The Front Porch Restaurant

Been there about 10 or so times. Great food, friendly people. Pies to die for. Then we get to today’s fiasco. I have always loved their homemade potato salad. Best I can remember ever having. Needed 4 qts for a social gathering so ordered them a week in advance. Kept one for the wife an me. Tried it. THEY FORGOT to cook the potatoes. The white creamy sauce was runny and settled out within the 10 mile drive home. I will not take this mess to the picnic. No way. Very disappointed, in fact after spending almost $ 35.00 with a generous tip for being helpful, I threw them away and we will abstain for a while.

Great staff and even better home cooked food!
Always a true pleasure… go there at least once, or twice, a month…
You can’t go wrong with the fried chicken. Yet, you can’t go wrong with anything on the menu…
Two Thumbs up!

Awesome Service. I always consider service in my ratings. Sweet servers. Food was a 4.5. Depending on some dishes. A very much mom and pops cozy restaurant. I was visiting the Rainbow River Spring. Definitely can tell we’re from out of town. We needed a place where our dogs can join us. This has an outside seating for us and the dogs. Chopped up steak, buffalo wings, corn, and best of all, their pecan pie! Delicious! Too bad I live too far to return for the pie. I now have a place to eat after the tubing fun for next time. :) BTW their little ladies room was adorable.

Classic fast pace environment with good food. We came from floating on the springs and stopped during lunch. It took us about 20 minutes to sit down and about 20 minutes till we got our order. My hamburger was great. Home style like one you get at a good BBQ event. The peanut chocolate pie was too sweet for both of us but our friends said their blue berry pie was good.

Well, thought we would «just give it a try». One try was enough! Very local, crowded, noisy but that was not the reason for 2 stars. Service was «OK» but no more. Plenty of servers — in fact, so many they got in each other’s way!
I had a ½ Cuban with soup. Not too bad — just middle of the road. My wife had a BLT with no B (a vegetarian) and no fries. Well, there were less than 2 VERY thin slices of tomato plus a small piece of lettuce between two small pieces of bread! Hardly a sandwich! AND, they charged full price. I would think they could easily increase the tomato and lettuce OR decrease the price. But the sandwich was pitiful and the price ridiculous!
Not recommended!

I read the reviews so I tried it over the fall. Sorry folks… I don’t get it. The food is SYSCO frozen off the truck. The pies are all cool whip oily type of topping. Nothing there is truly homemade. It is doctored up canned and frozen. The country fried steak is frozen, deep fried and covered in canned gravy. Yuck. My bill added up fast and an average dinner for 3 cost a whopping $ 58 (not including tip)
The staff was ok. It could have been a little cleaner. My arms stuck to the table in certain areas. There were a table of women sitting outside on the side and they were loud. They smoked so much that I smelled it inside the restaurant. My husbands a cancer patient and gets sick from that smell of tobacco. I asked our waitress about it and she said she couldnt say anything to them because they were the owners. We will never go back.

Great breakfast place, Everything was top notch, Lovin it! Just go. I will go back everytime I am in the area.

Cuban sandwich was very good. Grilled chicken sandwich good and cheeseburger great. Pie was wonderful. Homey feel.

Sweetest family restaurant! Had good fried chicken with fabulous cabbage and greens. They made sure tbat I could take my iced tea with me … Always a big thing for me.

I was wanting it to be more than it was. It is very popular for the chicken but not a great menu beyond that.
The help is part of the appeal, all being very happy and friendly, which says a lot for the owners!
Anyhow I wasn’t up for chicken so I had a burger that was very good but I don’t think I’ll be going back for more.

I stopped here for pie and coffee the service was a little slow and the bathrooms small but the pie was freaking great!

Lovely small town restaurant delivering home cooking. We found the Front Porch via a Unilocal search and stopped in for breakfast Saturday and Sunday. It is a charming little place, very clean, with friendly and helpful service.
Mary waited on us both days. She was great! The second day we arrived and she remembered the special request from the day prior and took care of it without me asking. The breakfast is by far the best we have had. Everything was made to order, fresh, and served in portions more than one person can eat. I do not eat breads, but tried the biscuit on Sunday. Let me tell you it was fantastic.
We also tried a different pie each day as a special after breakfast treat. The coconut cream was the best we have tried. Move over Wrights! We had the apple caramel pie on the second day and bought a whole one to take home. It was handed to us, still warm, by the sweet lady that bakes all of the pies in the restaurant every morning.
If I lived in or near Dunellon, I would be here every weekend. There are very few places that you can go like The Front Porch. Excellent service and quality with a feel like home. This wins every time over the churn ‘em out chain restaurants.

Very standard breakfast — not bad but not imaginative or memorable. I will try another place next time.

I’m from Dunnellon but I now live out of town. Every visit home we MUST come to the Front Porch. Great environment and amazing food.

Found this little gem through recommendations of friends. First don’t be expecting a big place. It’s small and can get a little noisy. Seems like a favorite of crackers, snowbirds and those passing through and I can see why. The food was great.
Hubby had chicken fried steak that filled his plate. One taste and we knew it wasn’t the frozen patties but instead was freshly pounded and fried. Just wonderful. And my roast beef? Just like mama used to make.
Portions were huge for the money and provided leftovers for a nice lunch. Sadly, they were all out of banana cream pie so we didn’t sample that.
All in all, this one is on our «permanent» list of local favorites. We just moved in and this was our first local eating experience. I must say… we are impressed!

Some of the best home cooked food we have ever had. We had, stuffed bell peppers, ½ of a fried chicken, and grilled pork chops. We loved all of it!

We stopped in for breakfast and were treated to a delicious meal. We both ordered the special, with some slight modifications, and coffee and tea. The portion was huge and the food was fresh and excellently prepared. Mary provided attentive and professional service with a smile. We will definitely be back.

Great food and service. Cheese grits aee the best! Clean and nice environment. Beautiful homemade pies snd cakes.

I wish this was a pie store instead of a restaurant that serves and sells pies, the pies are that good but unfortunately it’s a restaurant and the food was a bit disappointing.
Apparent my expectations were higher than they should have been being I was wanting a piece of one of those pies on display before I ever sat down. The service was extremely friendly as was the entire atmosphere, once we walked through the door the thought of home cooking had me licking my jowls. The setting was just perfect almost storybook like, an older building with a porch on the front you walk-​in through a screen door the tables were set up so you could meet your neighbors etc.
I started off with a bowl of chicken and rice soup imaging the old stock pot on the stove with an old family recipe simmering inside for hours. The only part of this experience that was remotely close to that image was this concoction was served in a bowl. Before the first and only sampling of this evil potion touched my lips I knew it was going to be as bad as it looked. Unfortunately my server told me that she had told the cook it was absent of something so I helped her out a little it was canned chicken broth lacking an important ingredient «chicken» served lukewarm with a pile of cold stale precook rice added in. She removed it immediately from my view and returned to tell me that this was the last serving and the cook was starting a new pot, that made me feel soooooo much better.
She replaced the soup with a side of navy beans I must admit they were awesome but in short supply apparently from that point I should have just went for the pie but I had already ordered my Cuban oops their version of a Cuban Sandwich.
The sandwich was assembled with the Cuban bread made famous in Tampa soft, crusty fresh everything you could imagine or want to hold together your sandwich. These two heavenly slices of bread were stuffed with cold wet deli ham, salami and cheese wiped with yellow mustard and extremely wet pickle slices that immediately saturated the bread OMG it was sinful. This is when I learned your can’t no matter how hard you try move pieces of an uneaten sandwich around on your plate to make it appear to be good so they will offer to remove the plate and bring you the giant piece of pie.
Finally my chocolate coconut crème pie so worth the pain … Then to find out they are made somewhere else and brought in — I want to know where that place is. I may stop back in for the pie but that would be it.

Stopped for lunch. Service to get a menu was fast but then a long delay to see a waitress. Ordered the shrimp basket and fried fish. Both pricey ($ 8.99). 8 shrimp in the basket. It had been a long time since they had seen the ocean. Obviously commercially prepared and dumped from a plastic bag into a fryer. Same comment about the french fries. Commercially prepared and nothing special about them.
The fish was two thin pieces of tilapia. Same comment — frozen from a plastic bag to fryer to plate. Duplicate fries.
At end of the meal waitress asked how everything was but then forgot to stay at table long enough to get an answer.
Overall a bad experience which we will not repeat. There are better choices available.

Good home cooking. That’s what I have to say about The Front Porch restaurant. Nothing fancy just good food. We arrived for a late lunch this week and were told to sit where we please. Our sever was pleasant and went over the menu and the specials. Two of us ordered the fried chicken and the other ordered the cheeseburger. The chicken was cooked perfectly with the right amount of breading and it wasn’t greasy. All dishes are made to order so the food comes out a little slow. no need to rush though life is fast enough already. The sides were good as well. Crinkle Cut Fries, Fried Okra, and Southern Style Green Beans. The chicken also came with sweet corn bread. All the food was good. not phenomenal.but very good. The best part is yet to come. wait for it. The pie… The Front Porch offers a huge selection of homemade pies. If you go you must get the pie. I had the chocolate coconut cream, my two lunch mates each had the apple pecan carmel. Did I mention the pie was fantastic? If not. The pie was fantastic. The coconut cream was cool and light. It was the perfect finish for the meal!

My family stopped here after tubing and had a fantastic food. The fried okra was terrific, as was the shrimp, corn dogs and Sandwiches.
The pies look fantastic but we were stuffed. We’ll be back!

This review is based totally and completely on the pies (I have eaten there but its been about 8 years and I don’t remember it). But the pies — oh the pies! We regularly drive thirty minutes to go there and bring home a pie. I just devoured a slice of their caramel apple pie and, let me tell you, my mouth just experienced heaven.

Great home cooking, comfort food. Friendly staff, waitress was very attentive. The food took a while but was delicious when it finally came out. They have amazing pies too. Definitely stop in if you’re in the area and have a big appetite.

Outstanding food. Service is outstanding. You have to try one of their Pies and maybe take one home.