Stir Fry Cafe and Barleys Tap-Room (like) venues scheduled to open in Downtown Kingsport

More good news for Downtown Kingsport.

It’s been on the radar for several months now, but if you drive down Broad Street, you’ll notice some reconstruction going at at the Intellithought building as construction workers prepare this location for the new location of Stir Fry Cafe.

The Stir Fry is a popular Thai restaurant with locations in Johnson City and Knoxville and a popular late-night hangout in Johnson City. This past weekend, I was introduced to the new owner Michael Mancy at the Johnson City store. We new the restaurant was coming and had watched the construction for several days now, but after hearing the plans from the new owner, there’s no doubt Kingsport will have a terrific new restaurant very soon.

According to Mays, the restaurant is scheduled to open early summer and they will also be renovating office spaces in the top of the building too. He also mentioned Dennis Phillips, Jeff Fleming and several other city players were very helpful in making the deal go through at the old “Baylor Nelms” furniture building.

Mays also shared with me about his plans to open a new German restaurant in Johnson City as he has purchased the old Mel’s Coin building on Main Street. He passed along these plans during the UT/Memphis game this past week and Stir Fry in Johnson City was rocking and he seemed thrilled about the new opportunity in Kingsport.

If the crowds in Johnson City are any indication of what’s ahead, this restaurant may be the tipping point for Downtown Kingsport. With a terrific thai menu, excellent sushi, an aggressive and stylish marketing campaign, the Stir Fry attracts large crowds on the weekends. They also feature live music on many nights and that may be the most exciting news of all.

There’s also new happenings on Main Street too as Jeff Lane and Doug Beauty (downtown developers who brought us 12 Bones and reopening the State Theatre) also announced that they are the new owners of the old Kingsport Grocery Company building. Although I don’t have the particulars yet, I have heard that they plan to keep the name, but remodel and reopen this historic building into a restaurant and bar like Barley’s Tap Room in Asheville and Knoxville.

Details about this location and the actions here are still sketchy. I’ve heard rumors they also plan to open locations in Bristol and Johnson City, but just the notion that the old Grocery Company will reopen and a new thai restaurant is coming to our reawakening downtown is good news.