Don't Back Down

This was my first visit to Pigeon Forge, and more than one person suggested visiting the Old Mill (the restaurant, I mean - there seem to be dozens of places in the general vicinity that start with "Old Mill", so don't get confused).

I'm not typically one who will wait for much time at all, but it was vacation, and I'm usually game for one of those must-see (or must-eat, as the case may be) places, so I figured I would wait. Unfortunately, it was also about 7, and the wait was said to be about 45 minutes, which would place us getting seated at almost 8pm, and that's really pushing my tolerance for dinner. Sorry, but I like to eat earlier than some. So that already put me in the wrong frame of mind. It got worse.

The only piece of good news was that the estimate was just about spot-on. We were called at somewhere about 47 minutes after checking in, and that's about as close as you'll get. Unfortunately, we didn't actually get served until some fifteen minutes later, but I don't want to jump ahead of myself.

It seems that the Old Mill Restaurant bills themselves as "Family Style". Not "Family Style" like you'll see in Pennsylvania Dutch Country, with everyone at the same table, but "Family Style" like five or six tables all seated at the same time, and everyone getting their food at just about the same time. What really sucks about that is that if you're the fist table called, you have to wait for the other four or five tables to be seated before you'll get served. And if it just so happens that you're the largest of those tables, chances are, you're at the end of the line. Guess what? We were the biggest.

So even though our name was called close to 45 minutes after checking in, it was close to an hour before the waiter saw us, and perhaps 1:15 before we were even given our drinks.

Now any of you with young children may have encountered the problem where they get hungry the longer that they have to wait. Most servers are familiar with this, and are happy to bring the kids plates first, or at the very least, provide some bread or something so the kids will be taken care of for a little while. Not at the Old Mill Restaurant. There, they are made to suffer with everyone else, so somewhere about 8:30pm, we all get our obligatory bowl of corn chowder and some (cold) corn fritters, with nary a smile to be seen.

Sometime after nine, we are actually served dinner (somewhere in the midst of that we had salads), and by then we wanted to head out, so we asked for our dessert to go, along with the check, and it was only through the sheer effort of one of our party who happened to see the server talking to some co-workers downstairs that we were able to pry ourselves loose. Let's just say it wasn't a a pretty sight, and that we won't be back.