Cataloochee Ranch Is Doing Barbecue Right This Summer, and the Setting Makes It Something Else Entirely

Photo by Leslie Cross on Unsplash

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  May 26, 2026

There is a moment on Wednesday evenings at Cataloochee Ranch when the light on the Smokies starts to change, the smoke from the grill carries across 825 acres of mountain air, and you realize that most places that call themselves a ranch are not really a ranch. Cataloochee is the real version, and the cookout is where that becomes obvious.

The Cataloochee Cookouts run every Wednesday from March through October, serving locally sourced barbecue in the open air at 4,800 feet on the edge of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It is not a theme-park recreation of a ranch cookout. It happens on working land with actual history behind it, and that history goes back more than 90 years.

Tom and Judy Alexander opened Cataloochee Ranch in 1933. They had originally set up on leased land in Cataloochee Valley, operating out of a National Park Service property in the early days of the newly established Great Smoky Mountains National Park. By 1939, Tom Alexander had purchased the current property on Fie Top, a mountaintop parcel just across the Cataloochee Divide, and the ranch as it exists today was born. From the beginning, the vision was to serve visitors coming to the mountains for the kind of experience that the park itself could not provide: a bed, a meal, a horse, and a guide.

It was the first overnight destination specifically built to serve GSNMP visitors, which gives Cataloochee Ranch a legitimate claim to being the original mountain hospitality operation in Haywood County.

The Alexander family ran it for nearly three generations. Tom's daughter Alice, who grew up on the ranch, became one of the most consequential figures in the development of Maggie Valley tourism. She served as director of both the Maggie Valley and Haywood County chambers of commerce, helped establish Haywood County's Tourism Development Authority, and championed the county's first room tax on tourism in North Carolina, a move that eventually became a model for the state. Her husband T.J. Aumen built the Silverbell Lodge and six of the cabins that still stand on the property.

The Alexanders also launched Cataloochee Ski Area in 1961, when Alice's father acquired four snow-making machines and opened the slopes. Skiing became so popular that the operation eventually outgrew the ranch property and relocated to Moody Top at 5,400 feet elevation in 1968. Today Cataloochee Ski Area is Maggie Valley's anchor winter attraction, operating a few miles from the ranch under completely separate ownership, but the Alexanders built both of them.

In March 2020, the Alexander family sold the ranch to Annie and David Colquitt of Knoxville, Tennessee. The Colquitts had already acquired The Swag, another well-regarded Haywood County mountain property, in 2018, and when word came that the ranch might be available they moved on it. The timing landed in the worst possible moment, two weeks before the world changed, and the renovations sat largely dormant until conditions clarified. What followed was a two-year rebuild that the Colquitts described as both extensive and expensive.

They reopened Cataloochee Ranch in March 2024 as a Relais & Châteaux property, the global association for independent luxury hotels and restaurants that counts fewer than 600 members worldwide. The designation is not applied loosely. It reflects the caliber of the physical property, the culinary program, and the consistency of the guest experience. Cataloochee Ranch is one of a handful of Relais & Châteaux properties in North Carolina and among the very few in the Southern Appalachians.

The renovation preserved what needed to be preserved. The original stone walls of the historic main lodge are still standing inside the new construction, a deliberate decision to maintain the material connection to the Alexander era. The cabins remain. The horse barn was converted into The Hayloft, a flexible event space with The Horseshoe outdoor amphitheater attached. The equestrian program, which has always been central to the ranch's identity, is still running.

What changed was the culinary operation. The Colquitts built out a full restaurant program inside the lodge, anchored by Switchback and led by Chef Jeb Aldrich. Aldrich trained at well-regarded restaurants in the Southeast before refining his skills in Europe, and the menu he runs at Switchback reflects both influences. He describes the philosophy as Appalachian favorites with French technique, which in practice means the ingredients are regional and the execution is precise. It is not fusion in the self-conscious sense. It is mountain food taken seriously.

Alongside Switchback, the renovation created The Forge, a wood-fired oven patio dining space for outdoor meals when the weather cooperates. There is The Hitch, a mobile food truck the ranch deploys for special events. The Tack Room is the bar. The Hideout is the wine cellar, managed by Cara De Lavallade, a Level III Advanced Sommelier who curates the ranch's wine list and runs the monthly tasting events the property has built a following for.

The Wednesday Cookout fits into this food program as its most accessible expression. Where Switchback operates at the level you would expect from a Relais & Châteaux dining room, the cookout is something else: an outdoor fire, locally sourced barbecue, the smell of smoke over mountain air, and no pretense about it. It is the part of the ranch experience that most directly connects to what the Alexander family was doing in 1933, before the hotel designation and the sommelier and the Relais & Châteaux plaque. It is ranch food in a place that has always been a ranch.

Locally sourced is not a phrase the ranch uses as decoration. Haywood County has active farmland throughout the valley, and the ingredients that come through Jeb Aldrich's kitchen are sourced from producers the team knows. The cookout runs on that same supply chain, which means the barbecue you eat on a Wednesday evening in July at 4,800 feet has a shorter distance between field and fire than most people get from their backyard.

For summer 2026, the Wednesday Cookouts continue through October, meaning every week from Memorial Day through Labor Day there is an open-air barbecue happening on one of the most well-situated properties in Western North Carolina. If you want to be strategic about it, coming on a Wednesday gives you both the cookout and the best chance at catching the evening light on the Smokies, which tends to be clearest after a day of mountain convection. The ranch sits on the southeastern border of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and the view from the top of Fie Top looking west is the kind of thing that makes first-time visitors stop talking for a few minutes.

Beyond the cookouts, Cataloochee Ranch is running a summer calendar worth paying attention to. On June 20th, the culinary team is hosting a seasonal celebration dinner at 6 p.m. built around local and seasonal ingredients, ticketed through Resy. Monthly wine tasting events with Cara De Lavallade are running through the summer, typically paired with live music or stargazing. The ranch holds a DarkSky International designation, which means the sky above Fie Top at night is legitimately dark by the standards of people who care about that kind of thing.

The Rediscover Adventure package, valid through October 31, 2026, runs $450 for two guests on a two-night stay Sunday through Thursday and includes $200 toward Switchback dining, $300 in adventure credits covering horseback riding, UTV tours, the ropes course, or a session at the shooting range, and $100 in ranch arts credits for things like watercolor classes. It is a reasonable way to stack a full ranch experience with meals built in, and the midweek timing means it lines up with the Wednesday cookout if you plan accordingly.

For visitors approaching from Asheville, the drive to the ranch is 39 miles and worth every minute of it. The ranch sits 1.2 miles from Cataloochee Ski Area off Fie Top Road, reached by a mountain road that climbs through forest before opening up to the highland meadow where the property sits. The closest town is Maggie Valley, which is about five minutes down the mountain and offers lodging, restaurants, and easy access to the Jonathan Creek corridor that connects to the park's Cataloochee entrance.

What makes Cataloochee Ranch worth a separate trip rather than just a side stop is the specificity of the experience it offers. Most dining experiences in WNC are in town, in buildings, with mountain views as backdrop. The cookout at Cataloochee inverts that: the mountain is the foreground, you are on it, and the food is built around what grows at this elevation and in these valleys. That is a different thing, and it is available every Wednesday from now through October.

Bookings for Wednesday Cookouts, the June 20th dinner, and other seasonal events are handled through Resy at cataloocheeranch.com. Overnight stays can be booked directly through the ranch.

If the idea of living within a short drive of something like this holds any appeal, Jon Tharp can help you understand what that looks like on the ground.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Cataloochee Ranch Wednesday Cookout?

The Cataloochee Cookout is a weekly outdoor barbecue event held every Wednesday evening from March through October at Cataloochee Ranch in Maggie Valley, NC. It features locally sourced BBQ favorites served in an authentic ranch setting, celebrating the property's working ranch history. The event is open to both overnight guests and outside visitors booking through Resy. The ranch sits at 4,800 feet elevation on 825 acres along the southeastern border of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which gives the cookout a setting that is hard to replicate anywhere else in Western North Carolina.

Can you visit Cataloochee Ranch for dinner without staying overnight?

Yes. Cataloochee Ranch's restaurant, Switchback, is open to outside guests for dinner nightly from 4:30 to 9 p.m., lunch Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., and brunch on Saturdays and Sundays from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Special events including the Wednesday Cookouts and seasonal culinary dinners are bookable through the ranch's Resy page. Reservations are recommended, especially during peak summer weekends. The ranch is located at the top of Fie Top Mountain in Maggie Valley, approximately 39 miles from Asheville.

Who are the new owners of Cataloochee Ranch, and what changed after the renovation?

Annie and David Colquitt, who also own The Swag in Haywood County, purchased Cataloochee Ranch in March 2020 and oversaw a full renovation before reopening in March 2024. The Colquitts preserved the original stone walls of the historic main lodge while constructing a new building. The renovation added Switchback restaurant, The Hideout wine cellar, the Tack Room bar, and The Forge al fresco outdoor dining space to the lodge. The old horse barn was converted into The Hayloft event space with The Horseshoe outdoor amphitheater. The ranch reopened as a Relais & Châteaux member property with 18 unique guest suites and a culinary program led by Chef Jeb Aldrich.

What summer packages does Cataloochee Ranch offer in 2026?

Cataloochee Ranch's Rediscover Adventure package is available from May 25 through October 31, 2026. It runs $450 for two guests with a minimum two-night stay Sunday through Thursday and includes a $200 dining credit at Switchback, a $300 adventure credit, a $100 ranch arts class credit, and a guided morning stroll. Additional summer events including the Wednesday Cookouts, seasonal dinners, sommelier-led wine tastings, musical performances, and stargazing nights are bookable separately through the ranch's Resy page at cataloocheeranch.com.