9 Hands-Down Best Foods At Dollywood

Sometimes you want to turn your back on life's responsibilities and go scream your head off on a rollercoaster, swoosh down a log flume, and eat all the deliciously carb-heavy food you can. If this sounds like what you need right now, all signs are pointing to Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.

I wouldn't call myself a theme park fan, but I love Dollywood. That's partly because I admire Dolly Parton, a cultural icon who embodies the American rags-to-riches story. She's not only a multi-talented singer, songwriter, and actress, but she's also a generous philanthropist and savvy entrepreneur. The Queen of Country is deeply entrenched in the culinary business with her own lines of cookware, frozen meals, wine, and baking mixes, plus a few cult-favorite cookbooks.

I also love Dollywood for its crowd-pleasing, cross-generational appeal. I toured the park with a 10-year-old and a 64-year-old, and age didn't matter. All three of us had a blast riding rollercoasters, listening to bluegrass bands and a cappella singers, and eating foods that celebrate the culture of the Great Smoky Mountains. While we couldn't taste every single dish — and I wasn't brave enough to tackle pork rinds or foot-long corn dogs — we definitely found our favorites. I admit this list is biased, but it showcases the Dollywood foods that made us want to sing "I Will Always Love You" at the top of our lungs.

As we strolled past The Grist Mill, we were bowled over by the seductive aroma of cinnamon bread. We had just careened over a waterfall on the Daredevil Falls flume ride, so our appetites were primed to taste Dollywood's most celebrated food. The Grist Mill's buttery, pillowy, pull-apart cinnamon loaf has achieved cultish devotion, and its popularity means long lines. While we waited, we chatted with other cinnamon-bread devotees, who told us the pro move is to show up early to watch the production line of bakers preparing the loaves and lining them up for baking.

After much anticipation, our turn came, and we got our loaf. The bread is like a super-sized, rectangular version of the canned cinnamon rolls Chowhound has ranked, though much better. It's decadently rich without being too sweet. The cashier offered us sides of vanilla buttercream and apple butter, and we took both even though seasoned Dollywood visitors insist that icing is the only reasonable choice. After a taste test, we agreed. The bread definitely lived up to the hype, but one loaf was too large for the three of us. We happily bagged the rest to take home.

The Grist Mill's building is a delight on its own, with a large water wheel that looks straight out of the 19th century even though it was constructed in 1982. It's not just for show; the fully functional water wheel grinds wheat and corn just like in the olden days.

Dollywood's biggest eaters flock to Aunt Granny's Restaurant in Rivertown Junction for its much-lauded Southern spreads, but my stomach counseled that a big meal was a bad plan before plunging down a 165-foot drop on Lightning Rod, the park's ultra-fast wooden coaster. My friends and I headed to Granny Ogle's instead, where we split a more modest-sized meal of quintessential Southern food: pulled-pit ham, pinto beans, roasted turnip greens, and cornbread, which is always better in a cast-iron skillet.

I'm a Californian, so my know-how when it comes to picking the best ham is limited to the pre-cooked, spiral-cut Honey-Baked Ham, a holiday darling that requires only reheating. Pulled-pit ham must be its first cousin twice removed because there's little family resemblance. The ham is smoked for several hours until it cries "uncle" in submission. Then the tender meat is shredded into delicate, juicy pieces that look like a pinker version of pulled pork. Granny Ogle's ham boasted a tangy saltiness that was balanced by the hearty pinto beans and roasted turnip greens. Like other Southern greens — mustards, collards, kale — these healthy greens get soft and tender with long, slow cooking. They're often simmered with ham hocks.

Our meal's crowning glory was the rough-textured cornbread, which we used to sop up the ham-and-bean juice. Could this be Dolly Parton's famous three-ingredient cornbread? Our server couldn't or wouldn't say, but I've made the recipe from Parton's cookbook, and it tastes just like it.

You can make an authentic Philly cheesesteak at home with help from the pros, but at Dollywood, consider the brisket cheesesteak, a Tennessee twist on this universally loved sandwich. In place of the Philly's thinly sliced ribeye or skirt steak, Hickory's House's cheesesteak is made with smoked-to-perfection beef brisket. Our server told us the pitmasters massage the marbled meat with a top-secret rub, smoke it low and slow for 10 to 12 hours, then leave it to rest for at least an hour. When someone orders a cheesesteak, the cooked brisket gets tossed on a piping-hot griddle along with onions, bell peppers, and barbecue sauce. The mixture cooks until the onions caramelize, then gets glazed with melty provolone cheese, a mellow counterpoint to all the bold flavors. 

Unlike the Philly version, this sandwich's meat is not sliced paper-thin — it's brisket, after all. I used a knife and fork to surgically cut out mouth-sized bites, and each was bliss. What this cheesesteak shares with the Philly version is that it requires a hearty roll to contain all the drippy fillings piled inside. We applauded Hickory House BBQ's hoagie-style roll, a golden beauty about 10 inches long and sturdy enough to perform its duty, yet soft and spongy enough to offer little resistance when you take a bite. Our take: This is a cheesesteak you can happily eat while humming "Jolene" under your breath.

Dollywood's sit-down meals are great when you want a break, but not when you want to post up and watch some talented teenager play the banjo at Rivertown Junction. That's when the Potato Tornado has its moment. This foot-long salty treat is basically a fried, spiral-cut potato that's swirled around a stick. The preparer slices an oblong spud into an accordion-like coil, which creates one long string of round slices that get spread out along the skewer. The potato is fried until its crispiness meter reads just shy of potato chips.

While the potato chef was making ours, I asked our cashier how this salty wonder got its name. I felt a little embarrassed when he patiently explained that a tornado is also called a "twister." Right. Got it.

We loved our Potato Tornado — it's gluten-free, tasty, and fun to share — but because it's so crunchy, it's hard to eat right off the stick. We quickly learned to pull off individual slices and pop them in our mouths. The Potato Tornado Stand offers several riffs on this snack, so you can choose from the classic salty potato (best for sizzling summer afternoons), a Parmesan-cheese-seasoned potato, or a "loaded" potato with bacon, cheese, and chives. There's also a Potato Tornado with a Nathan's hot dog in the middle, but my friends and I agreed that this was going too far.

Like Mickey Mouse is to Disneyland, the butterfly is to Dollywood. Longtime Dolly Parton fans know all the words to her 1974 hit song "Love is Like a Butterfly" and share Parton's affection for the fluttering symbols that appear throughout the park: The Dollywood logo has a butterfly standing in for the "W." Souvenir shops sell butterfly-themed jewelry, mugs, and headbands (like Mickey Mouse ears, but with butterfly wings). And Front Porch Café, a sit-down eatery on Showstreet that looks like a country farmhouse, serves a loaded club sandwich on a butterfly-shaped pretzel bun. The shiny brown bun — with a hue you can replicate by baking the baking soda before dipping the dough in a water bath – steals the spotlight, but the sandwich is much more than a theme-park novelty. Layered with grilled chicken breast, smoked gouda cheese, bacon, lettuce, tomato, and a zesty chipotle aioli, it delivers the full heartiness you expect from a club sandwich.

When our sandwich arrived, I couldn't resist pulling off a butterfly wing and trying the pretzel solo. It was pillowy soft and had a distinct tang from being boiled in baking soda water prior to baking. A few salt sprinkles did their duty, adding a gentle punch. When I bit into the whole sandwich, I found the chicken was remarkably juicy, the lettuce crispy, and the bacon thick and smoky. The chipotle aioli brought a little heat but did not overwhelm. Each bite delivered a mouthful of crunchy, savory, salty, and meaty, reminding me how satisfying a club sandwich can be.

This barbecued sandwich is an unapologetic meat feast. There is an awful lot going on between two slices of a brioche bun, specifically pulled pork, smoked beef brisket, Memphis-style barbecue sauce, and cheddar-cheese sauce.

I've eaten pulled pork before, and I've had my share of brisket, but I've never had both meats piled high on the same sandwich. Both were top-notch: The smoky pulled pork was velvety soft with a few crusty edges, a mosaic of meaty shreds, chunks, and ribbons, giving each bite a different texture. The brisket was subtly smoky and beautifully tender. My friends and I got into a heated debate about the meat's total weight, finally agreeing it was north of a half pound.

Is the Big Bear Feast too much for one person to eat? Yes, especially if you plan to ride Tennessee Tornado, a triple spiral-looping coaster with a 128-foot drop. We split it among three of us, and even my third was enough to make me wonder what I was doing to my arteries. My favorite element was the barbecue sauce, which had equal amounts of tomato sweetness and vinegar tanginess. The sauce was perfectly portioned to flavor every bite but not slop over our chins and demand extra napkins.

If you're craving something healthy to supplement your Dollywood diet, this salad from the food hall at Wildwood Grove is the perfect counteroffensive to a regimen of fried foods and sweets. Made with kale greens, chili-glazed chicken, cheddar cheese, corn salsa, and a cilantro-lime vinaigrette, the salad is a brilliant confluence of textures and tastes. It pleased even my 10-year-old friend who visibly cringed at the word "kale."

Each ingredient played a key role: The kale greens had been carefully massaged with olive oil and lemon juice until they were tender, easy to chew, and not the slightest bit bitter. The chili-glazed chicken was perfectly moist and had just a touch of heat. The corn salsa was esquites-style, an off-the-cob version of elote, or grilled Mexican street corn, mixed into a garlicky mayonnaise sauce. If we had a bowl full of chips, this would have made a perfect dip. The cilantro-lime vinaigrette was perfectly balanced, neither sweet nor sour.

Perhaps best of all, Till & Harvest is a short walk from the Wild Eagle roller coaster, so if someone in your group is a curmudgeon who won't join you on this super-fun ride, they will be happy to eat this salad while they wait.

I ate dozens of funnel cakes as a kid, so I can attest that Dollywood's funnel cakes are much like the ones served at county fairs across the country, only fresher and tastier. For the uninitiated, funnel cake is not really a cake at all; it's a cake-like confection made of overlapping ribbons of deep-fried batter that are dusted generously with powdered sugar. To make one, a baker pours thin lines of pancake-like batter into hot oil in a circular or crisscross pattern. As the batter fries, the gooey lines weave together like a crispy-yummy snowflake, with a texture that's crunchy on the outside and fluffy on the inside.

Crossroads Funnel Cakes at Rivertown Junction serves the classic powdered-sugar version, which is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser, or if you want to go off-piste, you can have yours topped with strawberries, blueberries, whipped cream, cookie crumbles, hot fudge, or other goodies. It's been widely reported that funnel cakes are Dolly Parton's favorite snack at the park, but I can't help wondering if the 5-foot-tall superstar eats hers with a knife and fork. Otherwise, this messy confection could ruin her always impeccable makeup. All three of us needed to wash up after eating ours, but I didn't care. My heart was full of happy funnel cake nostalgia.

Full disclosure: I was reluctant to try Dollywood's 25-pound apple pie. The larger-than-life dessert feeds about 30 people, and I figured any pie of that size couldn't be great. The ginormous apple pie was developed to celebrate Dollywood's 25th anniversary in 2010, but it was such a huge hit that it's still on the menu at Spotlight Bakery. 

The pie typically weighs more than 25 pounds; that number refers to the apples' weight before baking. When you add the bottom crust and the beautifully braided lattice top, the finished product tips the scale closer to 30 pounds. Our server told us that each pie holds about 40 Granny Smith apples and takes three hours to bake in a large cast-iron skillet. (Because this is Tennessee, you can be sure the skillet is made by Lodge, headquartered in South Pittsburg.)

Instead of a whole pie, my two companions and I opted for a single slice, which weighed 3 pounds and could have fed four people. We figured if we could finish half, we'd call it a win, but after the first bite, we couldn't stop eating. Our prodigious slice was filled with solid apple from top to bottom; the chunks were tender but still held their shape. The sweet-and-tart balance was spot-on. The crust was flaky, tender, and not overly thick. We plowed through that entire slice in less time than it took to remember the lyrics to "9 to 5."

These Dollywood food selections were chosen based on my experience noshing around the park during two separate visits. On both trips, I was accompanied by a 10-year-old girl and her 64-year-old grandfather. The latter is a trained chef; both are accomplished eaters. Prior to our trips, we strategized our Dollywood snacking based on reviews we watched on YouTube and Instagram and ratings on Tripadvisor, Yelp, and Google. In the end, all opinions are my own.