Customer Reviews

Insiders' Guide to Branson and the Ozark Mountains, 5th (Insiders' Guide Series)

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Fred Pfister's guide is bad in a number of ways.
One, although it says it was repressed as of 2006, it was hopelessly outdated as of Sep. 2007. We went to Sadie's Sideboard & Smokehouse because Pfister recommended the gooseberry pie (P.72), but they didn't sell it and hadn't sold it in recent memory. We also went to the Farmhouse Restaurant, which Pfister said closed at midnight (P.69). As it turned out, they closed at nine, and a waitress of four years said it had as long as she had been working there.
Two, Pfister sabotaged our vacation with miserably bad recommendations. Example one, Pfister recommends the Glade Top Trail as a scenic drive (P.201). He fails to mention that although it is close to Branson as the crow flies, it's about an hour and a half drive each way due to the twisty country roads that lead to it. He also fails to mention that the drive does not showcase the majestic mountain vistas that the Ozarks are famous for, but the trail is just a narrow dirt road lined with trees, so it does not at all warrant the trouble it takes to get there. Example two, Pfister recommends Stage Door Canteen as a restaurant "decorated like a World War II canteen," selling "roast turkey with walnut dressing and the chicken and dumplings," (P.72). My wife and I went there excited to try these items, but what we found was a buffet befitting a hospital, an interior that was decorated like a shopping center food court, and a very small clientele whose average age was 80.
Three, the book offers only one very mediocre map, which does not show the locations of the sites and restaurants it recommends.
Four, there are no color photos in this book and only around a dozen very small B&W photos.
In short, going to Branson with no book would better prepare you than Pfister's book will. Avoid like the plague.