Phil's Dream Pit

09/11/2026

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT! 🍽

If you’re local to Elizabethton, you’re going to love this.

We are opening a brand-new secondary location next month! October 13 is going to be great for Carter County BBQ lovers.

We’ll be posting updates (or delays in case of permit issues) as we go, so follow us on Instagram and Facebook to stay in the loop.

Tag a friend so they can be on the lookout for more info!

09/08/2026

Some things don’t need an introduction…

And our pulled pork is one of them. Top with either of our signature sauces and enjoy a menu favorite! 🍴

08/30/2026

We are revamping our social media outlets soon and hope to provide you with more and better content. The one thing I promise is that there will be absolutely no AI content on our pages Phil's Dream Pit and Phil’s Dream Pit Food Truck . If you follow one and not the other I encourage you to follow both so we can keep you up to date. Thanks for your patronage.

08/28/2026

Well, Kingsport just canceled Racks by the Tracks after moving it earlier in the year to October. People really loved this festival. I hope another city will pick this up for 2027 or do something similar. We will miss seeing you guys, but I guess we won the first one and the last one and a good many in between. If you need a food truck for an event on October 10th, we are, regrettably, available.

08/19/2026

We are both shocked and saddened by the tragic deaths and injuries to the students on the Milligan University cycling team. Please join us in praying for the students who were injured and the families of those who were lost.

08/10/2026

Several of our team are college students who are getting ready to start back to school. We need to hire people who can work mornings/afternoons (starting around 10:30 am) Tues-Friday at our Eastern Star Rd location. Most of our team members can work multiple positions in our restaurant so we don’t specifically look to hire servers or back of the house people or cashiers etc but rather start people in a position of need and then begin training on other positions as they become comfortable. We are a Christian owned businesses and try to run our restaurant in a way that reflects our love for Jesus Christ and with an understanding that none of us are perfect and we all make mistakes (including myself). We try to treat our team like our family because there is no level of success without them. At Phil’s Dream Pit these aren’t just words we say, but truly things we mean. If this sounds like an environment you’d like to work in, I’d like to speak with you.

I often see requests from parents who wish they could work while their kids are in school but need to be able to be there when they go to school and when they get out. We can absolutely work with that for these positions, if you need to work full time we can accommodate that as well. Our only requirement is you have to be able to work mornings and afternoons. Message me here on Facebook or email us at [email protected]. No phone calls please because I’m in and out of the restaurant a lot right now as we prepare to open our 2nd location in Elizabethton. Pay will be discussed if we move to the interview process but assume our compensation package is better than most comparable jobs. We are ONLY hiring for EASTERN STAR RD at this time. We are fighting some issues in Elizabethton, we will get them resolved but do not have an opening date to announce yet and will not be hiring for that location until we do. We are closed Sundays and Mondays and Saturdays would be optional at this time.

Thanks,

Brian

08/04/2026

Dear friends and customers. I made a post here Friday night explaining a policy change and, frankly, venting a little about a situation that really bothered me. In this post I mentioned google reviews and how many good reviews it takes to make up for the bad ones that were left about our business. To be clear, I never asked anyone to leave a review- good or bad - but you guys came to our side and to our aid in a way that I don't think anyone could have ever imagined. I am still struggling to comprehend it and I just really don't have the words to say how much I appreciate you. I took over this business from my uncle Phil. I had spent plenty of time in corporate America learning to run a successful business. Phil taught me how to care about people, how to run a local business focused on God and community, how to genuinely care about the people who walked through the door. He taught me achieving success that way is the greatest gift a business owner can have. I am now a second-generation owner of Phil's Dream Pit, and I'm already working with my children for this to become a third-generation business, and I'm teaching them to run it the Phil's Dream Pit way. You may not see it, but I get to see the decisions they are beginning to make for our business, and I know they are learning to do it the right way. We look forward to serving you for as long as you will allow us to. If it all falls apart, that's ok too, it's always belonged to God - we are just the stewards of it praying we can be of useful service to His kingdom and our community. We even had an offer from a local news channel to talk about this situation; an offer I turned down because we've already said what happened and I don't see a benefit to re-stating it in a different forum. If you read this far, thanks for humoring me - We love you. - Brian

07/31/2026

Effective Immediately: Phil’s Dream Pit will no longer be offering Pay It Forward Giving Board Meals. This program has not sustained itself for quite some time as the restaurant has continued to provide meals for anyone who has asked regardless of whether meals were available or not (this means there were no pre-purchased meals available).

Our team began to notice patterns that the meals were going to the same people over and over again in multiple quantities at one time.

We attempted to fix this by limiting meals to 2 times per month while still allowing families to get as many meals as needed at one time. When our team tried to communicate this to one of the patrons involved, the patron became argumentative. The restaurant received a phone call shortly after our team enforced the limit demanding to speak to “the owner” about a serious issue. I (Brian) was operating one of our food trucks at the time and called them back. This resulted in a conversation where the customer was not only critical of how the team handled the situation at the restaurant, but also critical of ownership and the many other causes Phil’s Dream Pit gives to despite the fact that this patron has already benefited from many, many free meals that were paid for by ownership.

We have always tried to be supporters of our community and to give generously to many causes including local food banks and other organizations that support the homeless. This patron stated that she had “recorded the phone call” and was going to post it all over that we were not supporting the community. We received three 1-star reviews shortly after. Neither mentioned anything about the food – just criticized the ownership. It takes ten 5-star Google reviews to offset a 1-star review. So, we now need thirty 5-star Google reviews just to offset this.

Unfortunately, I cannot continue a program where we give away tremendous amounts of food to try to help people and in return receive negative reviews that greatly hurt our business and place our team in uncomfortable situations where they are having to enforce rules that should not be necessary and be criticized for it.

You'll notice these reviews are less that an hour old and that two were edited. If you read our original responses, you can tell they were once glowing reviews about our generosity.

I truly hate to even have to post this, but I feel our customers who have been so generous to the giving board and supporting us deserve to know why we had to make this difficult decision. We look forward to serving you in the future.

Brian

07/10/2026

Small businesses don’t compete the way people think.

We rise by lifting others.

Pay attention to what business are doing in OUR community and make it a point to support those businesses. Some great work being done in Jesus’ name by The Firehouse and Tom and Justin Seaton. We are honored to call them our friends.

As we come to the end of another year and begin our 47th year on West Walnut St., we continue to reflect on what matters most.  
 
We view our role in the community as more than a restaurant. We believe we have been called to serve in ways we are able to best make a difference for others. 
 
This past year, we had the opportunity to give $25,148 back to our community through local nonprofits, fundraisers, groups and individuals in need.  This was done through food donations, service, and other contributions. 
 
We share this simply to say thank you. 
 
Thank you to our team for helping us live out our vision of making a difference that matters.   
 
Thank you to our guests and community who continue to support a locally owned, family business like ours.  
 
We are grateful to play a small part in making a difference where we can. 

The Seaton Family

07/04/2026

The restaurant is closed today but you can catch us on one of the food trucks at the Bristol Fireworks at Anderson Park in Bristol or Faith Fellowship Church in Johnson City on Pactolas Road. God Bless the USA!