Push open the door at 1134 N. Broadway and the first thing that hits you is the smell. Sesame bagels cooling on a rack, focaccia coming out of the oven, coffee cake somewhere in the mix. The second thing is the mural. “Greetings from Knoxville,” painted big across the warehouse exterior wall, which feels about right for a room that’s equal parts bakery, market, and neighborhood front porch.
This is the K Brew Bakery, and it’s now open to walk-ins Wednesday through Sunday, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Source: Inside of Knoxville
What’s on the shelves
The bread comes first, because it should. Sesame bagels. Everything focaccia and plain focaccia, by the loaf or slice. The pastry case carries the lineup our regulars already know well: blueberry muffins, Danishes, cinnamon knots, coffee cake, and donut loaves that sell out before noon. Sandwiches are close behind, along with a few things still being tested in the back. Come back again and you’ll notice the difference.
Then keep walking. The rest of the space is a market we’ve been quietly building for years in our heads: pantry staples, cookware, kitchen goods, fresh pasta, and the products we actually cook with and hand to friends. Benton’s bacon. Ceramics from East Fork. Local vendors whose work we’ve stocked, served, and stood behind. If we wouldn’t put it on our own counter at home, it doesn’t earn a spot on the shelf here.
The idea is simple. Grab a box of pastries on your way into work, or a fresh loaf on your way home to dinner, and pick up the bacon for Saturday morning while you’re at it.
Source: Inside of Knoxville
Ten times the room
For a sense of how much this changes things: until recently, every bagel and every piece of food served across all K Brew locations came out of a 450-square-foot room at the back of our West Hills shop.
“We had previously been doing all of the food for all the K Brew locations out of that little 450-square-foot room in the back of West Hills,” says Matt Cowen, our Culinary Director.
The new space is 5,000 square feet, roughly ten times the room, in a warehouse that used to house the Nothing Too Fancy print shop. This gives us the ability to bake more, test more, and finally chase the ideas that never fit in the old kitchen. Our bakers have been running the ovens here for several weeks already, which is why the retail opening arrived with a full case of goods.
Source: Inside of Knoxville
Rooted in North Knox
Sitting next door to our flagship North Knox shop, the bakery makes this stretch of Broadway a genuine two-stop morning: coffee on one side, bread on the other. Historic North Knox has been good to us, and putting our production kitchen and our market right here, among Knoxville and Tennessee makers, in a building with real history, is the most honest way we know to say thank you.
Come hungry. We’ll have the ovens on.
1134 N. Broadway, Knoxville, TN 37917
Wednesday–Sunday, 8 a.m.–2 p.m.
Source: Inside of Knoxville