She remembers when things were extremely slow downtown. I have the privilege of seeing community celebrations and funerals, to be a part of their rites of passage.” Kukuly and the Gypsy Fuego, Bistro at the Bijou, October 2014 Donald Brown, Bistro at the Bijou, Knoxville, January 2015 Greg Tardy Trio, Bistro at the Bijou, Knoxville, August 2015 Will Boyd, Bistro at the Bijou, Knoxville, November 2018 If you want instant gratification,” she says you might want to find another business, saying you have to be in it for the long run. “Patience is the hardest - waiting out harder times. Downtown business lunch business has been important throughout but has now been nearly stopped due the virus.
The customer base was steady, with swings for shows. She brings in everything she grows in her own garden. She began making incremental changes to the menu. A lot of people were behind me and helped make this successful into the next century. She proudly says she has “served five mayors. With Bill Haslam’s election, she sensed the momentum for downtown. Bistro at the Bijou, 807 South Gay Street, Knoxville, October 2020 Bistro at the Bijou, 807 South Gay Street, Knoxville, October 2020 I always knew that things would get better.” She said AC entertainment was upstairs and she could see changes were coming. In 2009, she made it official and purchased the business. From the beginning, she had absentee owners and ran the place as her own. She joked that she thinks they lost money on every sale. By the time she arrived, the order of the day was 10¢ chicken wings and beer. She said that Kristopher had a cabaret and a prix fixe menu. I tried to keep it original and to present thoughtful cuisine.”
“The best part of this business is being able to adapt to what people want. At that point she says, it was mainly bar business. Martha had been the general manager at Old College Inn and came to the Bistro at the Bijou in the same role in 1993. He operated the restaurant until 1988 and it went through several hands until Pete Clauson bought it in the early 1990s. It was, according to current owner, Martha Boggs, Knoxville’s first bistro, offering a seasonal and local menu. Kristopher reconfigured the space to roughly its current configuration. The building had been closed for several years and had re-opened on shaky ground financially and physically – it badly needed major renovation. In 1980, Kristopher Kendrick opened the restaurant’s current incarnation as the Bistro at the Bijou. It’s pretty remarkable to imagine President Jackson bellying up to the bar with friends in the location. The first major event hosted after its opening also involved a President - Andrew Jackson. Even more remarkable, a bar or restaurant, almost without interruption, is a part of the building’s history from the beginning.
In the year Ronald Reagan was elected president, the Bistro at the Bijou began service. Twenty or thirty years, impressive, indeed. Bistro at the Bijou, 807 South Gay Street, Knoxville, October 2020įor a business to last a dozen years is remarkable.
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