Four bars under one roof: the game-weekend guide to Kern's
The old bakery on Chapman Highway runs a taproom with twenty Monday Night Brewing taps, a rooftop patio bar, a market bar named for the founder, and a breakfast place that turns into a cocktail bar after dark. Roni's Mac Bar takes five dollars off if you download the app, and the game-day sections come with their own televisions.
Kern's is one building with four bars in it, and on a weekend when Tennessee plays at seven on a Saturday night, it helps to know which is which. The short version: a proper taproom with twenty taps and a private door, a rooftop with a patio the size of a small park, a market bar off the main hall, and a breakfast restaurant that keeps pouring cocktails until nine.
- Hours
- Thu 7 AM–10 PM · Fri 7 AM–11 PM · Sat 8 AM–11 PM · Sun 9 AM–9 PM
- Where
- Kern's Food Hall · 2201 Kern's Rising Way, off Chapman Highway
- Proofing Co.
- 20 Monday Night taps and a cocktail list · Thu–Fri noon–midnight · Sat 11 AM–midnight · Sun 11–9
- UpTop
- The rooftop bar and the big patio
- Peter's Market Bar
- Draft beer, wine by the glass, cocktails, zero-proof
- Eggspectation
- Kitchen till 9 (8 Sunday) · happy hour and nightly specials · Date Night Fridays
- Food deal
- Roni's Mac Bar — $5 off with the app · Sun–Thu 11–9, Fri–Sat 11–10
- Game day
- Lawn sections from $300 with a TV each · every Tennessee game, road games included
The bars, one by one
Monday Night Proofing Co. is the anchor — the Atlanta brewery's Knoxville taproom, with twenty Monday Night taps running from barrel-aged stouts to lagers, a cocktail list, wine by the glass and the bottle, and its own entrance inside the hall so it keeps later hours than the food stalls: noon to midnight Thursday and Friday, eleven to midnight Saturday, eleven to nine Sunday. There's a service window onto the Great Lawn for live-music nights. Monday Night also staffs three smaller bars around the building — the High Proof Loft upstairs, the Market Bar, and the Scruff Bar. UpTop is the rooftop bar and the large patio, the one you go to when the weather cooperates. Peter's Market Bar, named for the baker who founded the place, pours draft beer, wine by the glass, cocktails and a zero-proof list. And Eggspectation, the all-day breakfast restaurant, runs a happy hour and nightly specials after the omelets are done, with Fridays billed as date night; the kitchen goes to nine, eight on Sunday.
The food deal
Roni's Mac Bar is the newest stall and the one with a deal attached: download its app and five dollars comes off the order. It's a build-your-own macaroni counter with more than twenty toppings, open eleven to nine Sunday through Thursday and eleven to ten Friday and Saturday. Around it the hall runs the usual spread — T. Ralph's burgers, Mr. Rico tacos, Hemingway's Cuban sandwiches, Disco Chicken & Donuts, Zukku sushi, WokXville stir-fry, Ooh Lala Indian, Kandilige Ghanaian, AVA's wood-fired pizza — so a table of six can eat from six kitchens and drink from one bar.
Saturday's game
Kern's sells its game-day setup by the section. Three hundred dollars reserves a lawn-patio section for up to twenty people with its own television; twenty-five hundred takes the small rooftop for seventy-five. The packages cover every Tennessee game, road games included, with a quarter of the price down at booking. For the seven o'clock kickoff at Georgia Tech the math works: the hall is open until eleven Saturday and the taproom until midnight, so the fourth quarter fits inside the building.
