Knoxville definitely loves its restaurants – and that love extends to establishments that are no longer on the menu.
A recent informal Knox News survey of what former restaurants readers miss the most prompted a deluge of responses.
Regas Restaurant drew the most nominations overall, “hands down” as one voter commented, not surprisingly for a downtown establishment that operated under a variety of names for nine decades. Even after the restaurant on North Gay Street closed in 2010, its name lived on with the Regas sign still visible atop the building.
Among other top vote-getters for most-missed restaurants:
Grady’s Goodtimes restaurants started in 1982 as a more casual offshoot of Regas, eventually expanding to other cities and being sold to another company in 1989, the News Sentinel reported in 1994. Chocolate bar cake and broccoli cheese soup were cited as customer favorites in the ’80s. After more than 20 years, the last location of what was known as Grady’s American Grill, on Peters Road, closed in 2004, according to Knox News reports.