Looking forward to Alabama @ Tennessee this fall

Thanks buddy.

How is partying with the Vol Navy?

biggsc gets board access but Cajunbama is left in the cold

Avoid Cumberland right now. Construction everywhere. There's a lot of places to meet people on Cumberland but it's a shitshow with the construction.

Go downtown to either Market Square, Gay Street, or the Old City if you want good food.

Food: Stock and Barrel (Best burger), Tomato Head (if you like healthy stuff), Downtown Grill and Brewery, Cafe 4, Tupelo Honey, Babalu, there's tons of options.

Bars: Jig and Reel (Old City), Preservation Pub (Market Square), Crown and Goose (Old City), Barleys (Old City)

Calhouns is decent but I've lived here my whole life and I don't think it's that great compared to the other stuff we have in town now. Downtown is where it's at for good food, but Calhouns is more for the experience on gameday.

What is the best whiskey made in Tennessee not named Daniels?

George Dickel, right down the road from the Jack Daniel's distillery. I grew up drinking George over JD. My old man always had a bottle on top of the fridge.

As for your visit, if enjoy good food and plenty of beer your in luck.

In terms of venues, restaurants, bars, breweries, entertainment, etc. downtown Knoxville is more or less broken up into 4 different sections that are over time starting to mesh together, but not quite there yet.

The 4 areas are: Market Square, Gay St, The Old City, and Cumberland Ave/The Strip.

Gay St -- has everything from a really nice movie theater, to a brand new Urban Bowling alley and Bar, The Tennessee and Bijou theaters, as well as a really good selection of food and bars.

Market Square -- Roughly 1-2 blocks to the south of Gay St. and home to a ton of excellent restaurants and bars as well. This along with Gay St. are the 2 busiest areas of downtown. Even more so lately with all of the construction going on around campus and Cumberland Ave(Which will look amazing once it's done, but it's an eye sore right now). Every restaurant/bar/coffee shop/ice cream spot in Market Square has an outside patio directly on the square where you can watch live music, kids play in the park and water fountains and enjoy the weather. This area along with Krutch Park 1 block east gets pretty packed on the weekend.

The Old City -- It's about a 4-5 minute walk from the S. Gay St./Market Square area and is where you're going to find a lot of the college kids over 21 hanging out at night after getting dinner in Market Square. There are bars, a few clubs, a wine bar and a couple of food options in this area. There's going to be a new craft beer bar open up on the corner of Summit Hill and Central, but I don't know if it's going to be open by the Alabama game. Sweet P's BBQ (MY Favorite place to grab BBQ downtown) isn't in the old city per se, but it's only a 3 minute walk up Jackson Ave. It's close to one of my favorite breweries in the city as well, Balter Beer Works.

Cumberland Ave/The Strip/Campus: Some bars, restaurants, student housing, etc. I would avoid this place like the plague outside of game day if at all possible. Traffic is a nightmare at peak hours and gets log jammed from the lane closures. It's a giant pain in the arse, but long over due and will be big for campus.


I'm not sure if you're into the craft beer scene or not, but the Brewery scene around Knoxville is blowing up right now and has some really good options. There's 11 or 12 breweries in the city and should be up to 16-17 by the end 2017. If that's your thing, let me know. I can let you know which ones are the best in the city as well as give you a map I put together of all of the breweries in Knoxville.


***Pete's coffee shop in downtown for breakfast.

We get our corn from a jar, motherfricker