Knoxify

“There’s pineap­ple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pep­per shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and pota­toes, shrimp burger, shrimp sand­wich. That– that’s about it.”

When it comes to cus­tomer ser­vice, I’m par­tic­u­larly picky when it comes to the din­ing expe­ri­ence. I expect a warm wel­come, my drink order to be taken within 30 sec­onds of my butt hit­ting the booth and food that makes me want to blast a tweet to all 140 of my fol­low­ers.

Over the Memo­r­ial Day week­end I vis­ited Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., nested in the air­brush cap­i­tal of the world, Gatlin­burg. The trip marked my third visit to a Bubba Gump’s — Charleston and Maui were the other two — and it did not disappoint.

Each visit has been an amaz­ing expe­ri­ence that’s cen­tered around me, the cus­tomer. I won’t bore you with the details but the image above paints the real picture.

You see, if For­rest is run­ning, you must be doing alright. But the sec­ond you flip the license plate to “Stop For­rest Stop”, a Bubba Gump employee — who doesn’t nec­es­sar­ily have to be your server — will beg for your atten­tion within seconds.

Pair a customer-centered atmos­phere with great food and you’ve got a winner.

The next time you’re look­ing for a day trip, head up Chap­man High­way towards Sevierville, hook a right to Gatlin­burg and visit Bubba and Forrest.

Pho­tog­ra­phy by Daniel Bon­atto

Cus­tomer Cen­tered is a run­ning series of posts that show­case Knoxville busi­nesses that actu­ally care about their cus­tomers. If you have a story to share send it our way.