We were seated in an interior room with no natural lighting and the lights in the room were very harsh cool bright white bulbs that created an uneasy feeling. I almost wonder if someone accidentally ordered the wrong light bulbs but they decided to go with them anyway. The decor itself feels rustic, like a farmhouse, with lots of unfinished wood and brick, and some warm lighting would go a long way to make it feel more cozy (the way I imagine it would have been years ago). The staff was friendly and the service was lightning fast, but I can't get over the strange feeling of being in that interior room. I'm certain this wouldn't be a big issue if you get a table next to a window during the daytime.

Overall I arrived hungry, ate a lot of food that arrived very quickly, and left extremely full, so the experience was good, but not as good as I was expecting. I think we'll definitely go back again in the future, but I wouldn't mind exploring other options in...

First, my wife and I ate here twice for lunch and then for breakfast. Lunch was fantastic. Everything was delicious, and while it can get pricey, you get a ton of food for the price. One of our meals came with mashed potatoes, and they were delicious. They were so delicious we asked if they were real mashed potatoes because today, many restaurants cut corners using instant. The waitress, who initially seemed upset that just the two of us were sitting at her eight-top, warmed up and said everything was still made from scratch and in-house, which you could tell. We enjoyed our meal, so we returned before ending our vacation. The stores attached were a nice mix, and my wife found plenty to buy as I did at their hard cider store.

Now, for our second meal, the food, which was breakfast, was just okay. It would have been great if we had received it warm, but we didn't. The issue we had was the service. We were sat in this side room with a fireplace. The room was nice but felt like something that had been added on some years ago as the room has no views unlike all the others and is behind a door next to the host stand. When we arrived, one other table had been finished for some time and looked ready to pay. After being seated, we waited nearly ten minutes before someone said anything. A guy with a bunch of boxes said someone was coming, and after I got up to inform the hostess that they might want to let the server know he had been seated a table, the guy who shouted down the hall at us turned out to be the server. The server started the conversation by arguing with us, saying he knew we were there and that he told us he was coming, to which I replied that he could have been a coworker letting us know that someone was coming and how were we to know a guy yelling at the end of a long hallway is our server. That was how we spent the first 15 minutes seated at our table. He spent the rest of the time in the weeds mainly because of his decisions and how he prioritized things. My guess is the food was quick to come out after the order was placed but died in the window waiting for him to expo the table. So after everything and watching a table walkout after sitting for a while without being greeted, we ate our food, paid, and left 90 minutes after being seated for some breakfast. This exemplifies how poor or lackluster service can affect a dining experience.

Food is excellent when served hot; stores at the market have tons to offer, but be mindful of your server as you might want to change to someone else if warning bells start to sound, especially if they decide to argue with you about something. Also, while a manager checked on us during lunch, we did not see one...

This was our first time traveling for Thanksgiving. We did our research and the reviews on the Apple Barn were good so we made a 4:15pm reservation. We arrived 15 minutes early and were told they were running an hour behind. We understood but the sun was going down and it was getting cold so a text would have been appreciated. We walked over to the shops to waste time and had a cider. Something to note, all the shops were closed except this one. The owners were very nice and helpful. When we were finally texted our table was ready, we went in and were taken to a table for 6-8. We were a table of 10. There was no way to fit us all at this table. Also, the table was right next to the back door where the patio servers and patrons came through giving us a long blast of cold air and making us move our chairs so they could get by. We ended up pulling a four top over to the other table. The staff didn't help with this or wipe off the table for us. Our waitress was unfriendly and unhelpful the entire time we were there. Her gratuity was auto added to the bill so there was that. Dinner started with apple fritters and juice which were very good and vegetable soup that was OK but nothing to write home about. Dinner consisted of turkey, roast, ham, corn, mashed potatoes, green beans, gravy, rolls, and small sauce containers of cranberry sauce. The sides are served in very small bowls that didn't feed half the table much less a table of 10. The taste of most of the food was reminiscent of a cafeteria, bland and canned. The ham was the highlight for those who got some. The worst was the beef, unseasoned and over cooked, the sweet potato casserole which had the consistency of baby food, and the gravy which we waited 15 minutes to get because they didn't give enough when they served us. The dessert options were pumpkin pie and apple cobbler with no ice cream. Whoever made those must love clove because the spices were so heavy no one ate their dessert! The bill was $443 for 10 people. We wouldn't have paid $100 for the food and the hospitality we received. Please think twice before eating here. If it was just one of us who was unhappy I'd understand that it was preference but all 10...