Frothy Monkey opens in Knoxville on Gay Street for coffee, brunch – Knoxville News Sentinel
When Frothy Monkey co-owner Ryan Pruitt and his team consider expanding, they always themselves, “Is it frothy?”
The new downtown Knoxville location, which opened this morning at 419 S. Gay St., is as “frothy” as it gets, with a newly renovated space complete with an added indoor mezzanine and a 40-seat street-side patio for customers to enjoy coffee, cocktails and a full day’s worth of food from the Nashville-based business.
The opening marks the eighth location for the business, which recently expanded with its first out-of-state location in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. Frothy Monkey has four locations in Nashville, in addition to one location in Franklin and another in Chattanooga.
While the Knoxville location will source local items when it makes sense, co-owner Jennifer Sheets told Knox News, one of the selling points for Frothy Monkey is the “cross-pollination” between the businesses and their respective communities.
“Our first out-of-town, away-from-home location was Chattanooga,” she said. “We’re not pretending we’re from there. If you serve all ingredients from that area, everyone else is doing that too. So, we decided at that point we were going to just migrate everything together. So, you’ll find on our menu that there’s stuff from Nashville, Franklin, Chattanooga, Birmingham. And there’s a good representation that way.”
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A taste of Frothy Monkey’s menu
Don’t expect a standard coffee shop menu with drip drinks and pastries. Frothy Monkey is a restaurant, with the same menu items as its other locations, from loaded biscuits with chorizo gravy for brunch to pork barbacoa for dinner.
While most of the brunch menu is only served until 5 p.m., Frothy Monkey has all-day salads and sandwiches, including a kale Caesar salad and a quinoa-black bean burger with vegan garlic mozzarella and avocado mash.
Frothy Monkey makes its own bread and roasts its own coffee, which is served in a variety of forms, from its signature Monkey Mocha to its Rosemary Honey Latte.
“We take that approachable, community-building gathering place that (traditional coffee shops) have and expand on it,” Sheets said. “There’s a need here for these things that fill in the gaps of the other places around you. So, we might compete in very specific things with other restaurants or coffee shops but, as a whole, it’s just a different experience.”
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Growing in Knoxville’s cultural hub
The experience starts before walking in the doors, as a partially covered patio fronting Gay Street accommodates one-quarter of Frothy Monkey’s roughly 160 seats.
The 120 indoor seats are spread between standard restaurant tables on the ground floor and mezzanine, in addition to bar seating near the back of the building.
Stairs leading to the mezzanine were designed using the building’s original beams, Sheets said.
Guests are seated by their preference, Pruitt said, as the upstairs area has more accessible outlets and is suited for anyone looking to get some work done in a café-style environment.
Bar seating is available for anyone looking to enjoy beer from the communities with Frothy Monkey locations, a glass of wine or a signature cocktail. Near the bar area, a large window provides a view of the graffitied Strong Alley between Gay Street and Market Square.
Each Frothy Monkey location is designed and programmed in a way that matches the communities they are located in, Sheets said.
“There’s so much culture on this street,” she said. “It’s a good vibe. There’s enough residential living down here. We always say we look for strollers and dogs – plus something. So, the ‘plus something’ here would be there’s a great creative community, UT is here. There’s a lot going on.”
Want to visit Frothy Monkey yourself?
While the location is definitely “frothy,” Pruitt said each location has something uniquely exciting. For him, it’s the love locals have for downtown Knoxville – even those who live far outside the city’s core.
“Everybody comes downtown often,” he said. “I don’t spend a lot of time on Broadway in Nashville anymore, right? … But (Knoxville) locals: ‘What are we going to do for dinner? Let’s go downtown and figure it out from there.'”
Frothy Monkey is located in the Kress Building, which also houses Fat Tuesday and is being redeveloped on the upper levels for residential and office uses.
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Frothy Monkey’s downtown Nashville location coincidentally is located within a Kress building, as well.
To start, opening hours will be 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
Frothy Monkey will be closed Mondays and Tuesdays to start out, before hours eventually expand to 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day of the week.
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