Not Watson's Kitchen + Bar

Great vibe, and better food! Kitchen staff was knowledgeable about gluten sensitivity and came out to correct our order out of extra caution to avoid a food that had gluten in it!

Gluten free options *

I have eaten here several times over the last few years. The food is generally consistently good. The staff is generally consistently NOT overly friendly or welcoming. The way the person at the door greets consistently seems like they are so overwhelmed and bothered that yet another person came in. The waitstaff also never seems super excited to have to wait on you, and God forbid you have a question about the menu. I still return though because I know I can get a burger with a gluten free bun and not have to worry about a bunch of other ingredients I don't want. This particular visit was a few days into the big snow storm that hit Knoxville. Not very many people out and about so the restaurant was very quiet. The hostess was sitting at the bar when we walked in and she seemed bothered that she had to get up to seat us. The waiter didn't use a pad to write our order down but that's fine, as long as I emphasized that I needed a gluten free bun, and he got that right, he can skip writing our orders. I explained that I was in a slight hurry as I was headed to catch a flight and needed to leave in 35 minutes. I knew the kitchen staff probably didn't care about my poor time management skills but nonetheless, my well done (as requested) burger came out perfectly cooked and rather quickly too. When I say this burger was perfect, I mean perfect. Usually when I get a well done burger, cooks make them so dry and burned on the outside, pretty much a hockey puck. But whoever was cooking that day, NAILED IT. Super juicy, but cooked with no pink (not one spot!), and delicious. The bun was grilled perfectly (if you know about GF, you know that if you don't get it toasted or grilled well enough, the bun falls apart when you try to eat it). The asparagus was grilled perfectly too. I told the server to please share my compliments. I don't know if he did, but hopefully the message was shared. By the time we left, the server seemed a little more friendly. I'm hoing it was bc i shared my appreciation for the perfect burger, but maybe he was just happy that we were leaving and he didn't have anymore tables. I'll be back when traveling through Knoxville again, but I wish I didn't always have to psyche myself up for not so friendly staff.