Good Eats in Cumberland Mountain State Park

When Laurie and I ventured over to Crossville Tennessee, to attend a presentation of the play “Oklahoma!” at the Cumberland County Playhouse, we were accompanied by our friends Mari and Ed.  In addition to being good traveling companions, they also had an excellent idea as to where we might have dinner after the play.

This is the front entrance of the Cumberland Mountain State Park Restaurant in Crossville.  It’s a big restaurant in a great setting…

Here’s a view of the restaurant from the side along the Byrd Lake.  There are some great views of the lake, the bridge and the dam from the dining room.

This is a look at one end of the dining room in the Cumberland Mountain State Park Restaurant.  This is a buffet operation, so if you don’t like all you can eat buffets, this isn’t the place for you.  Fortunately, especially with a nice selection of food available and with the price of only $9.95 plus tax, drink and gratuity, this buffet was the place for us!

Laurie took several photos of the buffet line but I opted to just show one segment in this blog.  Suffice it to say that there was a wide selection of items to chose from to include a nice salad bar with soup.

The buffet included a variety of salad fixings plus Cream of Vegetable with Cheese soup.  The soup got high marks from Mari and Ed.

The entrée section of the line included Southern Fried Chicken, Roast Beef and Gravy, Cold Baked Ham, Mashed Potatoes, Green Beans, Cream Corn and Baked Apples.  In particular, the fried chicken and baked apples received solid praise.

Then there was desert,  Here we have Banana Pudding and Apple Cobbler.  Available desserts also included Cheesecake and some kind of Chocolate Cake or Brownie. 

This was a very nice buffet with well prepared food in very pleasant surroundings.  We will definitly return…hopefully trying the menu for another day of the week.  Note: The Cumberland Mountain State Park Restaurant is closed on Mondays.  However, the buffet menu varies during the 6 days per week that its open.

For example, Tuesday lunch, ($7.95), is grilled chicken with rice, country fried steak with gravy, white beans and cornbread, fried okra, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese and potato soup.  Tuesday night ($13.95) is Seafood Night.  The buffet features baked and fried catfish, frog legs, fried shrimp, scallops, peel-n-eat shrimp, etc., and for $19.95, you can add all the crab legs you can eat!

Wednesday is Crazy Chicken Day, ($7.95 all day), Thursday lunch, ($7.95), focusses on chicken and dumplings and fried pork chops, Thursday dinner, ($9.95), has the same menu as does Sundays, Friday is Catfish Day, ($9.95), Saturday lunch, ($7.95), has baked chicken and rice plus meatloaf, and Saturday night is Rib Night, ($13.95), featuring smoked ribs and smoked pulled pork.

The Cumberland Mountain State Park is located 9 miles south of I-40, (Exit 317), on US Highway 127.  The park is on your right.  Once you enter the park, just follow the signs to the restaurant.  To view the menu for the restaurant, go to  http://www.tn.gov/environment/parks/CumberlandMtn/pdf/menu.pdf.  The restaurant’s phone number is 931-484-7186.