Abridged Beer Co.

Abridged Beer Company

website

Overall 3/5**

  • Outside best but inside available
  • High Chairs - no
  • Changing Tables - Women's bathroom
  • Alcohol - Draft beer (in house bottled)
  • Food - Great small menu with burger specials
  • Kids Menu - no
  • Activities - small kids shelf inside with toys that can be taken outside
  • Staff Kid Friendly - yes
  • Patrons Kid Friendly - some yes, some no
  • Dog Friendly - outside

Good to Know

  • No smoking allowed!
  • outside area had 3 unfenced corners

**This is purely a rating with kids, this place is really great without kids

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Hard Knox Pizza Full Review

Where do I even start with this place???  I was introduced to Hard Knox Pizza by a local before I even lived here. Now I return the favor to anyone and everyone who hasn't heard of it.  This is seriously such good pizza!!

 

I know, I know...I'm not doing food reviews here.  So, let's talk about going here with kids.

Hard Knox is in a shopping center that is trying to make itself less strip mall-ish, but is still pretty strip mally.  But that is totally ok with us because that means plenty of easy parking!!

Hard Knox is a smallish restaurant, mostly inside with a few tables out from on the sidewalk.  So, so sad though, I cannot hook the little red chair to these outside tables.  But that's ok because we usually sit inside and they also have tons of high chairs.

As far as kids activities, they provide crayons and super cute coloring sheets....I wish, beyond wish that all restaurants would invest in triangle shaped crayons (that's a post for another day), but that's just me getting flat out picky.

The staff are sweet to kids and the place is generally filled with them and the food is amazing, so everyone is happy.

Several craft beers on tap.  Pitchers available too if you so choose.  Also, Monday night is family night and comes with certain discounts and special additional kid stuff.

But the pizza is the true star of this show.  It's amazing and fresh, and the menu is pretty big.  There's a different special every month and they are generally phenomenal.

Also, shout out to the great salads...

Overall, go here to eat AWESOME pizza and drink good beer in a place where it's totally encouraged to bring your kids.

Side note...great for carryout too!!

Hard Knox Pizza

Hard Knox Pizza

website

Rating 4.3/5

  • High Chairs - Yes
  • Changing Tables - Women's bathroom
  • Alcohol - Draft & canned craft beer
  • Food - AWESOME pizza, salads
  • Kids Menu - No
  • Activities - Crayons & coloring sheets
  • Staff Kid Friendly - Yes
  • Patrons Kid Friendly - Yes
  • Dog Friendly - Only outside, limited space

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Bearden Beer Market Full Review

When we initially moved to Knoxville and had our son, we rented a small house in the Bearden/Sequoya Hills area.  One of the first places we discovered and loved was The Bearden Beer Market. However, I had not been back there in probably three years.  For some reason, I decided today was the day.

Don't be fooled by the name, the Bearden Beer Market is way more than a beer market. It is a large outdoor gathering spot, complete with every type of table, kids riding toys, a full sized basketball goal, covered areas, uncovered, areas, giant Jenga, about a million corn hole sets, and so on.

There is only one entrance, so kids are fairly contained.  But beware that that one entrance leads to one of the busier streets in Knoxville, so I wouldn't get too distracted from the kids.

There are three unisex bathrooms, the middle of which has a changing table.  The bathrooms are located inside a sort of sitting area that has a foosball table, some mismatched couches and a TV.  (From past experience, this area doubles as a fantastic nursing room.)

The beer selection rotates and is usually fantastic.  Today they had a Bearded Iris IPA on tap that I LOVE.

As far as food...they do have food trucks that frequent, and a list of what truck is there on what day at the entrance.

I'm pretty sure just one truck a day and it doesn't show up until the evening during the week.  Luckily its right across the street from Hard Knox Pizza so we generally just go there to eat or pick up food and bring it with us.

I absolutely love this place.  It's great for a sunny day or a cooler evening if the fire pit is lit.  I don't think I'd choose it for a hangout when the weather is too bad though. My biggest complaint is that they allow smoking everywhere, but hey, I'm sure this makes my smoking friends happy!

If you're bored with your kids and want a beer, definitely give Bearden Beer Market a try.

 

Bearden Beer Market

website

Rating 4.4/5

  • High Chairs - No
  • Changing Tables - 1 in middle unisex bathroom
  • Alcohol - Multiple craft beer taps and cans
  • Food - Mostly No, one food truck a night but not until evening
  • Kids Menu - No
  • Activities - Kids riding toys, giant Jenga, corn hole, full sized basketball goal, plenty of room to run
  • Staff Kid Friendly - Yes
  • Patrons Kid Friendly - Yes
  • Dog Friendly - Extremely

Good to Know

  • mostly outside, but great plastic enclosed outdoor bar with TVs
  • Giant fire pit

 

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South Coast Pizza Full Review

Even though it is SUPPOSED to be Spring here in the South, it was a pathetic 55 degrees today…sad. So we decided to hit up one of our favorite regular kid friendly pizza joints, South Coast Pizza. (BTW, if y’all haven’t checked out South Knoxville, you’re really missing out.)

South Coast Pizza is in a pretty unassuming building, across from Alliance Brewing Company. Outside there are three picnic style tables for if the weather is nice enough, but we prefer this place when the weather requires indoor accommodations. Inside there are a ton more picnic tables, a couple pull up chairs and two high chairs…ONLY TWO. We always bring our chair that attaches to the actual table for the little one (for those of you who don’t know what this is, I may do an entire post about it because I love it SO MUCH.)

Little Red Chair

This place serves killer pizza and good enough salads and is always a kid food pleaser. As far as entertainment, I’m not sure that this restaurant is meant to be as kid friendly as they are, but they definitely are. There are several old school arcade style video games right by the front door. My 3 year old loves to sit in the car game and pretend he’s driving without it ever even turning on.

There is also a giant fish tank, for child staring and pointing purposes. But most importantly there are VIDEO GAMES!! I’m not talking fancy 3D, million button, mind corrupting systems, I mean old school Nintendo. So simple, so fantastic, so little kid doable.

Again, I feel that all these things may have been intended for adults to relive their childhood, but kids love it. They love it so much that on a random Tuesday night, before 6pm, there were at least 9 children under the age of 5 running around like crazy people while their parents all sat at tables and drank beer. Yes beer, good beer, lots of beer. South Coast offers about 8 draft taps as well as tons of canned craft beers.

Bonus...the people who work here are so sweet, they gave my son a stuffed fish they had on display just because he liked it.

This is totally a place where you can enjoy a good beer, good food, and your kids can be wild.  Just keep it inside.

Central Filling Station

website

Rating 4.8/5

  • High Chairs - NO
  • Changing Tables - NO
  • Alcohol - Canned Beer & Cider
  • Food - Food Trucks, vary
  • Kids Menu - NO
  • Activities - Sandbox, giant Connect-4,  board games, room to run
  • Staff Kid Friendly - very
  • Patrons Kids Friendly - very
  • Dog Friendly -very

Good to Know

  • outdoor only, partially covered
  • porta potties

Full Review

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