Knoxville, TN: Beer, Bluegrass & Beef Jerky
And being that Blue Grass music doesn't get all the hype and hysteria that Country music gets, it doesn't have Nashville's corporate feel and its crowd of wannabe-cowboys and Taylor Swift-lookalikes. Knoxville still has the amenities of a big city without the overdone neon, without the traffic problems, and paying greater attention to the South's famous charm and hospitality.
Part of the reason for coming to Knoxville was to meet Rick Waldon, founder of Pap's Beef Jerky. Rick has been a long-time advertiser on one of our other websites, "Best Beef Jerky". With his business growing, Rick found the need to outsource his manufacturing and chose Magnolia Provisions to do the job. Based in Knoxville, Magnolia Provisions has been in the meat packing business since 1953.
Sash and I met Rick Waldon and Mike Sooy, the operations manager of Magnolia Provision, for a tour of the facility.
Walking through the doors of Magnolia Provisions made me feel like a celebrity of sorts. It turns out several of the staff has been reading my reviews of their beef jerky and other brands of jerky they produce. They even mention my reviews on their marketing materials, indicating that their jerky has been rated "Best" by me.
But getting a tour of their facility was my honor because Magnolia Provisions is one of the largest beef jerky manufacturers in the United States, and seeing the production process underway gave me a better understanding of how advanced, yet still old school, the art of jerky production is.
Later on, Rick Waldon and his wife treated us to a dinner at Tupelo Honey Cafe in downtown Knoxville. Tupelo Honey Cafe is actually a chain of restaurants, but only within Tennessee. It's more like Southern-Style cooking with a flair for modern and chic. We started with their famous biscuits, which are damn big biscuits. Then came the Fried Green Tomatoes served over Goat Cheese Grits. The goat cheese part is where Tupelo Honey Cafe gets modern and chic.
The restaurant also serves several local Tennessee craft brews on tap such as Green Man, Carolina, Flying Hive, Highland, Saw Works, and Oskar Blues.
Afterwards, we walked through downtown and found a group of guys playing Bluegrass music on the street. Next door was a beer bar called, "Suttree's High Gravity Tavern". The term "high gravity" refers to beer with a high alcohol content, which usually means awesome craft beer.
So, we went inside.
I ordered me up a couple of craft brews local to Tennessee and we all hung out and listened to live Bluegrass.
It turns out, I could definitely live in Knoxville. I love Bluegrass music, and I love craft beer. I also love Knoxville's low-key atmosphere, devoid of Nashville's glamour and glitz, much more modern than Memphis, and more focused on that great ole Southern charm and hospitality.
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| Magnolia Provisions, Knoxville, TN |
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| Highway with Mike Sooy and Rick Waldon |
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| Inside Magnolia Provisions' beef jerky processing plant |
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| Folks packaging beef jerky into plastic bags |
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| Pap's Beef Jerky packages fresh from manufacturing |
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| Sash getting a taste of a new double-secret beef jerky recipe for Pap's Beef Jerky. |
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| The bottom-right corner of the sign says their jerky was "voted best" be me. |
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| Sash standing in front of the Tennessee Womens Suffrage Memorial in downtown Knoxville |
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| Tupelo Honey Cafe, Knoxville, TN |
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| Sea Scallops with Chorizo in Cream Sauce, Tupelo Honey Cafe |
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| Fried Green Tomatoes on top of Grits (with goat cheese) |
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| Highway loves the biscuits at Tupelo Honey Cafe |
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| A bunch of guys gathered on the streets of Downtown Knoxville, playing Bluegrass |
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| The best place in Knoxville for craft beer and live Bluegrass music |
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| I'll take this stuff over Blue and Country any day |
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| Sash holding a First Place Trophy that Rick won in a BBQ competition |
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