GARMO Will Bring Cheese, Charcuterie & More to Gay Street

Finally, my longtime downtown dream is coming true: Gay Street is getting a cheese and charcuterie shop.

GARMO, opening in October in the former Status Dough space in the Phoenix Building, will be part neighborhood market, part European-style specialty food shop and part pantry for creative home chefs. Between that and the thoughtfully curated Downtown Wine & Spirits across the street, my personal girl dinner infrastructure is looking pretty strong.

“Garmo” is kitchen shorthand for garde manger, the station responsible for cold preparations like cheese, charcuterie and pâtés. The French term translates literally to “keep to eat,” a reference to traditional methods of preserving food. 

The new concept comes from Jessica King and Aaron Thompson, the husband-wife team behind Brother Wolf, Osteria Stella and Lilou, along with Jess Benoit, an American Cheese Society Certified Cheese Professional. I met up with the three of them at Lilou to hear more about their vision.

Together, they have spent the past year thinking about how the things they already do well in their restaurants — breads and pastries baked from scratch, charcuterie, specialty ingredients and, especially, Benoit’s cheese program — could translate into something people could take home.

The concept accelerated when 418 S. Gay St. became available in the Phoenix Building. Its location and prominent storefront made the opportunity hard to pass up, even if it meant moving GARMO ahead of another bar project they have underway next door to Osteria Stella in the Old City, in the former RALA space.

The shop will stock artisan cheeses and cured meats alongside pastas, sauces, preserves, pickles, jams, antipasti and other specialty pantry items, with a mix of imported goods and products from local and regional makers. Fresh baguettes, croissants and other breads and pastries from Lilou will be available daily, along with prepared foods and fresh pasta.

“We’re not trying to be a grocery store but there are so many people moving downtown, we’re offering people a place they can walk to and grab a last-minute ingredient for dinner or something for a party,” Thompson said. 

Cheeses and meats will be cut to order, allowing customers to sample, compare and buy exactly what they need. GARMO will also offer cheeseboards and charcuterie boards for preorder, ranging from small boxes to larger spreads for parties and events, laid out on beautiful shaped walnut boards. 

There will also be Italian deli-style sandwiches for a quick lunch on the go. “You go into any market, especially in Italy or France, and there are these beautiful crusty sandwiches ready to go,” Thompson said. “You just point at one and walk with it. The ingredients are incredibly high quality, but the composition is simple. Start with the best ingredients and don’t overcomplicate it.”

Horus will be 9 a.m. – 8 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday. They want the shop to be useful throughout the day: a baguette or chocolate croissant in the morning, a sandwich at lunch or one final ingredient for dinner. That rhythm is inspired by the small markets King and Thompson have encountered while traveling in Europe, where shopping for bread, cheese and fresh ingredients is part of daily life. They shared a sweet memory from a six-week trip through Europe, during which they got engaged. On their final day, they stopped by a little wine and cheese shop near their Airbnb in Rome.

“We grabbed some cured meats, some delicious cheeses, fresh fruit and nuts, and a bottle … or maybe two,” King laughs. “And we went to the Villa Borghese and laid a blanket out in the grass and just had a very long picnic to celebrate our adventure and give a toast to our very last day of that trip.”

Inspired by the food and culture they experienced, they returned home and opened aperitivo bar Brother Wolf and its sister Italian restaurant Osteria Stella. Then came Lilou, their French brasserie. Just a few storefronts away, GARMO is another step toward bringing the European food culture they loved home to Knoxville. 

Travel was also formative to Benoit’s career. A Knoxville native with nearly two decades in the culinary industry, Benoit spent several years living and working as a chef in Geneva, Switzerland. Cheese became a particular focus. She visited creameries, learned about regional cheesemaking traditions and eventually turned that interest into a specialty.

After returning to the U.S., Benoit helped open a gourmet cheese shop in the Hamptons whose case at one point held close to 200 varieties, alongside prosciutto, jamón ibérico, caviar, truffles, jams, olives and other specialty foods.

“I really wanted to bring my passion and love of experiencing cheese back to America with me, and not lose sight of what I enjoyed so much while I lived there,” she said. “But also to make it accessible and not intimidating. To show that it’s approachable.”

That experience now informs the cheese program she developed at Lilou, where the service is built around conversation: What do you like? What don’t you like? What are you cooking? What are you drinking? From there, Benoit guides guests toward cheeses they may not have tried before.

Of course I had to ask about the aesthetic, as King and Thompson’s other businesses are beautifully designed. GARMO will be simpler, with handmade cabinetry, butcher-block counters and the products themselves doing much of the visual work.

“The products are the aesthetic,” Benoit said. “The colorful packaging on tinned fish, a gleaming bottle of aged balsamic vinegar, the cheese wheels with their fluffy rinds, the pistachios speckled in the mortadella. That’s the art in the space.”

The team also plans to let the inventory evolve with its customers. If downtowners regularly ask for an ingredient they currently have to drive elsewhere to find, GARMO may add it. 

The shop marks another step in the growth of King and Thompson’s newly named Rocket Rabbit Hospitality Group, which encompasses Brother Wolf, Osteria Stella, Lilou Brasserie and now GARMO, with additional food, beverage and retail concepts in the works.

I can’t wait for this one to open! Keep an eye on shopgarmo.com and follow @shopgarmo on Instagram for updates. And, of course, we’ll let you know the minute GARMO is ready for business.