I believe Patti's 1880 Settlement in Grand Rivers Ky is the place you're talking about. Never ate there, myself, but my West Ky buds always talk about it being one of the best restaurants in the area.
As far as where & how & when to fish Barkley .... can't really say, nowadays, since it's been decades since I was down there. I used to go around the 21st of April and fish a minnow under a slip float in the buckbrush and around logs that had washed up into the pockets around the dam area. Most recent trips, even though they too were decades ago, were to the Barkley State Park Marina where we threw pink Roadrunners along the rip rap banks around the marina. That would have probably been in April, as well. But, those trips were back during the time when White Crappie comprised the majority of the population, and the buckbrush was the prime spawning spots.
Since the Black Crappie have basically taken over as the dominant Crappie specie ... and many of the buckbrush areas are gone ... it's a whole different place ... from what I've been told. Black Crappie will go shallow earlier & stay there longer than White Crappie. Black Crappie also prefer clearer water, weeds, and pea gravel banks ... while White Crappie prefer dingy water, wood, and spawn in deeper water than Black Crappie.
If it were me ... I'd go when the weather was the most stable, water temps were approaching the 60deg mark, and I'd be checking the fishing reports & water condition/level reports. I'd also talk to the locals, especially those cleaning fish ... and watch to see where the biggest concentration of boats were fishing (in a group in a particular area, or just a bunch of them fishing a specific type of bank).
That's all I got .... hopefully some of the other members that fish the area can chime in with more recent info.