Hard Knox Garage A Great Craft Beer Brewery Bar Concept

A Food Truck Park Pairs With Craft Beers In Knoxville, TN

By Kevin Wilkerson, PubClub.com Craft Beer Blogger

In a world of creative businesses – pop-up selfie stores are popping up everywhere and charging as much as $25 to go into them – this is one ideal for us craft beer lovers.

One that I wish other entrepreneurs would bring to cities all over the USA.

It’s a food truck park with a craft beer bar. Hard Knox Garage in my hometown of Knoxville, TN, has added this element to what is basically a gathering spot for food trucks. Knoxville has another so-called food truck park, but Hard Knox owners David Yousif and James Tourville went a step further by adding the bar.

It has 20 craft beers on tap – Knoxville has an outstanding craft beer scene and it’s just two hours from Asheville, N.C., the Portland of the East – in a building that is a former mechanic’s garage, complete with garage doors.

Not only that, but there’s a stage for live music. And a full liquor permit is in the works.

For food truck fanatics, there will be three to four food trucks on the premises during business hours. One of the garage doors opens to a pet-friendly area with picnic tables and patio games.

The location is at 1014 Sevier Ave., across the Tennessee River from downtown and not far from the University of Tennessee campus.

“We believe South Knoxville could use a spot like this,” Tourville, who is just 24 years old, told the Knoxville News-Sentinel.

Heck, several places could use a spot like this, and well beyond South Knoxville. It takes the craft brewery to a new level, a beer drinking and entertainment hangout that combines a kind of festival atmosphere, at least when a band is playing.

Here’s a cheers to Yousif and Tourville, Hard Knox Garage and, hopefully, to other craft beer businesses like this around the country.