Families on vacation in the Great Smoky Mountains will want to try out a new restaurant, Mama’s Farmhouse. It offers hearty meals just like grandma used to make. The food is served family style, and it’s all you can eat for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Mama’s Farmhouse is sure to be tops on any family’s list of favorite places to eat.
Mama’s Farmhouse Restaurant is located on Pickel Street in the center of Pigeon Forge, one block up from Professor Hacker’s Lost Treasure Golf. Just look for the big yellow silo. The restaurant itself is a rambling country farmhouse with big porches, lots of rocking chairs, a barn, and even a couple of tractors out front. Mama says to come right on in.
Who’s Mama? Mama was a real person. Her name was Missouri Isabell Foster. She was born in 1870, married, had five children, lots of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Her great-grandson, owner Bruce Johnson, remembers her from when he was a small child, and he remembers how special her meals were. Her recipes have been handed down in the family from generation to generation. Now families visiting Pigeon Forge can eat some of Mama’s delicious country cookin’.
Eating at Mama’s Farmhouse is like eating at home. There’s no menu. All the food is placed on the table in bowls and you serve yourselves, family style. Everyone gets to taste everything and if you want more, just ask for a second helping. There’s plenty to sample.
Take breakfast. Breakfast is an all-you-can-eat feast of biscuits with peach butter, scrambled eggs, bacon, stone-ground grits, sweet potato pancakes, sausage patties with sausage gravy, home fries, and fried chicken. There’s seasonal fruit and then there’s Mama’s special sweetbread – pinwheels.
Mama’s Farmhouse serves five vegetables and two meats for lunch, and six vegetables and three meats for dinner. Each meal starts with a delicious vegetable soup just sharp enough to get your attention, plenty of biscuits and cornbread. You never know for sure what Mama’s cooking, but the veggies could include green beans, corn, mashed potatoes, soup beans, a sweet potato casserole, and/or macaroni and cheese. The meats could include country-fried steak served with white or brown gravy, roasted pork tenderloin served with a cream of mushroom sauce, or Mama’s fried chicken that’s so tender it’ll melt in your mouth. Dessert could be Mama’s banana pudding or a delicious peach cobbler.
When families sit down for one of these hearty meals at Mama’s Farmhouse, they’ll feel like they’re sitting in Mama’s dining room or guest parlor. There are family photos on the wall, and lace curtains on the window. There’s plenty of room, too, for large family groups. And Mama says, “You all come back!” |
