Puckers gets its first Vols Saturday, and the patio looks straight across at the stadium
The sports grill that took the old Mimosas room calls itself a game day headquarters, and the geography backs it up: from the patio you can see Neyland across the river, and the walking crowd goes right past. Reservations are open on Resy.
- Where
- 115 Mimosa Ave, off Blount
- The game
- Tennessee vs. Furman · Sat Sep 5 · 3:30 PM
- Opened
- Wed Aug 26 — this is weekend two
- Who
- Kennedy Concepts, who have run Puckers in Gatlinburg since 1999
- Hours
- Mon–Fri 11 AM–9 PM · Sat 9 AM–10 PM · Sun 9 AM–9 PM
- Parking
- Decks on the far side of the building
- Reservations
- On Resy — worth it for Saturday brunch
- Still on the menu
- The Mimosas brunch dishes
Ten days ago the room at 115 Mimosa Ave, a few hundred yards off Blount Avenue, stopped being Mimosas and became Puckers Sports Grill. We wrote then that the quiet days after it opened were the last ones the building would get before a game day. That game day is Saturday, and the room is better positioned for it than a new arrival has any right to be.
They have done this a long time
Puckers isn't a new idea being tried out on us. Kennedy Concepts has run the original on the Parkway in Gatlinburg since 1999, and it is a genuinely good version of the form — the wings are worth ordering, the screens are placed so you can actually watch from anywhere, and the service is quick and friendly in a way sports bars often are not. It is a room dressed to be noticed. The Knoxville version is pitched as the grown-up edit of that: chef-driven plates and a real cocktail list attached to the same instincts.
The patio is the argument
Stand up on the patio and Neyland is right there across the water — close enough that the stadium is part of the view rather than a landmark you go looking for. Better than that, this is on the path. The crowd on foot comes up Chapman Highway and over the Henley Street Bridge, so the whole procession passes in front of you: the orange, the coolers, the slow drift toward kickoff. Watching a hundred thousand people walk to a game, from a chair, with a drink, is its own afternoon — and it is available whether or not you have a ticket.
Saturday morning is the move
Doors open at nine on Saturday and stay open until ten at night, which puts a long, unhurried brunch in front of a 3:30 kickoff. The Mimosas brunch dishes people actually turned up for kept their place on the menu, so that part of the old room survives intact. They are taking reservations through Resy, and for a first home game with a nine o'clock open, booking one is the obvious move rather than an optional refinement. Weekdays are eleven to nine, Sunday nine to nine.
