Not all of these are recent, but I try to point out closures as much as openings, just to keep the scorecard balanced. There are lots of reasons businesses close and while I don’t know all the facts about these three (or at least two of them), we can assume it was complicated. We can also make some educated guesses. Mostly, it’s important to me to note that they are gone.
I’ll be honest, I’m late noticing that these slipped out. The first I’ll mention took me by surprise when I visited Marble City Market recently. Pasta Vivo, which Heather wrote about just last August, appears to have gone out of business in very short order. After posting consistently through November 14, their Instagram account went quiet, and they are no longer listed among the vendors for Marble City Market. I reached out to owner/chef Josh Coates for a comment, but didn’t get a response.
On the same front, I have to say the current lineup at Marble City Market offers, in my opinion, the best range of food they’ve offered since the beginning. I enjoyed some solid sushi there during Big Ears (when they should offer extended hours) and it was in a case so I could grab and pay and not wait for an order to be filled. We may need to give an update on the food there sometime soon.
And while we’re on short-lived businesses, Smoky Mountain Munchies, which I profiled just last July, has also left downtown. I’m not sure exactly when it happened, as I noticed during Big Ears (also) when I realized Wabi Wear Repair had opened at 122 South Gay Street. I assume they vacated sometime early this year. The shop sold vapes and, as you might guess, munchies, as in gummies and other edibles.
This one is interesting in that this makes two CBD/THCA stores to close downtown this year (Holistic Connections closed last month). We went from zero to five in a very short time and now we sit at three. It could simply be that was too many for our little downtown market or that the new Tennessee laws are having an early impact. The legislature effectively closed a loophole in previous hemp legislation that allowed for the sale of THCA, which converts to THC upon being heated. With that now illegal, a big financial driver for some of the shops has been eliminated.
Still, we have three remaining (unless I’ve missed something) and, honestly, outside of restaurants, hotels, and bars (which vary widely), do we need five of any particular thing downtown? We have a very limited availability for commercial space and to support a residential downtown, we need greater variation. I’m not wishing ill on any particular business, but I’m glad to have a new, unique clothing store on the 100 block.
The final business that I missed along the way remained open for seven years. Body Mind Re-Align Chiropractic and Gratitude Bar, which I profiled in March of 2017 closed its doors last fall. It’s the same location that now has gelato with the opening of Tesoro Gelato at 111 N. Central Street. I was able to catch up with Dr. Jane George who owned and operated Body Mind Re-Align. She also has a chiropractic practice in west Knoxville and ran for Tim Burchett’s U.S. House seat last fall.
I learned that, in addition to the above, she’s reconnected to her science roots (Biology undergrad and graduate degrees) to work with the P.J. Parkinson’s Support Foundation. She’s also on the KMA Board, and the mix of it all required her to hire workers to cover the Old City Business during a period when the business was slow. She didn’t want to close the business during the campaign, but shut the doors in August. She said with all she had going on, plus all the changes in the Old City, it just felt like a time to make choices.
She’s proud of what she offered in her shop, which included hemp raised in the U.S., with no dyes or other contaminants. She avoided cheaper products and felt her customers appreciated it. She said that while she really needed to focus on her practice, the slow rate of business she was experiencing made the decision easy. She emphasized that, “I miss the Old City and the people there.”