Just a normal downtown Knoxville Friday night: bearded dragons, bachelorettes and a hookah

Stephanie Schell, left, and her sister, Dawn Ford

Our friend Stephanie Schell lives within an hour’s drive of New York City and she loves going into the city for entertainment. So the pressure was really on us when she came to Knoxville last week to visit her sister, Dawn Ford.

We wanted to show her that, although we are certainly no New York, there are plenty of fun eateries and interesting things to see here in K-town.

Where to take her? Downtown, of course!

Dawn made the itinerary. We would start at our condo at Cherokee Lofts and then go on a progressive restaurant dinner to take in a wide variety of what downtown has to offer.

We gathered at the loft around 5:30.

Getting ready to conquer downtown. From left: Dawn Ford, Richard Ford, Alan Carmichael and Stephanie Schell

After cocktails and a light appetizer, we set off for Sangria’s, a tapas restaurant on the opposite end of Market Square from our condo. And we encountered a bearded dragon.

Jason Moeller from the Knoxville Zoo holds a bearded dragon on Market Square.

Of course Dawn and Stephanie had to pet it!

Next, we run across this fellow.

Jasper, from the Tennessee Valley Fair, which opens Sept. 10, relaxes on Market Square.

So far, I’m thinking we are looking just about as weird as the streets of New York. (Actually, Market Square was hosting an event for Boy Scouts.)

A climbing wall was set up courtesy of the National Guard.

OK. Enough of this child’s play. On to get our dinner started. Sangria’s, here we come.

Alan and Richard at Sangria's, our first official stop.

We ordered an assortment of tapas. But everyone agreed, these potatoes were the best. We had two orders of them!

Messy, but good!

The next stop was Latitude 35, across Market Square. We went downstairs for more small plates as we relaxed on the comfortable furniture.

This downstairs area of Latitude 35 feels like a friend's living room.

This proved to be a popular spot. No sooner had we gotten our food and drinks than about a dozen knock-out young women traipsed in. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out it was a bachelorette party! What fun!

The bride-to-be is Jacqueline Hertz. Nice of them to pose for me.

Okie dokey. What next? Well, in comes a guy with a cake. These folks were celebrating Sarah Mills’ 30th birthday. The guy with the cake is Andrew Dill, a former Moxley Carmichael intern.

From left, Josh Loebner, Sarah Mills and Andrew Dill. Happy birthday, Sarah!

Wow. I’m thinking this place is pretty fun! But it’s time to mush on. We decide to take a quick detour to the historic Miller’s Building because I want to show everyone Moxley Carmichael’s new offices. Richard heads straight to the refrigerator where we keep our stash of wine (and beer).

Richard's favorite part of the new office.

Truffled fries at Cafe Four. Just what we needed - more potatoes!

By now, it was dessert time. (Richard never misses dessert!) We headed to Gay Street and the S&W Grand where the folks from the Knoxville Jazz Festival had assembled. We were lucky to get a table.

The music was awesome.

Knoxville's own Donald Brown, an internationally recognized keyboardist, was the emcee.

Also in from New York was legendary jazz drummer Jimmy Cobb.

Jimmy Cobb takes a break.

We think the S&W Grand has some of the best chocolate martinis in town.

Cheers!

Knoxville City Councilman Chris Woodhull, who also hosts a jazz show on WUOT-FM, was in the house looking dapper.

Chris Woodhull and Nelda Hill, an organizer of the jazz festival.

On our way out, we ran into Donna and Chris Kinney. They had just come from the Bijou Theatre where Donna had somehow won a guitar signed by Eric Baker. Don’t know the whole story on that, but she seemed happy!

Donna Kinney and her new guitar

Approaching midnight, we headed for our last stop: Mirage on Gay Street.

Side note: We had been boycotting this place for two years. (We know how to hold a grudge!) At that time, two years ago, we had been having cocktails across the street at the Bistro and we were considering going to Mirage for dinner. Since we’d never been there, we sent Richard across the street to borrow a menu to bring back to the Bistro so we could all look at it and decide. They refused to let him borrow the menu! So the boycott began. In honor of Stephanie’s visit, we decided to put our boycott aside. And we are glad we did!

After obligatory photos with the belly dancer, we ordered hummous, feta dip and baba ganoush to share (like we needed more food!) and sat down on the floor to decide what flavor of tobacco to get in the hookah placed in the middle of our table. We let Stephanie pick and I can’t even tell you what flavor it was, but it was something sweet. I only took one puff, but the others seemed to like it, as you can see from the photos!

I don't think this needs a caption.

You can write your own caption for this one!

Alan gets the hookah started.

Attempting smoke rings!

Stephanie, the only actual smoker among us, knew what she was doing.

I think she liked it!

The old clock on the wall showed 2 a.m. before we knew it! It wasn’t New York, but downtown Knoxville was pretty darn entertaining for eight hours on a Friday night. And it wasn’t even First Friday. That’s tonight! So head downtown!