Knotty Pine Restaurant & Lounge

Stopped in for a drink and some food after a race. The food was good & the service was okay.
I had the vegetable beef soup ($ 3 for a bowl). It was probably the best vegetable beef soup I’ve ever had, very mom-​ish with a home style crockpot taste. Big chunks of vegetables (carrots, celery, potatoes) and beef stew. Very satisfying. My better half had a cheeseburger with fries. It didn’t look spectacular, but seemed ok.
This is a restaurant/​diner on one side (all ages) and a bar with video machines (21+) on the other side. The bar side also had an area set up for DJs, which appear to be a night time event. The bar area also sells some tongue in cheek swag for you Knotty Boys and Knotty Girls.
The Knotty Pine is located right on the highway in Caliente, making it easy to find on the 93, and an easy stop if you’re on a road trip.
While in town, consider visiting the historic railroad building (also located on the highway) which now serves as the City Hall and Library.

Great find in a sleeper town in the middle of nowhere. Learned about this spot on Unilocal.Looking for a place to eat between Ely and Henderson on the way home.
Delicious food served quick. The wait service is a little slow, but this is a small town and reviewers should remember that when posting negative comments. Great choice of food on the menu and smoke servings at decent prices. We had two small plates (for our kids), two sandwiches with added onion rings, four drinks and two slices of pie for less than $ 35. Not a bad deal!
If you’re on the 93 between Vegas and Ely, stop in. Good food, good prices, and the best pie I’ve had!

Just moved here 3 months ago from california. Been to the restaurant twice and the lounge 3 times. Great food but the worst service ever!!! I was both a food and cocktail waitress for years and I would have been fired if I gave this level of service. When I was not being ignored completely, the waitress was horribly rude. Big mistake because I regularly tip at least 30%, because I know what hard work it is. Owner was right there watching, so they obviously don’t care. I will get the hot dog special at the gas station before I ever go back to the knotty pine!

Nice breakfast choices and reasonable prices.

Good service. Home style cooking like mom used to make — if you know me that says a lot. Best pie on Hwy 93. Worth the drive just for the pie.

I love this place! Such a cute restaurant. Breakfast is amazing and the waitresses are great

There is something very charming about this diner (as long as you don’t enter through the bar area). The diner is very old and very country. I will tell you that no matter which direction you are coming from, it is likely that you will have driven by herds and herds of cattle. If you’re not a vegetarian or a vegan, there is something about that drive on an empty stomach that makes you really crave a juicy steak or a nice burger. After a 2.5-hour drive from Vegas, a 3-​hour hike in Cathedral Gorge State Park, and another 30 minutes driving towards Vegas, we decided to stop in Caliente and grab a bite to eat. My boyfriend, daughter, and good friend Kelly looked over the menu briefly and immediately decided that the diner probably had freshly slaughtered angus beef somewhere in their stockroom and each ordered some burgers. The boys got bacon cheeseburgers, my daughter got a grilled cheese with ham (the cheese was probably made from dairy freshly milked from cows), and I ordered the pastrami burger. Once the food was served we all dug in. The adults all agreed that the burgers tasted like the freshest beef (seeing all the cows while starving was not psychosomatic at all). Really though, the burgers were great. While chomping on my food, I noticed a sign for homemade cakes and pies. I figured we had to get the full experience and get some desserts since they were probably made from farm-​fresh ingredients, right? The offspring got a cheesecake with scoop of vanilla ice cream. Kelly got the coconut cream pie. The boyfriend got the chocolate cream pie, and I got the banana cream pie. Now I love banana cream pie, but I usually pick out the banana chunks and eat the custard and crust. This pie HAD NO BANANA CHUNKS. THE FILLING WAS SMOOTH AND TASTED OF BANANA! It was SO good. The crust was SO GOOD. I took a few spoonfuls of my daughters vanilla ice cream and was thrown into creamy dessert bliss. It was so good. The prices were fairly cheap and we walked out paying a total of $ 60. I’d return to Caliente just to eat at the Knotty Pine again.

We ordered the catfish and steak and were rather disappointed. The quality of the ingredients was not very good and much of the menu involves deep frying. My husband always orders the steak just to be on the safe side, and found it very odd tasting. I can see why most of the other diners were having burgers and fries for dinner– not my idea of healthy food. We had been looking forward to dinner at Hansen’s, and were disappointed to learn that they had closed. The motel staff sent us to the Knotty. WIthout a good place to have dinner in town, I’m not sure we’ll choose to overnight in Caliente again.

Good food, good prices. The pancakes were a little dry but the biscuits and gravy were delicious! the atmosphere here is a little tired, geared toward the local hunters. Good service. I’d stop to eat here if I happened to be driving through Caliente again.

We always stop this restaurant when we pass through Caliente. Nice staff, good food, and they have tasty homemade pies and cakes. We used to patronize the restaurant across the street but were turned off by the generally unfriendly staff that work there.

I can’t complain.

A-​ok. We had breakfast. An omelet with the works, hashbrowns, corned beef hash and a pancake. The food came out hot and fast. The coffee was hot and had a nice flavor.

This is a basic coffee shop with an attached lounge /​bar. We had the chicken fried steak which was the best I have had in a long time. We will return to Caliente just for this! Also had a bacon cheeseburger which was really good. All the food exceeded our expectations.
We choose to eat in the bar to have a drink with our meal. They would have brought it to the table, but we just like the bar area. The drinks were good and the bartender friendly.
Service was friendly and fast. Give it a try if you are in town.

Nice place near gas station. 3 orders with one being to go. Nice friendly Atmosphere, cozy. Great place for a quick bite while on the road

We usually eat at a place across the street when passing through Caliente but a local mentioned we should give Knotty Pine a try. We were pleased.
We started with a order of onion rings. Could have done with out the bed of lettuce under them but let me tell you those were some tasty rings!
I ordered a salad that was big enough to eat on for 2 or 3 days. The veggies tasted very fresh. My man had a pastrami burger with ortegas on it. He loved it. We both had a couple sodas and the total for everything was $ 20.32. Not bad for eating out and the food being tasty!
The cook even came out to ask how our food was and was very polite. The server was friendly and checked on us regularly.
The décor is wood with novelty signs on the wall and t-​shirts for sale.
If passing through you should give it a try!

I love the knotty pine. For me, it was a destination, and I drug along more than a few friends to enjoy it.
Its caliente nevada. A very small town and this is your basic coffee shop thats clean, has good service, a 12 buck steak at dinner time and a hole in the wall bar. My kind of place.

Had a tasty lunch here today while passing through southern Nevada. Standard diner-​type food, plus breakfast all day!
But here’s the real reason I’m a fan: in the middle of the Nevada desert, they have «vegeburgers!» And they’re not the crappy, flavorless veggie burgers where you put ketchup on and all you can taste is the ketchup and all you can ever remember tasting in your life is just ketchup. It was a real, (I’m guessing) Morningstar patty, on a grilled bun, with (very little, all right) lettuce, tomato, and red onion. And if you don’t opt for the $ 1 fry upgrade, you get a bag of potato chips– which is handy if you’re on the road and not that hungry yet, but planning to venture onto the extraterrestrial highway.
My mom’s cheeseburger was ok, standard once-​frozen patty with cheese melted on it, and it came with thousand island dressing to put on it. The fries were really good, though– if you don’t mind dipping in sweet generic, non-​Heinz ketchup!
The décor is great, with a big Union Pacific painting in the dining room, the narrative on the back of the menu is charmingly disjointed, the local conversation is great to subtly eavesdrop, and there is a «Rough Rider» condom dispenser in the ladies’ room. No sanitary products. For your food and contraceptive needs, though, this is the best place around!

Good café food, friendly service. We had it for dinner and breakfast the next morning. My fried chicken dinner was very good and my wife appreciated that they serve breakfast all day. The lounge is separate from the café, so it is fine to bring kids. In fact, the kids loved the train photos all over the walls, and the view of the nearby Union Pacific tracks and old depot.

The Knotty Pine has your basic coffee shop fare with a homey, even rustic atmosphere. As the name suggests, the walls are all made of knotty pine, varnished to a shiny finish.
I took my dad and his girlfriend here. There aren’t many choices for dining in Caliente with a population of 1,000. Pop said «I called the owner who said he’d keep the restaurant open till 8 pm for us.» A reminder of one of the funny and sometimes nice things about a small town is knowing almost everyone and vice versa.
We pulled in, ambled over to a booth and ordered. I had the fried chicken which was pretty tasty, the batter being golden and crispy. It was accompanied by canned green beans and mashed potatoes with white gravy. The beans were so-​so, but the mashed potatoes seemed fresh and the gravy very tasty.
Pop had the chicken fried steak with the same accompaniments. His girlfriend ordered the pork chops which came out looking nicely grilled and moist.
Our server was friendly and attentive which seeing as we were her only table, didn’t seem too difficult to do.
The restaurant opens into the lounge which was deserted, but was large with a couple of pool tables, slot machines and a long bar. My pop said the folks when they gather are a friendly group.
So, if you’re driving through Caliente, check out the Knotty Pine for a bite to eat or a drink in the lounge.