Gone but not forgotten: Knoxville area restaurants and retailers we miss.

[Thunder Good-Oil]

The Office Depot next door was Service Merchandise and United General Products before that.

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

S&H Green Stamos was in the NE corner of Bearden Center. The older picture was before Food City expanded into the Henderson-Floyd drugstore footprint and the building along Bearden Road (on the western edge) was demolished. There used to be a roof across the driveway between H-F and the demolished building.

 

[Vjcvette]

It was in the corner of Bearden Center (White Store/Food City). A block east of Northshore Drive at KP. Top Value was about a mile to 2 miles west on Kingston Pike before the Gallery and West Town. Between the Deane Hill and West Hills neighborhoods. Both buildings are still there.

Thanks @Thunder Good-Oil , my grandparents lived on Deane Hill drive when I was little and I remember going there with my grandmother and I knew it was somewhere in that area and I would be excited thinking about what we could pick out with our green stamps, but then when you got there it seems that there was not that much to pick from 😂



https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...IQFnoECBEQAQ&usg=AOvVaw28oFGefxD-9qylGz7MK54Q

 

[OldandStillaVol]

Here’s the WhiteStores and Whiteway in Oak Ridge. I think the picture is from early 70’s. That’s where my mom got her green stamps.


I remember the Redemption Store in Bearden very well. Mom would take her 5 books and get something like a spatula and I would dream of having the 1000 books necessary to get a color TV!

 

[mad4vols]

Here’s the WhiteStores and Whiteway in Oak Ridge. I think the picture is from early 70’s. That’s where my mom got her green stamps.

View attachment 538345
I remember the Redemption Store in Bearden very well. Mom would take her 5 books and get something like a spatula and I would dream of having the 1000 books necessary to get a color TV!

I was with my mom and she was saving stamps for what seemed like a lifetime for a briefcase for my dad’s birthday. She was one book short. She called a friend and we waited there until they brought a book. This was in the early 70’s.

 

[VOLINVONORE]

Regas more than any other. Was, by far, the best restaurant in East Tennessee until it closed after 91 years.

 

[mad4vols]

Regas more than any other. Was, by far, the best restaurant in East Tennessee until it closed after 91 years.

 

[Vjcvette]

I have a Great story about Regas in the late 70's when I was living in Knoxville with my roommate Sue,
we went to Regas for lunch one day and they had Seafood quiche on the menu and my roommate
Sue said to the waiter " I'll have the Seafood quickie".....that was Great!!

 

[Sydney5000]

That's funny. One of my buddies at UT was a beta theta pi in the early 90s and he was an after school helper at Thaxton

I was there mid to late 70's

 

[mad4vols]

I was there mid to late 70's

I was there until 76

Do you remember any of your teachers?

 

[TNVOLNAVY]

Anyone remember BD's deli in Shelboutne Towers?

Lived in Shelbourne my senior year and their chili cheese dogs were a staple.

 

[82_VOL_83]

I

Lived in Shelbourne my senior year and their chili cheese dogs were a staple.

Worked there 80-83 time frame i think.

 

[mad4vols]

Old article from 2013.

 

[Vjcvette]

Old article from 2013.

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Hey that was a Great post to read.....and a little sad to think about all of those great old places that are now a memory...but thanks for posting, I was there for a few minutes anyway.

 

[mad4vols]

 

[the_todd]

Central filling station in Knoxville isn’t opening back up. Was a food truck “park”

 

[Ted]

Mrs. Winners, out by Walker Springs. Looking at GMaps, I think it's now a Fiesta Garibaldi Mexican Grill. I'm guessing they don't serve country fried steak dinners with green beans and mashed potatoes.

I had meant to follow up on this mention of Mrs. Winners last year and never did. How many Mrs. Winners were there in K-town? I remember at least four in the early 2000's. @pismonque mentioned the one in the Walker Springs area, and I remember the one at 3009 N. Broadway, now the home of TitleMax. They came to town around the time of the World's Fair.

According to the Wikipedia page, the chain originally was in the Atlanta metro area and was called Granny's. Granny's was bought by a holding group around 1980-1 and renamed Mrs. Winners. There was once as many as 184 stores, but the chain suffered the same fate as many that expanded rapidly and lost money. After being sold to Famous Recipe, FR started closing the underperforming stores, including the ones in Knoxville, in the early 2000's. They are now down to 16 locations, and the last one in Tennessee is in Cleveland.

One can never have too many chicken fast-food joints, you would think, looking at all of them we have here now- Popeyes, Bojangles, Chick-Fil-A, and on and on. But even back then, Mrs. Winners was going up against KFC, Famous Recipe, and a few others. FR probably bought them to get rid of the competition!

 

[CPA]

They had great iced tea and in Nashville the one on Gallatin Rd is an evening lounge and on Dickerson Rd is a Church's Fried Chicken which stays busy.

 

[TN-POSSUM]

I had meant to follow up on this mention of Mrs. Winners last year and never did. How many Mrs. Winners were there in K-town? I remember at least four in the early 2000's. @pismonque mentioned the one in the Walker Springs area, and I remember the one at 3009 N. Broadway, now the home of TitleMax. They came to town around the time of the World's Fair.

I think the Kobe's Japanese Restaurant in Halls, was previously a Mrs. Winners.

 

[Ted]

I think the Kobe's Japanese Restaurant in Halls, was previously a Mrs. Winners.

It was! I used to live in Halls before moving into the city limits, but had forgotten that location.

We now have three! There was at least one more location, maybe two.

 

[Vjcvette]

Hey....look at you doing a little Jig up there.....

 

[pismonque]

I had meant to follow up on this mention of Mrs. Winners last year and never did. How many Mrs. Winners were there in K-town? I remember at least four in the early 2000's. @pismonque mentioned the one in the Walker Springs area, and I remember the one at 3009 N. Broadway, now the home of TitleMax. They came to town around the time of the World's Fair.

According to the Wikipedia page, the chain originally was in the Atlanta metro area and was called Granny's. Granny's was bought by a holding group around 1980-1 and renamed Mrs. Winners. There was once as many as 184 stores, but the chain suffered the same fate as many that expanded rapidly and lost money. After being sold to Famous Recipe, FR started closing the underperforming stores, including the ones in Knoxville, in the early 2000's. They are now down to 16 locations, and the last one in Tennessee is in Cleveland.

One can never have too many chicken fast-food joints, you would think, looking at all of them we have here now- Popeyes, Bojangles, Chick-Fil-A, and on and on. But even back then, Mrs. Winners was going up against KFC, Famous Recipe, and a few others. FR probably bought them to get rid of the competition!

What's funny is my go-to at Mrs. Winners wasn't even chicken but country-fried steak with green beans and mashed potatoes.

But my biggest memory of that place was when I rolled up one day on a borrowed motorcycle that made me look way cooler than I am and I walked in and when I ordered I accidentally made lock-on eye contact with the pretty girl behind the counter and made some kind of connection I totally wasn't prepared to follow through on. So I just sat down like an idiot and ate my food and pretended not to see the girl talking to the other girls behind the counter like she and I had a thing going on and I finished my food and left and got on my borrowed bike and rolled off like I was some badass who didn't care but really I was wondering how the hell I'd ever get to talk to the pretty Mrs. Winners girl again. But I never did. Didn't go back there for weeks, too scared.

My idiocy astounds even all these years later.

It was all good though, I ended up meeting a way more amazing girl years later who hung around with me for 30+ years so far, and we made the coolest kids you could ever imagine so it's all good. But I do crack up at the clueless idiot on the borrowed motorcycle who didn't know what he didn't know.

 

[Ted]

I was wondering how the hell I'd ever get to talk to the pretty Mrs. Winners girl again. But I never did. Didn't go back there for weeks, too scared.

Nearly all of us guys here on Volnation, or anywhere else for that matter, have done our own version of the same thing! I know I have, and could relate to your story.

In this thread, there's been a few accounts of guys meeting the girl of their dreams at a UT bar or a restaurant. Mrs. Winners would have been pretty unique had it happened for you. It was a good story anyway, and I'm glad it turned out well in the end!

But you always wonder, who was that girl.. where'd she go, what became of her.

 

[Wireless1]

Nearly all of us guys here on Volnation, or anywhere else for that matter, have done our own version of the same thing! I know I have, and could relate to your story.

In this thread, there's been a few accounts of guys meeting the girl of their dreams at a UT bar or a restaurant. Mrs. Winners would have been pretty unique had it happened for you. It was a good story anyway, and I'm glad it turned out well in the end!

But you always wonder, who was that girl.. where'd she go, what became of her.

This is what she looks like today……never look back!

 

[TN-POSSUM]

It was! I used to live in Halls before moving into the city limits, but had forgotten that location.

We now have three! There was at least one more location, maybe two.

I think the Title Max on Clinton Hwy, next to Arby's, was a Mrs. Winners. (Merchant Dr area)