Roaming Gnome gains momentum

The Roaming Gnome gathers a crowd, including, from left, Jason Collins, Patty Hester, Brian Pinson, Katherine Clark, Coty Hunter and Ben Doty.

The Roaming Gnome gathers a crowd, including, from left, Jason Collins, Patty Hester, Brian Pinson, Katherine Clark, Coty Hunter and Ben Doty.

Brian Coakley celebrates his adventurous haircut with a game of pool at the Roaming Gnome.

The Cumberland Avenue Charlie Pepper's was probably my biggest guilty pleasure of any bar in Knoxville when it was open. Seeing it close over a year ago ended a love affair that had gone on long enough.

Then the Roaming Gnome Pub and Eatery opened up in place of Charlie Pepper's. While I knew it wasn't going to be the same, I was excited nonetheless. I was hoping to rekindle the flame I had lost only months before, but for whatever reason we just didn't hit it off.

Until this past weekend, I had actually avoided the Gnome, still slightly disappointed and sad that it hadn't lived up to the many experiences I had in the building before.

While my previous review wasn't particularly negative, I was invited back the next week to view the Gnome from another perspective. I chose to wait and instead see how the UT crowd would adapt to the new location, and better yet, how the Gnome would adapt to the UT crowd.

On my first visit I felt that the Gnome had missed the gentle balance of "class" and animal instinct that comes with catering to UT students on the prowl for their next pitcher of Natural Light. This past Saturday night, however, it seemed that whatever I had previously missed with the Gnome had been corrected.

As a refresher, the Roaming Gnome is for those 21-and-older only. Previously, smoking was kept outside on the patio, but that has apparently changed as ashtrays were abundant on tables and throughout the bar. While I noted that the crowd was nearly nonexistent before, the Gnome has found new life in the past year. Moving past the bar toward the front of the building felt like an "American Gladiators" challenge. I often found myself stuck between two groups of talking people who could care less if anyone got past them.

This wasn't a problem, though, as we quickly retreated to the side room I liked so much in my previous review. Sadly, the comfortable furniture and bar games that we spent half of our money on the last time were gone. In their place were some arcade games and a pool table. We decided to spend our evening playing pool and keeping out of the crowd.

But it turned out that our table didn't have a cue ball. This led to an awkward evening between ourselves and the neighboring pool table just outside as we had to share the cue ball. Needless to say, we aren't that great at the game. I'll go ahead and apologize for the three days it took us to finish.

On to the real reason most of the crowd was there Saturday night: the inexpensive drinks. If you are going to open a bar on the Strip, you have to have competitive drink specials. The Roaming Gnome has got 'em all week.

Monday features $4 Jim Beam and $4.99 burgers. Tuesdays are home to "Fiesta Day" with $2 Mexican beers and $6 Patron. Wednesday is my kind of night with $2 pints, $3 wine and half-off pizzas. Thursday is "Ladies Eighties Day" and this means cheap cocktails with $3 L.I.T.s, $3 SoCo and $3 Mimosas to name a few. Friday is "Bomb Day" with $4 bombs. Saturday is "Po' Boy Day" and offers $2 Tall Boys and $6.99 Po' Boys. And if you can muster up the energy to make it out Sunday night for "S.I.N. Night" you will be rewarded with all of the above specials in the same night.

The Roaming Gnome finally sold me. If you haven't given it a shot yet, now might be the time.

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