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

#3,552
#3,552
This may be a longshot, but does anyone remember the name of the trippy stoner shop that was just down from Gus's where you could buy blacklight posters and band tees in the 90s?
 
#3,557
#3,557
Wireless1 said:
Just west of I-640 on what is now Western Avenue (Was Oak Ridge Highway) I think there is a Wendy's located about where it was
Click to expand...

If you look at a map, that end of Ball Camp Pike where the Wendy's is located is now called Copper Kettle Street.

It appears that the Copper Kettle was located at 4411 Oak Ridge Highway, but that section is now Western Avenue. That will be an interesting thing for those of us with time on our hands can look up.. I bet that Western Avenue named section got extended westward as Knoxville's city limits expanded in the 60's and 70's.

4411 Western Avenue is the address for the Mapco gas station, which is on the other corner of Copper Kettle St. and Western Avenue from where the Wendy's is located.

Did any of you ever go to the Copper Kettle?

Also looking at online maps, to get back to Mad about where Western Avenue ends and Oak Ridge Highway begins (both are Highway 62), it has been accepted in recent years that Western Ave. ends at Schaad Rd. and that's where 62 becomes Oak Ridge Highway, as 62 enters the Karns area. But online maps seem to vary on where the transition occurs.
 
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#3,558
#3,558
More on Copper Kettle Restaurant: The online auction to sell the assets occured in May, 1981. It looks from what I'm seeing that it went out of business most likely in either 1980 or early 1981. It probably was due to the highway project that widened Oak Ridge Hwy to four lanes.

Copper Kettle had a windmill on the property! Anybody remember that?

The restaurant went back a long way- at least to the early 1950's.

Here is a nice KnoxTnToday article about the passing of Catherine May, founder of Copper Kettle: Catherine S. May: A business legend for sure - Knox TN Today

This picture was on a FB page:


1757986220999.png
 
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#3,559
#3,559
Ted said:
If you look at a map, that end of Ball Camp Pike where the Wendy's is located is now called Copper Kettle Street.

It appears that the Copper Kettle was located at 4411 Oak Ridge Highway, but that section is now Western Avenue. That will be an interesting thing for those of us with time on our hands can look up.. I bet that Western Avenue named section got extended westward as Knoxville's city limits expanded in the 60's and 70's.

4411 Western Avenue is the address for the Mapco gas station, which is on the other corner of Copper Kettle St. and Western Avenue from where the Wendy's is located.

Did any of you ever go to the Copper Kettle?

Also looking at online maps, to get back to Mad about where Western Avenue ends and Oak Ridge Highway begins (both are Highway 62), it has been accepted in recent years that Western Ave. ends at Schaad Rd. and that's where 62 becomes Oak Ridge Highway, as 62 enters the Karns area. But online maps seem to vary on where the transition occurs.
Click to expand...
My wife and I moved into Crods Creek apartments in the fall of 1980 with an Oak Rifge Highway address, I think we got notice the next spring the the address would be changing to Western Avenue… but we moved out of state
 
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#3,560
#3,560
Ted said:
More on Copper Kettle Restaurant: The online auction to sell the assets occured in May, 1981. It looks from what I'm seeing that it went out of business most likely in either 1980 or early 1981. It probably was due to the highway project that widened Oak Ridge Hwy to four lanes.

Copper Kettle had a windmill on the property! Anybody remember that?

The restaurant went back a long way- at least to the early 1950's.

Here is a nice KnoxTnToday article about the passing of Catherine May, founder of Copper Kettle: Catherine S. May: A business legend for sure - Knox TN Today

This picture was on a FB page:


View attachment 774121
Click to expand...

I have good memories of the Copper Kettle in the mid-60's. We always stopped there on our way back to OR when my parents did their weekend shopping in Knoxville. We used the drive in which you can see in the picture. My dad would play a game with my 2 brothers and I asking us to guess the amount of time it would take for them to get our food to the car.

Don't remember the windmill but maybe it was built later.
 
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#3,561
#3,561
There’s Nixon Delis on Kingston Pike in Bearden (across from Bearden Elementary) and on Middlebrook Pike across from Shannondale.

I guess the one in Fountain City closed. In a small shopping center on the right about a quarter mile before getting to the Duck Pond.

Kind of expensive. I’ll spend $15 and still be hungry. But they have pumpernickel (dark bread) and smoked cheddar. Horse radish sauce as well. Pretty clean stores, too. Need to avoid some additions like tomatoes or the bread can get soggy.
 
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#3,565
#3,565
Vjcvette said:
That would be a good question for @Thunder Good-Oil 🙂
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That’s a little before my time as far as being familiar with that section of downtown. I really don’t remember anything in that area before the Row Boat Man sculpture. The Hamilton is now residential condos as is the Burwell Building across Gay on the right. WIVK/Dick Broadcasting owned the Burwell Building 30 years ago. James Dick also owned the Tennessee Theater but gave it to the charitable foundation to preserve it.

The Arcade Building is barely visible on the right and was home to the Knoxville Journal before their JOA with the News-Sentinel. Sterchi’s is the tall building way off in the distance.

The Trailways Bus Station was behind the photographer and became the Whittle Communications HQ location and now the Federal Courthouse.
 
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#3,566
#3,566
Nixon's Deli has been around for a while.

They had seven locations at one time, but are now down to three: 508 Merchant Drive, 5716 Kingston Pike in Bearden, and 230 N. Peters Rd.

There were locations on North Broadway, Middlebrook Pk. and Turkey Creek, as well as one in Oak Ridge. These all closed in the late 2010's.
 
#3,567
#3,567
Ted said:
Nixon's Deli has been around for a while.

They had seven locations at one time, but are now down to three: 508 Merchant Drive, 5716 Kingston Pike in Bearden, and 230 N. Peters Rd.

There were locations on North Broadway, Middlebrook Pk. and Turkey Creek, as well as one in Oak Ridge. These all closed in the late 2010's.
Click to expand...

Google says that Middlebrook is “temporarily” closed.
 
#3,568
#3,568
Thunder Good-Oil said:
There’s Nixon Delis on Kingston Pike in Bearden (across from Bearden Elementary) and on Middlebrook Pike across from Shannondale.

I guess the one in Fountain City closed. In a small shopping center on the right about a quarter mile before getting to the Duck Pond.

Kind of expensive. I’ll spend $15 and still be hungry. But they have pumpernickel (dark bread) and smoked cheddar. Horse radish sauce as well. Pretty clean stores, too. Need to avoid some additions like tomatoes or the bread can get soggy.
Click to expand...
I go to the one on merchants. It is pricey, but my fatass always orders the super, so I definitely don’t walk away hungry.
 
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#3,569
#3,569
Ted said:
If you look at a map, that end of Ball Camp Pike where the Wendy's is located is now called Copper Kettle Street.

It appears that the Copper Kettle was located at 4411 Oak Ridge Highway, but that section is now Western Avenue. That will be an interesting thing for those of us with time on our hands can look up.. I bet that Western Avenue named section got extended westward as Knoxville's city limits expanded in the 60's and 70's.

4411 Western Avenue is the address for the Mapco gas station, which is on the other corner of Copper Kettle St. and Western Avenue from where the Wendy's is located.

Did any of you ever go to the Copper Kettle?

Also looking at online maps, to get back to Mad about where Western Avenue ends and Oak Ridge Highway begins (both are Highway 62), it has been accepted in recent years that Western Ave. ends at Schaad Rd. and that's where 62 becomes Oak Ridge Highway, as 62 enters the Karns area. But online maps seem to vary on where the transition occurs.
Click to expand...
Went there often as a young lad. Occasionally in the summers a couple of us would hike a few miles to the Copper Kettle for lunch. We would have to cross Third Creek on the old DeArmond property. Chuckwagon sandwich was my favorite. Do I remember correctly that there was a miniature golf course next door?
 
#3,570
#3,570
Ted said:
Nixon's Deli has been around for a while.

They had seven locations at one time, but are now down to three: 508 Merchant Drive, 5716 Kingston Pike in Bearden, and 230 N. Peters Rd.

There were locations on North Broadway, Middlebrook Pk. and Turkey Creek, as well as one in Oak Ridge. These all closed in the late 2010's.
Click to expand...
The location on Broadway burned a little over 10 years ago and they razed the shopping center and it is now where the chicfila is.
 
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#3,571
#3,571
UT_Dutchman said:
The location on Broadway burned a little over 10 years ago and they razed the shopping center and it is now where the chicfila is.
Click to expand...

That was an interesting old shopping center/village in its time. I think it went back to the early 70's. It had a faux Bavarian sort of motif. Haven't found the name of that mall yet. I will post it if I can find it.

As Dutchman said, there was a fire in that shopping center some time in 2013. The entire center was demolished. Chick-Fil-A shows up in the street view starting in early 2014.

Here's a screen cap from G-maps from 2011. There was a Citgo gas station in the parking lot next to Broadway. That is it's old sign out front.

I remember there was a Time Out Deli there at one time and I stopped there for a sandwich or two back in the mid-70's. The deli was in the section on the left behind the billboard post

Screenshot 2025-09-21 125433.jpg
 
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#3,574
#3,574
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