The options for crowdfunding these days rival the number of choices on the menu at Matt Robbs Biscuits & Brew.
Crowdfunding is a choice some makers use as they launch their businesses. Three Knoxville makers share their thoughts about how it worked for them.
Sherry Jenkins laughed when asked what her first thought was when she woke up on the morning of April 1. As executive director of Dogwood Arts, she knows the month is about more than blossoms and balmy temps.
Garrett Thomson of Dogwood Arts and Chyna Brackeen of Attack Monkey Productions discuss Knoxville’s Rhythm N’ Blooms Music Festival and why it’s got to be on your calendar this year.
These local chocolate makers travel two different, delicious paths. Their situations could hardly be more different but their outcomes are the same: delicious chocolate for the Knoxville community.
Three Knoxville makers share their passions and reasons for shopping local.
There’s a lot of buzz these days about Knoxville’s creative manufacturers and connecting them with the architects and designers who oversee new construction or retrofit old structures. It’s the same sort of buzz that surrounded the farm-to-table movement when restaurants began sourcing their ingredients locally.
When it comes to ceramics, a class can get you hooked.
Three metalworkers. Eleven reasons they love Knoxville. Preston Farabow of Ironwood Studios in Happy Holler, Karly Stribling of Soil & Steel and Bentley Brackett of Elemental Design Co. in Old North Knoxville had a lot to say recently about why they love living and working in Knoxville.
Mahasti Vafaie started her small business as most people do – with a big learning curve in front of her.
An engineer who wasn’t particularly happy with her career choice, she returned to school with the vision of becoming a doctor.
Then a 1990 trip to New Orleans with her mom led her in a new direction.
“I had been working as a waitress and managing some catering, and while I was in New Orleans I thought I’d come back (to Knoxville) and open a restaurant,” she said.
“I didn’t really have a vision when I opened it. I didn’t want ferns and brass, which is what we had in Knoxville at the time. Originally I wanted a French bistro, but the space that I found on Market Square had a pizza oven, and the landlord didn’t want to move it. I didn’t want to open a pizza place, but I thought about it over the weekend and leased the space from him.”
And with that, The Tomato Head was born, serving pizza only at lunchtime.