Metro Pulse/Cover/Best of Knoxville 2002

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Staff Picks

Best Browsing
EMERY'S FIVE AND TEN
It's a little dusty and a tiny bit cramped, but there is more good stuff per square inch in this tiny hardware/garden/weird gee-gaw South Knox institution than can be found in any of the big chain warehouse stores. Plus, Emery's has more charm than a box full of politicians, as well as a wide variety of useful stuff, like bolts, kite string, and scented candles. While just poking around the aisles is a great time, you almost definitely leave with at least one new treasure. And since this is a "Five and Ten," your new find won't cost you a lot of scratch.
(Adrienne Martini)

Best Sugar Fix
RITA'S BAKERY
Rita's, which is tucked between a health club and an outpatient clinic in North Knox, is the closest one can get to sheer, sweet bliss on any given morning. Sticky buns slump next to delicate petit-fours. The smell of freshly baked bread fills the air. All stripes of brownies, from cream cheese to nutty fudge, line up in the glass case, only steps from bite-sized thumbprint cookies and decadent cheesecakes. Add a hot cup of coffee and you're in nirvana.
(Adrienne Martini)

Best Nashville Imports
GREEN HILLS GRILL, SITAR
Finally, after all the pickers and singers we've sent Nashville over the years, the Music City has paid us back—with food. Two Nashville institutions have opened outposts at either end of Bearden in the last few years. The newest arrival is Green Hills Grill, in Western Plaza. The Grill brought a Nashville shine to a dark, brick location and its menu offerings reflect its tony charm. Their fruit-filled iced tea, for instance, can cure any summer's swelter, and chicken salad on a croissant is a perfect lunchtime nosh. Not to be missed as well are the entrees, which range from better-than-mom's meatloaf to delicate pastas. Farther down Kingston Pike, near the intersection with Northshore, is the curry-licious Sitar. Long known as Nashville's favorite Indian eatery, it features a spectacular lunch buffet and great, affordable dinner entrées as well. Friends who have actually been to India swear by it, and we've seen more than one neophyte converted to the pleasures of curry, rice and tandoori chicken. And then there's the mango pudding...
(Jesse Fox Mayshark)

Best Advertising Slogan
REASONABLE RON'S TIRES
"The Best Place In Town To Take A Leak." It's poetry.
(Joe Tarr)

Best Cheap Food
TACO DE MEXICO
Taco de Mexico is located in a little white building on Beaumont just off of Baxter, right near the I-275 interchange. If you know about this place, it's because you accidentally stumbled across it or someone told you. We hesitate to call it the best Mexican restaurant in town (although it's certainly a contender). But this neighborhood joint goes one better, providing perhaps the biggest bang for your buck of any eatery in Knoxville. Get a burrito packed with beans, rice, pork, chicken, beef, salsa, peppers, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, and guacamole in any combination you want for around three bucks. I once bought myself and two office mates all a meal for less than $8; none of us could finish our dish in one sitting. They also serve tacos and breakfast food, and are open early and late.
(Joe Tarr)

Best Saturday Morning Breakfast
HAROLD'S DELI
The biggest challenge at the venerable kosher noshery on the 100 block of South Gay Street each Saturday morning is finding a table. There are at least three distinct waves of customers that swamp the place reliably every week, from the early morning to the early afternoon. Conversations carry over from one table to another, and morning newspapers get passed around and commented on from every conceivable perspective. Meanwhile, Harold and the rest of the crew keep the coffee flowing and the food coming. For eggs over easy, delectable grits, the finest "kosher bacon" in town, and a genial start to your weekend, it's hard to beat Harold's.
(Jesse Fox Mayshark)

Best Blues Bar
SASSY ANN'S
We've never been able to justify making this a separate ballot category, because there's really only one. Sure, Barley's Taproom periodically books blues bands, as do other clubs around town (and the Knoxville Museum of Art, for that matter). But the retrofitted Victorian house in the Fourth and Gill neighborhood that houses Sassy Ann's is Knoxville's undisputed Home of the Blues. And it's a great place to hang out, too, with its little tables tucked into crazy-quilt alcoves, its fine beer selection, and its friendly regulars. Come for the Wednesday night Blue Jam, and you're liable to hear many of Knoxville's resident blues masters getting up to get down. If you've got the nerve, you can get up with 'em.
(Jesse Fox Mayshark)

Best Local Radio Show
THE PANTY RAID, WUTK 90.3 FM
I've given WUTK's management a lot of grief in the past year for essentially making the station more like a commercial radio station. But this show—hosted by Lea and Julie every Monday from 9 p.m. to midnight—shows just how glorious college radio (and radio in general) can be. The idea behind the Panty Raid sounds simple enough: showcase female musicians once a week. In just three hours, it ends up freeing radio from genre classifications, market studies, demographics and all the other crap that has more or less ruined the medium. It is radio that is exciting because you never know what you might hear next—Patti Smith, the Raincoats, Takako Minekawa, Lydia Lunch, Missing Persons, Le Tigre, Neneh Cherry, Chicks on Speed, the Butchies or maybe just a good old Ronettes song. The emphasis is contemporary, but they sneak in plenty of stuff from the past 50 years, including the classic girl group era, '70s folk and punk, '80s post punk and new wave and '90s riot girl movement. It works so well because the show's hosts really know and love the music. You definitely won't like all of it. But listen to a whole show and I guarantee you'll hear something you love that you've never heard of before.
(Joe Tarr)

Best Salsa Bar
SEÑOR TACO
This North Broadway eatery proudly proclaims to have the best salsa bar in the city. To be fair, it's the only one we know of. But, if there were competitors, they'd have their work cut out for them because Señor Taco's salsa bar would be damn tough to beat. They prepare fresh salsas of various colors and heat levels every day. That's not the only reason to love Señor Taco, however. Here are a few more: great food, cheap fajitas on Wednesdays, 99-cent draft beers, huge burritos, a cool jukebox with Mexican music, friendly staff, and crazy dance nights. And, if you've ever noticed, it's the Mexican restaurant that seems to attract the most Mexican patrons of any in Knoxville. They must be doing something right.
(Joe Tarr)

Best Looking Building Built in the Past Five Years
HOPE VI IN MECHANICSVILLE
It's a sad statement about contemporary architecture and developers that when we asked several local architects for some nominations in this category, they were hard pressed to think of anything. A few nominations eventually did come up—the new Unitarian Church on Kingston Pike, the UT boathouse on Neyland Drive. The one project that will have the longest and best impact on Knoxville is the new homes being built by KCDC in Mechanicsville, in and around the site of the old College Homes. We still have some concerns about the way the old residents were treated before the project. But you really have to applaud the housing agency for their architectural aesthetic and sound urban design. The houses are gorgeous Victorian and Bungalow models, with large front porches and big windows. There are sidewalks and street lamps, and you'd feel comfortable walking your dog or stopping to chat with a neighbor. When was the last time you drove by public housing and thought, "Hey, I wouldn't mind living there"? But that's the kind of place KCDC has created.
(Joe Tarr)

Best Six-Meat Buffet
SHONEY'S
Just as immortalized in the Todd Steed song, Shoney's offers good, solid fare in the meat-and-potato-lovers department. And after endless hours of shadowing shady government officials and clandestinely meeting secret sources in desolate parking garages, what's a weary beat reporter going to do for food at 2 a.m.? We don't know, because we don't work beats. But a Metro Pulse writer who wakes up hungry at midnight after having fallen asleep at his keyboard following an intense session of, ah, interviews at Sundown in the City knows to head for Your Neighborhood Family Restaurant. Another serving of biscuits 'n' gravy while I'm up, anyone?
(Scott McNutt)

Best New Power-Drinking Spot
MACLEOD'S
A favorite of Metro Pulse staffers, k2kers, and downtown denizens since its opening, this corner pub tucked into the ground floor of the Arnstein building (two stories down from our own office, to be exact) is rapidly developing a whole 'nother clientele: The Power Drinkers. We haven't seen Barbara Aston-Wash there yet, but the friendly little bar has lately seen its share of folks normally known to haunt locales with a more rarefied ambiance: Chamber honchos, Ashe administration apparatchiks, downtown development players, and power-tie types in general. The likes of Tom Ingram, Cynthia Moxley, Bill and Gay Lyons, Bud Gilbert, Dale Smith, Bill Haslam, Don Bosch, Mark Brown and others have been spied fraternizing and kibbitzing at the tavern with the best patio in town (facing both Market Square and Krutch Park). Being a new city power nexus hasn't gone to the heads of Herschel, Tim, Regina, Tracy, Jill, Will, Kelly or the other purveyors of Macleod's wares. They treat everybody the same, just plain folks. There's no standing on ceremony in this laid-back establishment, even when it's standing room only. So c'mon down, get a happy hour deal on a few Sierra Nevada drafts, and see how Knoxville's future really gets shaped. The moment we're waiting for: Tom and Cynthia take the stage on karaoke night to perform a duet of "Islands in the Stream."
(Scott McNutt)

Best Solution to Cherokee Country Club's Desperate Parking Crisis
KNOXVILLE AREA TRANSIT
Our calculations show that if only 15 percent of CCC's members and guests rode the KAT bus, they'd already have plenty of asphalt, with extra room for some nice shrubs. We are, however, aware that some members are unfamiliar with public transportation, the practice of sharing a vehicle with other citizens. The last bus many country-club members ever rode had the word WEBB on the side of it. But times have changed, and so have buses. Modern KAT buses are air-conditioned, comfortable, and perhaps even more imposing than your SUV. Plus, there's room for golf clubs—and the conversation's often droller than it is in the Trophy Room! Route 90 goes right by the Club about 18 times a day until the early evening. Then, if you want to stay for martinis, and don't mind a three-hole stroll, the Kingston Pike bus runs until almost midnight. So don't demolish handsome Italian Renaissance Revival mansions. Ride the bus!
(Jack Neely)

Best Addition to the Strip
FRESH OFF THE BRANCH
To find this new little market just off Cumberland, turn the corner from Ruby Tuesday, jog downstairs and salivate at the ready-to-go picnic supplies. Grab a strawberry-filled cantaloupe half, maybe add some yogurt or cheese, and you've got healthy heaven. Even better, the existence of this gem means UT students don't have to drive to buy Pop-Tarts and Aleve. Imagine.
(Tamar Wilner)

Best Project to Keep Overachieving TDOT Engineers Busy
ALCOA HIGHWAY INTERCHANGE
A close one—the hyperactive guys in hardhats have been at work all over town, funneling us through high-speed concrete troughs on an apparent quest to eliminate all of Tennessee's passé right angles in favor of Hot-Wheels^TM style high-speed curves with high concrete rails proven to disorient rats in secret TDOT laboratories. Recently, just trying to get downtown from Island Home, we found ourselves rocketing east on I-40. Hey, the more we get lost, the more gas we use, and the more money for TDOT. But for sheer busywork value, the winner has to be the UT Bridge along with the accompanying Alcoa Highway Memorial Swoop. They closed Volunteer Boulevard for several months, the bike trail for two years, caused a revolution on campus unmatched since the anti-Nixon strikes, and spent millions of state dollars. They made enemies of environmentalists, pedestrians, Indian-rights activists, and low-tax Republicans. And still, no one knows for certain why they did it. But at least they're almost finished. Or, they keep saying they are, and since they're admittedly unresponsive to local opinion, we have no choice but to go along with that.
(Jack Neely)

Best Real Dive
OPAL'S
Hey, Toddy's is OK. It might be deserving of the "neighborhood bar" honor, but it ain't much of a dive as dives go. The dive of dives is the runner-up, almost straight across Kingston Pike. It shares a gravel driveway with the condemned Biltmore Motor Court, a lodging place that was seedy in its heyday along the Dixie Lee Highway. Opal's Lounge used to be much worse, 20 years ago in its poke-salad days as Dirty Gert's, back when the carpet squished with stale beer and the devil knows what else underfoot, but it's still a dive to be reckoned with. Consider the near-subterranean location, with its door and its parking at the rear (for those timid Baptist tipplers among us). Think of the steel girders overhead, every 30 inches, that hold up the low, gray concrete ceiling, bomb-shelter style. Look at the portraits of John Wayne and Willie Nelson on the side wall above the pool tables, and cast a long glance at the nubile, decidedly nude muchacha painted exquisitely on velvet, con sombrero, above the backbar. Check out the jewel of a juke box. Wonder how come Bubba ain't shot it yet. Ignore the electronic dart board, there for the dartistes who can't count. Thanks to Ms. Opal Sparks, prop., Opal's is still the dive it always was, despite the fact that the pool hall-then-massage parlor upstairs is now an oriental rug shop, and the men's room is actually clean and doesn't smell any worse than the Swisher-brand air freshener on the wall. At least the mirror is cracked in two places. And, even though the bar now carries such pee-willy beverages as Guinness stout and Pete's Wicked Ale, Opal's is unquestionably a Bud-BudLight-MillerLite kind of joint.
Trust us. The votes Opal's got came from the most discriminating of dive denizens. There wasn't another real dive among the top 10. When the prominent throwback sign, lettered: "We Reserve The Right To Refuse Service To Anyone" is taken into full account, one has to wonder who the hell that could ever be.
(Barry Henderson)

Favorite Upscale, Open-Kitchen Restaurant
BOGARTZ
In the mood for something daring, maybe even avante garde? Don't be afraid. Come on in, the dining's fine at Bogartz. An immediate favorite of 'Pulse staffers, Bogartz offers adventures in unusual fare, plus the entertainment of watching chef Bruce Bogartz prepare your food (and everybody else's) in the open-air kitchen. Check it out. Try the elk chops or buffalo tenderloin. Do something different today. We dare ya.
(Scott McNutt)

Best Building Threatened with Demolition
SPRANKLE BUILDING
Although all contenders in this category are worthy, first place must go to the Sprankle. Why? Well, the Cal Johnson building, though perhaps most imperiled of all, doesn't seem to have any defenders, so it's out. On the other hand, the J. Allen Smith house is the flavor of the month for newbie preservationists. That leaves the Sprankle. Its owners won't let independent inspectors in to look at it, it houses Pete's of immortal memory, and its ongoing presence prevents there being nothing but parking lots on Walnut Street stretching from Wall to Church Avenue. 'Nuff said.
(Scott McNutt)

Best Problem Child
BRAD RENFRO
Back when he was plucked from nowhere to get cuddled by Susan Sarandon in The Client, who would've thought North Knoxville's own James Dean would give us such lasting entertainment value, both on and off screen? He's managed to keep a viable and interesting career going (most recently in Bully and Ghost World), while tangling with law enforcement here and elsewhere in his off hours. It's all a little troubling, really—we're not looking for another River Phoenix or Robert Downey Jr., thanks. But we're confident that like a lot of kids from these parts, Brad will ride out the hills and not get lost in the valleys. Anyway, we'll be watching.
(Jesse Fox Mayshark)

Best Posthumous Publication
AN AFFAIR OF HONOR
The just-published final novel of Loudon County native and often-controversial UT professor Richard Marius, who died in 1999, is an irreverent look at faith, family, and the origins of West Knoxville sprawl. We should have figured that Marius would have the last word.
(Jack Neely)

Best Video Store
LAWSON-MCGHEE LIBRARY
Not really a store, of course, but something better and cheaper. If $1 Thursday-Monday rental isn't enough to wow you, how about the selection? These bookworms seem to get videos in almost as quickly as the chain-store money-grubbers (who, by the way, always accuse me of returning my videos late—even when it's not true). Plus, when you don't know what to get, there are all sorts of handy suggestions posted on the walls.
(Tamar Wilner)

Best Evidence of the Perpetuity of Ancient Knoxville Dishes
METTS AND BEANS
Its origins are known only to God, though we suspect the German butchers of Market Square a century and more ago had something to do with it. The messy plate known as
Metts & Beans—mettwurst, a thick spicy sausage rarely encountered elsewhere, and white beans, usually served with onions and/or chow-chow—was a pre-war staple (name any war) in many mainline Knoxville eateries. It seemed to dwindle sometime during the first Testerman administration, but there it is again, making a comeback on, of all places, the menu of a Memphis-based barbecue chain: under the arguably apropos title, "Bearden's Favorite" at the Corky's located in that venerable neighborhood. It's served with onions and cole slaw, as it should be. Somebody's been doing their research, and we appreciate it. (Jack Neely)

Best Place to People Watch
TIE: VIC 'N' BILL'S ON A FRIDAY NIGHT; HOME DEPOT ON A SATURDAY MORNING
With two short trips spaced 12 hours apart, you can see a remarkable cross-section of the people who, um, people this city we call home. After midnight, UT's Vic 'n' Bill's is the place to go to catch drunken college kids, unique local lay-abouts, and partied-out young professionals refueling with a steaming plate of fries or a good 'n' greasy burger before heading back out into that good night. The next morning, wander the aisles of your closest Home Depot—Lowe's might do in a pinch but they tend to cater to a more design-savvy, HGTV-loving demog—to catch your friends and neighbors in the act of mulling PVC elbows and new tile. It's quite an eye-opener, especially if your eyes had been open too late the night before...
(Adrienne Martini)

Best Venue to Hear a Show
TIE: BIJOU AND LAUREL THEATRES
Sometimes, you go to a show to rock out. Other times, you go to actually hear every last nuance of the music, which is what these to venues are perfect for. The Bijou, a restored hospital/porn establishment, has acoustics to die for—so much so touring acts have been known to unplug, step out, and let their songs fly free. The Laurel, while less great acoustically, is a warm, intimate space that just seems to bring out the best in musicians. Either way, you can't lose.
(Adrienne Martini)

Best Thing Knoxville Should Celebrate with a Festival
BALLS
Forget dogwoods. Enough with Mardi Gras. Heck with our heritage. Let's celebrate the one thing we all agree we've got a lot of—balls. Two (a telling number) dot the skyline with a big, gold one topping off the former World's Fair site and a big, orange one marking the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame (which is kinda ironic if you think about it, or maybe just appropriate). Beyond the visual treat these spheres provide for us, Knoxville's got a bunch of the more metaphoric sort as well. Just for instance, it takes some serious cojones to envision a planetarium as the savior of downtown and then ask for almost $7 million in fees for your inspiration. So rather than hide our balls, we should get them out in public and give them the praise they so richly deserve. The floats will be fantastic, the promo art divine. And just think of the cross-marketing opportunities!
(Adrienne Martini)

Best Affair
J. WADE GILLEY-PAMELA REED
There were literally thousands of choices in this category, but, because this is the only one I know about, it gets my vote. Besides, for arch-conservative Knoxville, this was the steamiest public affair since Johnny Majors used to make love to his hip flask every autumn on the Vol sidelines. And what an impact the Gilley-Reed trysts had! Jobs were lost, UT officialdom was brought to a humiliating new low, Knoxville News-Sentinel readership surged (one assumes), prurient appetites were titillated, and we were all treated to a startling Pamela Reed photo layout in the pages of CityView. Competitors are already lining up for next year's contest.
(Scott McNutt)

Best Quote From a TDOT Official
"Look at the folks who are asking us not to build this road. Who are they? What are their agendas? We don't have any personal interest in this road. [TDOT Commissioner] Bruce Saltsman lives in Nashville. I live in Nashville. We don't have any interest in the road the way a property owner would."
—TDOT Spokeswoman Luanne Grandinetti on South Knoxville homeowners opposed to the South Knoxville Boulevard
(Jack Neely)