Root and Barrel Kitchen & Bar

I will say that this restaurant is exactly what it purports to be: a trendy pub-restaurant. The food was good, the service a little spotty once we decided to only have an appetizer, and the craft beer and cider selection was more limited than I thought when we walked in the door.Decor was well appointed and clean.

Wonderful relaxed upscale dining experience.Food was excellent. I had the lamb rack which was amazingly tender and rich in flavor with a fire sear on the outside. Potatoes were filling and smooth and the veggies added a palate refresh. Probably the best lamb I've had honestly.My friends had fillet mignon which was great and had a nice rich heavier sauce on it and similar, but subdued, searing as my lamb. Local trout, excellent flavor and paired well with wild rice, not as heavy on the stomach which is nice, only critique was that it was a touch dry otherwise delicious. The burger had good texture and flavor though with the other more exciting dishes available it was a bit overshadowed.Decor/atmosphere had a rich but inviting feel. Service was good. Pricing was reasonable, burger in high 10s, fish in high 20s, lamb in mid 30s, fillet in mid 40s. Overall a highly recommended stop for a more upscale experience in town.

We had dinner @ Root & Barrel prior to a show @ the Smoky Mountain Performing Arts Center. Menu was diverse & vegetarian friendly. Draft beer & wine list very good. Our server, Grace, was terrific. A bit loud, but an excellent dining experience.

Great experience - had a birthday party - they made a chocolate cake for the occasion - was the best we had ever eaten. Staff are great snd go above and beyond to make everyone have an exceptional experience at the restaurant.

Very cozy ambiance. Waiters are friendly and well-informed. Owners are often present and involved. All menu entries (after 3 visits) were excellent.

Family lives nearby and we are from out of town. We chose Root & Barrel because of the ratings, as well as the photos. Loved the wait staff, the bourbon drinks and the spot on cuisine. We highly recommend dinning here.

Found Root + Barrel Kitchen on our family vacation trip to Franklin, NC. Great setting and atmosphere. There were only two waitresses working the entire restaurant but they did a great job making sure we were taken care of. We all had burgers and they were delicious. We definitely would recommend.

We were in town visiting a friend who suggested we try Root and Barrel. We were there for a late lunch on Saturday. We chose to sit outside because the music volume inside was too loud. Our young waitress took our order without writing it down. In my opinion a guest at a restaurant should not be practice for a server's short term memory - do that on your own time, not on my dime.As expected, she got our order wrong on several points, such as making a hamburger a bacon cheese burger. Frustratingly, each time a server came to our table, they left empty handed instead of removing our empty plates. We looked around and saw that this was the practice in the entire restaurant. Plates from a couple that left when we first arrived still had not been cleared (and still had not been cleared when we left well over an hour later.) Oddly enough, towards the end of our meal, when my husband went to go use the bathroom, all of the waitstaff were hanging our in the back room. (This may have been a shift change, but that does not excuse the uncleared tables for the solid hour before the shift change.)The hamburgers were decent. The caesar salad, however, needed some work coming out absolutely drowned in dressing and choked with CYSCO industrial croutons and fake parmesan cheese. We also found the overall food to be salty. Needless to say, our local friend was disappointed and we would certainly not recommend it.

This was our third visit to Root and Barrel. It will also be our last. The quality of the food has gone completely south. We began with a bottle of wine, as we always do. We then ordered pimento cheese balls for an appetizer....they were out. We selected the pork belly instead, and it was literally drowning in sauce. We then opted to split an entree (the filet mignon ‘medium rare' with seasonal vegetables and we subbed out the mashed potatoes for a side salad and then ordered an additional salad so we'd each have one). We received one salad that came at the same time as our entree....small setback, but certainly not a deal breaker. However, the entree that was served to us was an absolute travesty!! The steak had been split across the middle (horizontally) and cooked as two separate pieces. It was so incredibly overdone that it was nearly indiscernible, and it was grossly over-seasoned. It was completely inedible! No one with any type of training would slice and cook a filet in that manner. It was baffling. In addition to that, the seasoned vegetables were completely undercooked and tasted like pure pesticides. We are not complainers! My significant other begrudgingly ate what was put in front of him. I only consumed the salad because nothing else on my plate was edible. Unfortunately he also ended up with severe stomach cramps and nausea for the remainder of the evening.....making me glad that I chose not to eat it. Our server was pleasant, but never came back to check on us after the food came. When returning to clear our plates she took note of the fact that I'd eaten approximately nothing that I'd received, but never asked us how the meal was or anything else. I spent years of my life working in food service. The fact that this dinner even made it past expo and was permitted to be served to a guest was a huge error. That mistake was then compounded by a server that failed to do their job in checking on the adequacy of the food and the satisfaction of the guest.

The menu is interesting but the service is poor. Ordered an old fashioned and barely half the glass was full. We asked for half a bootle of wine to share between 2 people which is one of their offerings and we got a bottle that only filled one glass barely. Lemon cesaer salad was good but none of the other salads were. Burgers were greasy. The place wasn't even half full and we had to wait over an hour for appetizers to arrive. We asked for an ingredient offered on the menu to be added to the salad. Instead of telling us it was not available the waitress brings the food without it. When we ask her where is it she tells out that they are out of it. It would have been helpful if she had come back to tell us. We might have asked for another addition or ordered something else. She kept coming by asking us to clear the plates when half of us were not done. The buzz on this place was high but I think over-rated.

They food, service, and value were great. The place is lit up like a cafeteria! It's waaaaay too bright in there, especially if you're the one sitting facing the main area of the dining room. Otherwise, quite enjoyable.

Arriving 30 minutes early for our 7pm reservation we checked in with the hostess once she and the other 2 ‘hostesses' decided that whatever was more important on screen was taken care of before they could bring themselves to look up, acknowledge and greet the customers arriving at the restaurant. We told The ‘main' hostess that we would have a seat at the bar and have a cocktail while we waited she said she would come and get us when our table was ready. After 5 minutes past our reservation time and with empty table visible I went back to the hostess stand to enquirer about our table. The hostess said that our table was ready. Why, she even graciously handed menus and silverware to us and then pointed to the back of the restaurant where there was a table against the wall telling us to seat ourselves. We walked past 2 empty table in the dining room to get there. These same 2 tables would not have anyone else seated at them the rest of the evening. Let me go back to the cocktails at the bar portion of the evening. That was where me met the bartender John. He is a genuine gentleman and an excellent bartender. He had total control of the drink orders being placed by the waitresses while at the same time taking care of the customers already seated at his bar. John would be our savior for our evening out in what was shaping up to be a disappointment. After walking ourselves to the table that pointed out by the hostess we sat for 10 minutes with nobody coming to the table to offer water, take a drink or appetizer order. There was another table next to us that had a pair of me seated. Since they had empty water glasses I figured they, like us, had been orphaned. At this point, being used to carrying our silverware and menus around the restaurant we picked them up and moved back to the bar to be taken care of my John who did just that. He made apologies and immediately placed our appetizer order and drink order. We skipped dinner and had just an appetizer.

The wait staff was pleasant but the wait was outrageous. We arrived at 6:30, seated promptly and had our drink and appetizer order taken. We waited for almost 30 minutes for the appetizer to come out, ended up being offered 3 baskets of bread because “the kitchen was crazy” and then finally received our entree almost an hour and 10 minutes later. Granted, the food was delicious, but not sure if it was worth the wait.

Food and service were fantastic, but it was extremely loud. It could be because we were seated right in the middle of the dining room on a Friday night. If we go back, I'll be sure to ask to be seated in a booth or in the back.My wife and I both ordered the rainbow trout with wild rice and steamed veggies. Absolutely delicious. We started with the artichoke spinach dip and a couple of cocktails. Everything was made to perfection and the service was perfect.

Everything was great. Food, drinks and service. We sat outside and the noise level from main street was very low at 5pm on Saturday. Highly recommend. Cocktails are always perfect.