Scott and Bernadette West have spent about twenty years turning tired Knoxville buildings into places people line up for. Preservation Pub, Scruffy City Hall, Bernadette's Crystal Gardens, Alice in Appalachia. All of it downtown, all of it Market Square. So when they closed on the old Everything Mushrooms warehouse at 1004 Sevier Avenue this spring, paying roughly two million dollars for a building that spent years growing fungi, it meant something more specific than a new bar opening. It meant a couple who built their reputation reviving Market Square decided South Knoxville was worth their biggest single check yet, and they decided it in the middle of a road project that has already made one South Knoxville business owner say, on camera, that she was scared for her survival.
That contradiction is the actual story on Sevier Avenue right now. Not the construction. Not the new duckpin bowling alley by itself. The fact that real money is landing on this block while the pavement is still torn up, and the people spending it are betting the corridor doesn't need to wait for a ribbon cutting to work.
What's Moving Into 1004 Sevier Avenue
Buffleheads is the name, and it is roughly 10,000 square feet of indoor-outdoor space built around duckpin bowling, shuffleboard, a sizable bar, and a menu built around biscuits. The plan calls for oversized garage doors that open the whole building to the street in warm weather, turning much of the interior into a covered patio. The Wests have described it as a spot meant to work for families in the afternoon and a later crowd at night, and as of this spring they said they expected to be open within months.
It is the West family's first major project on the South Waterfront stretch of Sevier Avenue, an area developers have circled for years without anyone committing at this scale. The industrial bones of the old mushroom warehouse, sitting a few blocks from the river, made it an obvious candidate for something bigger than another patio bar. What makes it worth watching from a resident's chair is the timing. Buffleheads isn't opening after the street gets finished. It's opening during the mess.
The Street Underneath the New Bar
Here's the mess. The city is in the middle of a $19.2 million Sevier Avenue Streetscape Project that is moving utilities underground, widening sidewalks to ADA standard, adding new lighting and crosswalks, and building a new roundabout where Sevier Avenue meets Foggy Bottom Street and Island Home Avenue. As of the city's most recent public update, the roundabout and the rest of the underground work remain on track for completion in early 2027, with crews having spent this past winter on stormwater drainage and a box culvert for the roundabout while utility crews kept installing conduit.
This isn't the corridor's first disruption in recent memory. The Gay Street Bridge, the direct connector between downtown and Sevier Avenue, closed in June 2024 over structural concerns and stayed closed well over a year. Deanne Thomas, who owns SoKno Throwback and Threads on Sevier Avenue, was blunt about what that did to her shop during the closure, telling a local news crew that
"South Knoxville took a huge hit with that bridge being closed for so long."
The bridge reopened in December 2025, on time and within budget according to the city's own recap, and Knoxville marked it with a Knoxville Track Club fun walk, run, and bike celebration a month later. So the corridor has already lived through one long infrastructure gap and come out the other side with the bridge back in service and businesses like Buffleheads still willing to write seven-figure checks a few blocks away.
Where the Cars Still Go
The practical question for anyone who already lives near this stretch is simpler: where do you park while all this is underway. The city has actually published an answer.
| Parking Area | Spaces Available | Best Access Window |
|---|---|---|
| On-street and lot near Suttree Landing Park | 200+ | Anytime |
| Regal parking garage | 300+ | Weekends and weekdays after 6 p.m. |
| Total public spaces near the corridor | 600+ | Citywide count, per the city's own figures |
Crews are also marking a temporary pedestrian path from the nearby lot that skirts the roundabout construction zone, meant to get people to Sevier Avenue businesses in a five to ten minute walk until the permanent sidewalk goes in.
The Rhythms That Don't Care About the Roundabout
None of the recurring things people already do on this stretch of river are waiting on a construction schedule. They run on their own calendar and always have.
- Tuesday evenings, Legacy Parks Foundation runs an out and back trail run from the pavilion at Suttree Landing Park, a base distance of about three miles, headlamps recommended once the sun starts dropping earlier.
- Thursday evenings, the Knoxville Open Water Swimmers group meets at the same pavilion for an hour-long swim, upstream for 30 to 45 minutes before turning back to the dock. Wetsuits are allowed, USMS membership is required, and swimmers need to be comfortable covering at least 2000 meters in open water.
- The Cattywampus Parade, an annual event built around giant puppets and costumed marchers, staged its eighth run in 2025, lining up at the Suttree Landing pavilion at 2 p.m. and following the River Walk Greenway and Waterfront Drive before ending on the festival lawn. Organizers have historically encouraged people to follow the parade route on the water in kayaks and canoes.
- K-Town on the River, a triathlon series based entirely out of Suttree's Landing, runs Sprint, Olympic, and half-iron distances that all use the Tennessee River and the surrounding South Knoxville roads, including a run leg through the historic Island Home neighborhood and onto the Will Skelton Greenway.
- Suttree Landing Park is also the regular home of Second Bell, the local music and comedy festival that moved here from Market Square specifically to take advantage of the waterfront setting, and the park continues to host it as one of its late-summer fixtures.
None of these depend on a finished roundabout, a repaved intersection, or a fully lit sidewalk. They depend on the park and the river, which have been open the entire time.
What's Actually Worth the Walk
The food and drink scene along Sevier Avenue has kept expanding through all of this, and it's worth being specific about what's actually there rather than gesturing at "a growing food scene."
71 South occupies a century-old converted church near Baker Creek Preserve, serving brunch, lunch, and dinner seven days a week out of what used to be the sanctuary, with a full bar pouring local beers and handcrafted cocktails. Southside Garage, a bar and food truck park at 1014 Sevier Avenue, keeps a rotating lineup of trucks paired with a deep craft beer list and patio games. Earl's opened directly across from Suttree Landing Park with outdoor dining, cocktails, and a menu that runs from pizza to smashburgers to breakfast burritos served until 10:30 in the morning. Sevier Ave Burger Co. has built a loyal following on smash burgers, weekday happy hour wine and fry specials, and a Saturday and Sunday brunch with discounted mimosas and espresso martinis. Hi-Wire Brewing, an Asheville import, keeps the laid-back weekend-family crowd with free foosball, ping pong, and soccer billiards, even without a kitchen of its own, since food trucks tend to park outside on busy nights.
A few blocks off Sevier Avenue proper, the former Kern's Bakery building on Chapman Highway has become Kern's Food Hall, packing more than twenty restaurants, bars, and shops under one roof with a rooftop patio looking back at the downtown skyline.
The Corridor Isn't Waiting on Its Own Finish Line
Put it together and the pattern is hard to miss. The bridge closed for a year and a half while the streetscape work was already being planned around it, and it hurt the businesses that depended on drive-across traffic. The bridge reopened on schedule. The streetscape project kept going underneath and around that reopening, aimed at an early 2027 finish. And in the middle of all of it, a business family with two decades of downtown credibility bought the largest building on the block and started building something new inside it, while the running club, the swim club, the parade, and the triathlon kept doing exactly what they've always done on exactly the same schedule.
If you already live near this stretch of the river, the practical takeaway is simple. The roundabout will get finished on its own timeline. The rest of the corridor, the part that actually fills your calendar, isn't waiting around for it.
If a move, a sale, or a question about how any of this touches property values along the water ever crosses your mind, that's a different conversation, and it's one Debra Gauthier has been having with East Tennessee buyers and sellers for years. Reach out whenever that day comes.
