At certain times of day, the new disco ball hanging above the entrance to Stem To Stem turns Happy Holler into its own tiny light show. Sunlight catches the mirrored facets, scattering flecks of rose-gold through the front windows, across the jewel-toned interior and even into passing cars on N. Central Street.
It feels like a fitting introduction to one of Knoxville’s most intentional new spaces.
Stem To Stem, the long-awaited flower shop by day and cocktail bar by night at 1200 N. Central St., officially opens today in the former home of Raven Records. I stopped by Wednesday night’s soft opening, “Girls Night,” where owner Brooke Martin was surrounded by friends eager to celebrate a project that’s been years in the making.
When I first wrote about Stem To Stem last summer, Brooke was hoping to open in the fall. But she never wanted to rush the process, and life ultimately made the decision for her.
Her father passed away in November, prompting Brooke to put everything on hold for several months. A mortician by trade, his work dovetailed with her grandmother’s flower shop in Corryton, where Brooke grew up surrounded by casket sprays, standing wreaths and sympathy bouquets.
“It’s one big butterfly effect,” Brooke said. “If my dad wouldn’t have gone to embalming school at 18, then his mom wouldn’t have opened a flower shop. I wouldn’t have been raised in a flower shop. There’s just been this trickle effect over the last 20 years of my life that led me here.”
A single mother, she spent years juggling multiple jobs while building her business, specializing in funeral and celebration-of-life arrangements. At the same time, she worked behind the bar for seven years at Stock & Barrel, discovering that bartending satisfied the same love of connecting with people.
Originally, she saw Stem To Stem primarily as a path toward financial stability for herself and her young daughter. Somewhere along the way, though, the vision shifted.
“It’s not as much out of desperation anymore,” she told me. “It’s more like I want to create a space where people can hang out and enjoy and celebrate life’s moments, sad moments and happy moments.”
Turns out, flowers and cocktails make pretty natural companions.
The flower shop operates from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Before the bar opens each evening, unsold bouquets and arrangements migrate into the front room, where they’ll continue to be available for purchase alongside cocktails. Brooke envisions happy hour as someday including drink specials and discounted flowers.
The drink menu has evolved, too. Rather than leaning heavily into botanical cocktails, as she’d envisioned last year, Stem To Stem opens with well-executed classics: Old Fashioneds, whiskey sours, martinis and mules alongside rotating features that give bartenders room to flex their creativity.
“I never want to put an artist in a box,” Brooke said. “If you put an artist in a box, they can’t create.”
That philosophy extends throughout the space.
Brooke intentionally skipped traditional exterior signage in favor of the freshly-iconic disco ball. Inside, deep walls painted in Sherwin-Williams’ “Stone Cutter” shift between charcoal, navy and green depending on the light. Art Deco-inspired details mingle with mixy-matchy stemware, while the bathroom wallpaper is composed of illustrations – facsimiles of tattoos on Brooke’s own body –- from local tattoo artist Nicholas Tidler, who also designed the Stem To Stem logo.
Brooke isn’t aiming for polished perfection; there’s a little irreverence mixed in, too. One cocktail might arrive in a glass etched with a raised middle finger. If it does, the customer gets to keep the glass and take home a complimentary bouquet of flowers.
“It’s just little quirky, fun things,” she laughed. “That’s Brooke. That’s who I am.”
The décor still isn’t “finished,” by design.
Rather than filling every empty wall, Brooke plans to let the space evolve naturally. Once the shop is in full swing, fresh flowers will spill from planters, shelves and custom-built displays, becoming as much a part of the atmosphere as the cocktails.
During Wednesday’s preview, though, it was already clear that the space had become what Brooke hoped it would be. Friends filled the room, glasses clinked and conversations lingered. Amid the decidedly unglamorous work of replacing trash bags and keeping everything running, I caught Brooke stealing a few quiet moments to look around the room she’d spent the past year bringing to life.
Hard-won and well-deserved.
Stem To Stem (1200 N. Central St.): Website | Instagram
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