When Laura and Kenny Chimeno lived in Louisiana, it seemed like a daiquiri bar was built on every corner. In Knoxville, they have noticed the same trend for beer.
The Tennessee transplants are hoping to provide more variety to the downtown bar scene by opening Fat Tuesday, a New Orleans-inspired brand of bars focused on frozen daiquiri drinks, which will be available in 12 sweet and sour flavors.
The married couple hopes to open the doors at 417 S. Gay St. by the end of June. It will be the first Fat Tuesday franchise in Tennessee.
All about the options
Daiquiri bars are more focused on to-go sales in New Orleans, where alcohol can be consumed in public. In Knoxville, alcohol laws will require the beverages to be consumed on site.
Each city is different and each daiquiri is different, with some containing 80-proof vodka and others containing 80-proof rum.
“I think it just brings something fun to the area that we don’t have,” Laura told Knox News. “It’s the flavors and the fact that it’s a one-stop shop. If you like sweet, you’ve got sweet. If you want sour, you have sour. If you want a little bit of both, you can mix.”
Some flavors will rotate depending on the season, but core flavors like margarita and Fat Tuesday’s signature 190 Octane will remain. Here are the flavors the Knoxville location plans to start with:
- 190 Octane
- Amaretto & Pineapple
- Bellini
- Category 5 Hurricane
- Crawgator
- Eye Candy
- Mango
- Mardi Gras Mash
- Margarita
- Mudslide
- Pina Colada
- Strawberry
No, Crawgator doesn’t have a reptilian taste. It’s more like a tropical punch, Kenny said, while the 190 Octane is made with orange flavoring.
The drinks will be served in tumblers and are available in 16-ounce and 20-ounce portions. All flavors are the same price, Laura said, starting at $10 for the smaller option.
Guests will be able to sample the flavors and create whatever combination they feel might be tasty. Daiquiri service should be fairly quick, as bartenders and servers simply pull a plug to release the icy goodness into a cup.
The consistency is less like a slushie or an Icee and more like the frozen drinks people make in their blenders at home, Laura said.
“Everything’s mixed in the kitchen and then it gets put in containers and then stored in the cooler,” she said. “And then from there, you take that out and you fill the machine, and the machine freezes it to the perfect temperature. So, its completely mixed.”
Kenny will handle the mixing. He said a batch is usually between 30 and 50 gallons.
The bar also will have other alcohol options, including a selection of beer, wine and liquor. Laura said the food menu will be limited, with flatbreads, pretzel sticks, shrimp cocktail and spinach-artichoke dip.
Sipping inside the space
Fat Tuesday is located inside the Kress Building, which downtown investor Thomas Boyd purchased in September. He previously told Knox News he plans to renovate the building and bring in restaurant, bar and residential tenants.
“I think it gives us really good visibility,” Laura said. “This block in particular, there’s just a lot going on. And as they continue to develop the building I think it’s going to be a really fun place to hang out.”
The entire Fat Tuesday space is roughly 2,000 square feet, but most of that is the kitchen. Only about 650 square feet of space is the actual bar area, which can accommodate around 52 people.
Fat Tuesday has bar-top and booth seating, as well as seats in the Gay Street windows and just outside the front door underneath the glowing neon sign.
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There’s also a neon sign near the back of the bar room, but the two say these bright lights do not signal a party zone.
“We just want to sell some daiquiris and have a good time,” Laura said.
Planned hours are 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., but these times could be adjusted for special events and game days. A few TVs behind the bar will show sports and whatever else guests would like to watch
Don’t worry Vols fans: At least the bathroom walls are orange. But the Fat Tuesday brand colors bring a Louisiana vibe to Knoxville, with purple walls and a display case near the front door built to hold T-shirts, souvenir glasses and, of course, beads.
‘When life handed us lemons … ‘
Kenny said people may be surprised how many Louisianans live in Knoxville, and many of them have to bring daiquiris back to Knoxville after visiting Louisiana just to get their fix.
“We moved up here in 2007, two years after Katrina,” Laura said. “There’s just a lot of excitement out there and a lot of people that are familiar the brand, as well as probably even more who aren’t.”
Once Fat Tuesday opens, she expects people will get “hooked.”
Laura was laid off from her job in 2018 and took time to figure out her next path before investing in a Fat Tuesday franchise nearly a year later. Since finding the building, she said, “we started just pressing on pretty fast and furious.”
“When life handed us lemons, I said let’s just make daiquiris,” she said.
There are more than 70 Fat Tuesday and New Orleans Original Daiquiris locations, according to the company website. The latter is a separate trade name for the company, but both businesses offer similar menus.
A Fat Tuesday opened at the Battery Atlanta at Truist Park earlier this year, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Laura believes more will be popping up soon.
In the meantime, she and her husband remain focused on their Knoxville endeavor in the heart of downtown.
“We do feel like it’s the 50-yard line,” Laura said about the location. “We’ll come down here on a Friday night … and we’re like, ‘Look at all these people.'”
Even in the winter, the couple has seen people standing in line for ice cream just a few doors down at Cruze Farm.
“I certainly hope they line up for a daiquiri,” she said.
