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Downtown Grill & Brewery
Rating Details »
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Parking:
- Street
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
- Delivery:
- No
- Take-out:
- Yes
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- Yes
- Good for:
- Dinner
- Alcohol:
- Full Bar
18 reviews for Downtown Grill & Brewery
Tasty stuff!
Definitely one of my favorites in Knoxville. The restaurant's nice and clean, and they sat a group of 8 quickly then split our bill without being asked. The vibe's laid back, with lunch and drink specials and a brunch weekend mornings- there was even a live jazz group (not too loud) Sunday mid-morning.
The menu's pretty varied. The fried cheese wedges were my favorite app- the guac was on the small side, and the queso was straight melted cheese in a skillet. Which I guess is queso, but really, no meat, tomatoes, or spices at least? Their pizza and fish & chips were both very good, and the Italian Pasta is something I'm now trying to recreate at home because pizza with pasta instead of dough is something that needs to remain in my life! The house-brewed beers are good as well, we had the best luck with the Porter.
A favorite for llunch. While they have a lunch menu I often order off the regular dinner menu. The prices are higher, of course, and a $12 lunch is a treat, not a regular occurrence. There are lunch specials which include drinks that are much more reasonable.
The fish and chips are the best around. The "chips" are the steak fries which are consistently served fresh and hot. While the fish is fried (of course) it is never heavy or unduly greasy. The several types of burgers are also good, easily the best burger in downtown Knoxville. Another favorite are the Jumbo Tater Skins, they are often huge potatoes, 10 to 12 inches long.
Whoa, this place is HUGE!
Upon entering, you walk through their outdoor patio that is at the front entrance. There are a good dozen tables or so here. Out back, yea on the other side of the building, there is another outdoor seating area. If you can find the mystery door by the bathrooms, you will find your way to the back patio.
The first floor circle bar is amazing and has the utmost variety of beer, wine and liquor selections. The bartenders were very pleaseant and quick.
We went on a Friday night; the place had constant influx of patrons. When we arrived around 9ish pm, there wasn't a table open. Let me reiterate, this place is huge. There are two floors of sitting areas (tables, couch areas, hightop bar tables. etc). There are also pool tables on the second floor. Definitely tvs if you need to catch a game.
We did not eat any food. But, the smell of something along the line of garlic french fries had my eyes a wanderin...or that could have been the...ah, family friendly. :)
Overall, I was impressed with this bar/restaurant and look forward to getting to know you better. Ya dig?
Let me preface by saying this place is really more of a 3.5 star establishment.
I came here with a colleague after an early Sunday morning flight. Since we got in by 12:30, we knew we wanted to spend a good portion of our day at a bar/restaurant watching football. At 24, I've become a real wet noodle and don't really drink that much as a rule, so the restaurant over bar decision was mine. When we got here, the downstairs restaurant area was full, so we were told to try our luck by checking out the back/upstairs bar.
The layout of this place is cool---lots of seating on the main floor surround a giant bar in the middle, kind of like a moat. There is a great old staircase in the back that leads up to a bar and another tier of the restaurant that overlooks the downstairs area. There is a great big copper beer/microbrewing tank(like I said, I'm not familiar with alcohol lingo), and a nearly open kitchen in the back corner.
We sat at the bar upstairs, and found out that only one guy was manning the whole bar section, so service would be slow and sporadic. We were in no rush, football was on and we had some menus to peruse, so it was fine. I got chilaquiles off the brunch menu which were very mediocre but saved by my excessive use of tabasco sauce. My comrade tried a 7 microbrew sampler and was definitely enjoying himself in terms of the beer, particularly because it cost 11.50 for all of them!
All in all, the breakfast round was not particularly great, save for a good place to watch football.
Fast forward 6.5 hours. It is 8:30 pm and we want to watch (duh) Sunday Night Football. After turning to yelp for suggestions for where to dine, I discover that A) Knoxville closes early on sunday nights and B) the only place to watch football near Market Square is a hotel bar or Downtown Grill and Brewery. Guess where we go....This time, I got the greek salad, which is made tableside, fresh, and DELICIOUS. It is small, and only runs you 6.99, but something about adding capers and celery, fresh kalamata olives and really lemony vinagrette did it for me!
Its a really nice looking place inside, and they have free wi-fi. That, combined with the fact that they brew their own beer, gets them 3 stars.
The beer itself was okay but not great. Probably comparable to Rock Bottom. The food menu was huge, but the things we tried were not very good. I had chicken fajitas, i honestly wasnt very hungry but i figured i could pick at these. They were standard "family dining establishment" fajitas. I thought the chicken tasted bad, like a little fishy. My date had the BBQ chicken pizza, which was also fine but not very good, and i sensed the same fishiness there too.
It's a nice looking place, and the service was fine. I like to visit brewpubs in different cities, so i'm glad we went here and at least tried their beer, but I wish I had eaten dinner elsewhere since I was only in town for a day and the food here is pretty much like an Applebees.
The downtown bar where nobody knows your name.
DGB features a good selection house-brewed beers and an extensive menu. There's definitely something for everybody at prices that won't break the bank.
I think the place must have started out something like this: Three guys who like T.G.I. Fridays decided they want to open a restaurant. There will be lots of crazy crap on the walls (in this case, cool old pictures of downtown Knoxville). They're also going to pretend like it's part Jersey diner. You know, the kind of place where you can get a slice of pizza, a Greek sandwich, a whole turkey dinner, and deep-fried egg rolls at midnight. They all move to Knoxville and buy up a cool old building on Gay Street. Then they install a bunch of tanks and start making some pretty decent beer. (Bonus points for having two nice dark beers on the menu - porter AND stout). Finally, everybody who wants to get fish and chips AND pizza has a place to eat. Oddly, both the fish and chips and the pizza are pretty good.
The menu itself is pretty entertaining the first time. Every item on the menu involves little puns. It's probably funnier as the night goes on and the beer keeps flowing. DGB is an all-around decent place to take people who are coming in from out of town and have widely diverse palates.
In a nutshell:
Happy hour is a great intro to this place. Food specials and $2 pints. Awesome. Try the DGB at least once. Sit upstairs where you can watch the world go by. Try not to spill your food or beer on the unsuspecting patrons below you. Drink at least a few pints of beer before deciding whether or not you want to join the mug club.
Big shout out to all my Californian's that have reviewed this place!
We loved the Brewery when we lived in Knox. We did a lot of brunches here with some friends of ours.
The food is pretty good. Nothing to write home to Mom about, but it is good beer food. The beer is made on site, and is CHEAP! and good, too!
The building is very old and very cool! It has burned down three times so far. There is also a ghost story about some albino mule or something. Ask the wait staff, it's pretty cool stuff. Something about it being cursed and dying while in town during a circus or some weird story.
There are pool tables upstairs and big screen TV's everywhere, including a projector screen in front of the bar. They do a lot of local music both in the evenings and at the Sunday Brunch.
We really liked one of the bar tenders. I think his name was Dave or something similar. He does stand up comedy at Patrick Sullivans, I think on Tuesday evenings. He was always very funny and remembered us every time we were there. If we went in without our friends, he always asked us where the NY couple was. :)
I just loved this place. It was always so fun there!
I wanted to give 3 stars, but the nachos bumped this place up to 4. They are huge, and I love that you can order a half portion, which is still plenty big! Not the best service - the place is always busy so expect to only see your waiter come by a handful of times. Also, this place gets LOUD! Other than that, the menu is great and there is a lot to choose from (but I always get those nachos regardless).
We were taken to dinner here the night before an interview. Husband had a State St Stout, which he enjoyed. Service was semi-slow but not terrible. We had a few appetizers, one being a chicken quesadilla thing that was amazingly good.
I had a tuna steak (because the school was footing the bill!) and it was de-licious. Husband had a burger that he enjoyed.
We actually went back again the next night after the interview and had a couple of beers at the bar. The beers were good (don't remember what, sorry), but the conversation was better. I walked up to a random older guy and struck up a conversation about Knoxville, to get a feel for how the locals like it. What a nice guy! We had a great time.
Good micro brews on tap. I had the White Mule - a very smooth pale ale and a couple IPAs. Super cheap prices for beer - $2 for a pint before 8, and $3 after 8. I had the Hawaiian pizza and it was tasty. Not gourmet, but really solid, and decent prices for food all around. The place was hoppin' for a Wednesday night, we had to wait about 20 minutes for a table of 6. Great brewery atmosphere - would definitely stop again when I'm in the Knoxville area.
My friend and I stopped here on our roadtrip from Boston, MA to Los Angeles, CA. We just kind of happened into the Downtown Grill & Brewery. I guess if you're from the area this place might be fairly every day or whatever but as a visitor from Massachusetts, it was an awesome experience.
First of all, my friend accidentally knocked something on our table (on the 2nd floor) onto two guys below us at the bar. I told him to get ready to fight. Pulling that at a bar in Boston could get you stabbed. What did these guys do? Look up, laugh and wave while we apologized. It was insane.
Secondofly, our waitress was such a sweetheart. She was so friendly but not in an overbearing, "LEAVE US ALONE!" way and she seemed genuine about the quality of the food. Maybe it was the accent, but we bought it. She suggested the burgers.
Now, sure we were starving after 10 hours in the car but I refuse to believe that my hunger was why my burger WAS THE GREATEST BURGER I HAVE EVER HAD IN MY LIFE. And I don't really eat anything other than meat so I have had a LOT of burgers in my 24 years of life.
I had the smothered burger. Oh my goodness, let me tell you...there aren't even words. The only dinner conversation I made was with my burger. I'm pretty sure I only said things like, "This is the greatest burger I've ever had," "I don't believe this." "I need to call my mom and dad and tell them about this." and then some probably inappropriate, delicious fat kid moaning and such as I ate it.
Seriously. I want to drive cross-country again just so I can stop here and get the burger. After we ate here and we moved on to a new location, I used the hotel internet to see if by some chance there was more than one Downtown Grill & Brewery.
No such luck.
BEST. BURGER. EVER.
I must start this review by thanking Tennessee for joining the ranks of the more intelligent areas of the United States by banning smoking in the majority of public buildings. It's going to make my frequent trips here much more pleasant.
Last night, after stumbling out of Preservation Pub smelling like smoke and ears ringing of some terrible band who obviously really liked Radiohead, my friends and I made out way here. We were promptly served water upon seating, the cheese sticks (which aren't sticks! They're triangles!) we ordered came out fast and hot, and our server was really cute and super nice about our small tab. Perhaps they're used to it.
The decor is very simple and clean, and the exposed brewing tanks were a nice touch. Some drunk guy at the bar kept singing random songs, and right before we left he handed us a napkin with the lyrics from the Beatles' "For No One" written on them, explaining that it was his "latest poem, written just for us." God bless you, random drunk guy, for making our night.
Meh meh meh meh meh (in a cute sing songy voice that can only say, "look, now you can't hate me for being opinionated 'cause i'm just too damn cute.")
Everything I've ever had there has been insanely uninspired. I thought ordering the mango-marinated swordfish this evening (anything listed as "market price" is just required to be tasty, right?) could save this place from the shame of mediocrity, but alas...
I think the problem is that the food is simply not their focus. Maybe their beer is. I'm not one to drink beer though and so even if I had ever tried it I wouldn't be too much help in that arena.
So as I'll only be ever going there for the food (a lack of competition, rampant in tHeSe HeRe PaRtS, is always VERY good for business) I can simply say do not waste your time trying to find something delicious. It's all mediocre, meh, uninspiring, and only mildly appetizing.
The brewery is one of the only places in Knoxville to get locally brewed beer. They have a range of brews including a decent IPA.
The happy hour is the best in the city with $2 flat pints until 8 p.m. and all day Sunday.
The place itself is huge, but be prepared for a wait on Friday and Saturday evenings.
The food is only so-so however. It's just your average American dishes. Save your money for beer instead.
This place has always met with a meh... do we have to go here? This mostly came from before when smoking was still allowed and this place was by far the worst smoke bomb in the city.
However, that having changed the beers are quite good and I've only had a small sampling of the food and can't really comment on it.
The true reason why you should visit the Brewery is b/c of the local talent they highlight! Local bands play almost every night of the week and I'm always a supporter of local music!
Check it out!
I know this is shocking, but I did not try the beer! Ok, so now that you think I'm a total loser, let me tell you about the food. I had the chicken caesar salad and the dressing was awesome. The chips and salsa were really good, too. Overall, it was a decent meal. The service was outstanding.
Fantastic. I'm on business in Knoxville and I keep eating chain food that is to say the least lacking in that oh so important ingredient care until Downtown Grill & Brewery. Thank you hotel brochure for informing a coworker about such a gem. Right when I walked in I saw a place that I could very reasonably see myself as a regular in if it were in my hood. While being a very large and open establishment it still somehow manages to feel homey and comfortable. Like the other reviewer of this place, I felt the exposed brewing vats were a nice touch. More to the point, they were not bullshit decoration. Touching the vats I could feel the comforting warmth of fermentation. I had their signature IPA and found it more than acceptable with a strong hops flavor but a smooth finish that didn't linger too long on the palate. I ordered the Captain Sirloin, a steak stuffed with sauteed shrimp, mushrooms, spinach, and bacon it tasted as delicious as it sounds. I took my time with the steak savoring the taste especially in contrast to the slightly dry despite being medium rare filet mignon from my previous night. From the menu and the smells of the other dishes in the restaurant I knew they gave a damn, a fantastic damn. Our server was friendly, engaging, and helpful even though we were a group of 17. Some of the best service I've ever had. A big thanks goes out to Lena. Simply fantastic.
P.S. I must add that a pint of their brewery beer only cost 2 dollars is a must mention.
We were in Knoxville in August for a wedding and my boyfriend and I needed something to do the next day since we weren't leaving Tennessee until that Monday. (I had already been to Dollywood on another trip, otherwise I would have insisted we go to Pigeon Forge.) My parents were also in town but we didn't want to hang out with them. I mean, I love my parents but they wanted to go visit family friends, who I also love, but didn't need to spend more than dinner with. We had my father drop us off in Downtown Knoxville. The thing we didn't think about was that at 10 am, nothing was open because everyone was still at church...or not awake yet. We wandered around and took pictures sitting in the giant row boat sculpture. Luckily, we happened upon the Downtown Grill & Brewery. We are not the type of people to ever pass up a brewery. Also, it was the only thing opening up at 11. We got a table no problem and started with beer, of course. I ordered an IPA. It was good. My boyfriend thought his beer was good too. The food was just okay, but I didn't really care because I had already had my fill of fine southern food. We left the brewery and wandered around downtown, visiting a free exhibition for the opening weekend of the Knoxville Historical Society Museum. We ended up back at the brewery for an afternoon beer. When my father called, to let us know that he and our family friend were there to pick us up, we walked outside only to find them walking up to the brewery. They wanted a beer. We didn't object, and immediately returned for our third visit of the day. At first I was only going to give them three stars but I think three visits in one day warrants at least four.
