Culture
Tennessee Theatre Featured Tonight on the Circle Network
Area residents can argue about most anything, from who should be the next quarterback at UT to politics and the relative import of billionaires launching themselves into space. But we agree on a few things. No...
New Concert Series Announced; New Downtown Concert Venue in 2022
Born & Raised Productions, which has produced several concert series in and around downtown, from Pretentious Glass to the Sunset on Central series, has announced The Outpost Outdoors Concert Series beginning September 10 and running through...
Announcing All Seasons (or at least quite a few of them)
Various performing arts series were truncated or eliminated in 2020. As we entered 2021 the virus was at its peak and predicting when people might be able to gather was perilous when planning a living room...
Big Ears Evolves and Grows: A Conversation with Ashley Capps
At the pivotal moment in March 2020, just before we understood that the world was about to be quite different for an extended period of time, the annual Big Ears festival was ready to explode onto...
Business
Fai Thai Plans Opening at 522 South Gay Street
Owners of local favorite Fai Thai Food Truck (which will continue to operate) have announced they will soon open at 522 South Gay Street, as Kopita Meat will consolidate with its sister restaurant, Kopita, next door...
Brother Wolf and Osteria Stella Open in the Old City
The long-awaited Italian restaurant, Osteria Stella, and its companion aperitivo bar, Brother Wolf open to the public tomorrow at 108 West Jackson Avenue. The two locations held soft openings the last two weekends to glowing...
Fat Tuesday Opens at 417 South Gay Street
Downtown has its second New Orleans based business (the other is Ruby Sunshine) with the opening of Fat Tuesday at 417 South Gay Street. Located in a portion of the Kress Building, it is also the...
Proper Popcorn Opens on Market Square
As first reported here in April, Proper Popcorn, whose original location is in west Knoxville, had it sights set on a Market Square location. That plan became a reality on Thursday of last week, when it...
Development
Ribbon Cutting Celebrates Urban Wilderness Gateway Park
While I wrote about the Urban Wilderness Gateway Park last January, it had not been officially christened until last Friday. Due to the pandemic, many ribbon cuttings and other in-person ceremonial gatherings were nixed or simply...
Austin Homes to Offer Housing to a Range of Incomes, Starting in December
On the face of it, hiding a 23-acre, 438 housing development a half mile from the Old City seems preposterous. That said, the Austin Homes development which, to be fair, is tucked behind a hillside, is...
Event Held to Highlight Proposed Baseball Stadium
It was an informational event, certainly, but the distinction between that and a promotional event was hard to determine at times. It was partly a fun festival, with free rides in Olli, the self-driving vehicle developed...
Fort Sanders Home Moved, Restored at 1815 Highland Avenue
Knox Heritage has helped save a number of homes and buildings in the area. Sometimes they simply provide inspiration by listing endangered properties and others step in to do the work. At times, they have restored...
Events
Downtown Knoxville Ten Day Planner (7/25-8/3/2021)
As events are opening up, we’re listing a combination of virtual and live events. The rules are the same – if you want your event included, please make a Facebook event, invite me (Alan Sims –...
Downtown Knoxville Ten Day Planner (7/18-7/27/2021)
As events are opening up, we’re listing a combination of virtual and live events. The rules are the same – if you want your event included, please make a Facebook event, invite me (Alan Sims –...
Downtown Knoxville Ten Day Planner (7/11-7/20/2021)
As events are opening up, we’re listing a combination of virtual and live events. The rules are the same – if you want your event included, please make a Facebook event, invite me (Alan Sims –...
Downtown Knoxville Ten Day Planner 7/4-7/13/2021
As events are opening up, we’re listing a combination of virtual and live events. The rules are the same – if you want your event included, please make a Facebook event, invite me (Alan Sims –...
Life
Increasing Concerns Regarding Downtown Homeless Population
At the quarterly meeting of the Mayor’s Roundtable on homelessness, a number of downtown residents and business owners expressed concerns that have been increasing in recent months regarding issues related to homelessness in the downtown core....
Parks and (Non) Recreation
I had a number of readers and people on the street ask me what is happening on the south side of the river. It appears permanent fences have been erected featuring signs warning against trespassing. According...
Here Come the Guns . . .
Guns are a fact of life in the United States. The U.S. has more guns per capita than any other country in the world at 120.5 per 100 citizens, or almost 400,000,000 guns. Second place is...
COVID-19: 5/28/2021 Update and Final Report
We did not see that coming, did we? Fifteen months ago, COVID-19 was a vague story we’d read about something happening in China. We had no idea that it would be one of the very few...