Paula Deen's Family Kitchen

Paula Deen's Family Kitchen is open for business in Pigeon Forge. Located at The Island development just off the Parkway, the combination restaurant/retail store is promising to “butter people up” when they come to visit.

There are actually three different menus, depending on whether you're stopping in for breakfast, lunch or dinner. All meals are served at a fixed price per person, and all meals are served family-style.

Breakfast includes a choice of three Down Home Dishes, including chicken and waffles, Bananas Foster French Toast, Sweet Piggies in a Blanket and Everyday Breakfast Casserole. You also get to pick two breakfast meats and three breakfast treats.

The lunch and dinner menus feature optional appetizers like Grandmama Paul's Fried Green Tomatoes, fried okra and pimento cheese served with toast points. For the family-style portion of the meal, you can choose two down-home sides from among the likes of Best Ever Southern Fried Chicken, Cheesy Meatloaf, Spare Ribs and Georgia Fried Catfish. A choice of four sides and a Southern dessert is also included in the meal. Look for sides like green beans, collard greens, candied yams, squash casserole and black-eyed peas as well as dessert choices like Ooey Gooey Butter Cake, banana pudding and peach cobbler.

The meal, however, is just part of the Paula Deen Family Kitchen experience. Much of the square footage is devoted to retail space, where you can stock up on many of Paula's favorite products for the kitchen. Merchandise includes her signature house seasoning, her fried chicken batter mix and hot sauce, her hoecake mix and all-purpose baking mix, and her Ooey Gooey Butter Cake mixes and Butter Y'all collection.

The 4,000-square-foot store is on the first floor, and the 300-seat dining room is on the second floor. Tiered seating provides each guest with a captivating view of The Island's show fountains and the Great Smoky Mountains in the distance. Reservations are not accepted, but you can do call-ahead seating up to one hour in advance of your arrival.

Breakfast is served from 7:30 to 10:30 a.m., lunch is served from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and dinner is served from 4 to 10 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays and 4 to 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

Of course, visitors to The Island can also take advantage of everything the development has to offer including other restaurants, unique specialty shops and attractions like The Great Smoky Mountain Wheel, a giant Ferris wheel in which passengers enjoy incredible views of the Smokies while traveling in climate-controlled pods.