A new restaurant, Honey Seed, that will offer breakfast and brunch every day, from 7 a.m. until 9 p.m. is opening at 1705 Market St. The majority owner, Robert Werk, has a long history working for local restaurants in Chattanooga. From 1995 until 2014 he was chief operating officer for Craftworks, the owner of Big River Grill. Then for the next seven years he worked for Square One, which owns State of Confusion and Stir.
His newest business is Honey Seed which specializes in Montreal style bagels and wood fired thin crust pizza.
The Montreal style bagels will be made-from scratch dough that’s hand rolled, boiled and cooked in a wood fire oven. The pizzas will be available after 4 p.m. And there will be a full bar serving wine, liquor and beer.
The Chattanooga Beer Board approved issuing the business a consumer beer license Thursday morning. The large restaurant will employ around 25 people in the kitchen and anther 25 servers, cashiers and bartenders.
Another new restaurant on Market Street is Spice Trail, located at 850 Market St. at Miller Plaza. This restaurant will specialize in authentic Indian food to go. The owner, Sujata Singh, will employ one other full-time person and another that will be part time. This business was given a carry-out permit for selling beer.
Poor Taste, another Southside business at 61 E. Main St., was also approved to serve consumer beer. This business is at the location of the former Area 61. It is a retail store selling vintage clothes but the owners, Jesse Curry and Lucas McKay, will also be using the store for an event venue focusing on art and fashion. The ability to serve beer will be for those special events hosted by the owners. Hours are from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m.
Weigel’s is opening their second convenience store in Chattanooga at 2230 Polymer Dr. It was approved for a license to sell carry out beer. The Weigel stores all must enter a birth date into a data base system where it is verified, before selling beer to a customer. Other safety measures to prevent underage sales, includes conducting internal sting operations to verify if illegal sales are being made to underage customers.
An application for a beer license for The Pony, a “bikini bar,” that was on hold from the last beer board meeting, waiting on answers, was again passed to a future meeting. The Pony will be located at 115 Honest St., in the former location of Babe’s Sports Bar, Grill and Show bar and before that, Diamonds and Lace, both adult entertainment establishments. According to city codes, an establishment loses the ability to keep the “grandfather” status of a non-conforming business if it has been closed more than 100 days. However, Municipal Technical Assistance Services (MTAS) advised Assistant City Attorney Kathryn McDonald that state law, which allows a lapse of 30 months supersedes city laws. That means the grandfather status would allow this use to continue. She told Beer Board Member Vince Butler that a bikini bar does not fall under the state’s definition of an adult-oriented business since “there is not complete nudity or exposure to specific anatomical areas.” Therefore, this bikini bar can be treated the same as any other bar.
The beer code requires TBI background checks for owners of a business, however checks are only done in the state of Tennessee. The city code allows a request from the police chief to expand the check outside the state of Tennessee. Mr. Butler made that request, because he said, enough concerns have been raised in other states where the owners do business. He also suggested making an extensive background check mandatory for all businesses opening if the cost is nominal. The beer board will be notified once the extensive background checks have been made.