Les Jones

East Tennessee > New to Downtown Maryville: Swank's Jazz Club and Two Doors Down

The newest arrival on the Maryville restaurant scene is Swank's Jazz Club. We got there early on a Saturday evening so we were too early to take in any music, but they have live shows almost every night of the week. The interior was well done and the food was good. We sampled the filet and the shrimp alfredo and no one was unsatisfied.

Two Doors Down is a rock 'n' roll centric bar that is well-arranged for live music, with an elevated stage and shoebox layout. (For Knoxvillians of a certain age: it's like a slightly reduced scale version of the Library/U. Club/Barley and Hops on the UT Strip.)

This is the same building that previously housed the Lighthouse Cafe and - three decades ago - Burns Drugs. The stainless steel lunch counter from the drugstore days survived into the Lighthouse Cafe era. I ate a pot roast at the counter in the last several years. Alas, it didn't survive the latest transformation. The owner told me the floor underneath the stainless kitchen was rotten, and it's now in possession of a pal of his for future projects.

The blue and white building next door is on the National Register of Historic Places. Just beyond that is Brackins Bar, the upstairs of which was once the public library.