Baker Peters may be haunted, but it’s most likely by the ghosts of people going, “I paid how much for that drink?”
Go local, you won’t regret it.
Calhoun’s is a great place to meet up, especially the one on the river. You can feed the fat lazy carp that live in the river you can’t swim in. They also have some of their own microbrews. And cornbread! Mmm, cornbread.
I’ve been threatening my dear, sweet girlfriend with cornbread. We should have cornbread. Mmmm, warm and just out of the oven, slathered with butter…
I’d also prefer a “local” kinda place, just IMO.
I’d be interested in coming too. Of course I was interested in coming to the NashDope and didn’t get a chance to, and there only wound up being 2 or 3 Dopers. 
I’m going to throw the name Slainte out here on the chance she’ll do a vanity search and convince me to go by adding her presence 
Since I can’t read every thread I do use the search function, but I’m not vain, bebe.
It would really depend on the date… and how many hours I’d have to drive. I would love to meet y’all (especially Max Carnage who owes me some red velvet cake) but I can’t say that I’ll make it for sure.
Well, I imagine if we firm up a date, we’ll get a guest list.
Okay, so let’s try to firm things up here.
The weekends in June and July have been tossed around as the date for the Knoxdope but no one’s given any suggestions as to which particular date we should meet on.
The weekends in June are 7 - 8; 14 - 15; 21 - 22; and 28 - 29 while July’s are 5 - 6; 12 - 13; 19 - 20; and 26 - 27. Does anyone have any preferences? Myself, I’d prefer June 13th for no reason other than it gives us just a little over a month to plan this thing.
Anyone else have an opinion on the date?
Is this just going to be meeting for lunch and/or dinner or do we want to do something in addition to that?
GMRyujin, 100watts, and me all think we should go to a local restaraunt instead of a chain like the Olive Garden. Everyone else in agreement? If not, speak up please. If we do go local, can someone in Knoxville find out what’s worthwhile and tell everyone else what’s what.
Aside from that, what time slot are we looking at? Noon? Early afternoon? Late afternoon? Evening? And for how long? An hour or two? A full day? What?
Sorry to just jump in and start with the planning but I thought we needed to at least start getting some ideas. 
June 28-29 is out for me and punha cause we’re planning on trekking up to NoVa for the Chance’s bash and July is out after the 13th (we can do that weekend, just nothing after that) cause that’s when I’m hoping to head out to Portland, OR. Every other weekend we’re free.
Hey RT if you can’t make it for the Knoxfest just let me and Paddy know when you’ll be in Bristol and we can drive up and say hello or somethin’. Can’t say much about the biking though. It’s been years since I rode my bike. It’d probably fall apart if I tried to get on it.
Aesiron, I have no problem with someone else jumping in - I am not a high stress person, and neither do I have a really full schedule, so that’s why I was asking others what weekends work for them.
I’ve had to do some revamping of my summer class schedule, so as of now, I’ve only got classes Tuesday & Wednesday nights. As far as the weekend of June 13-15, that works well. If we plan on Saturday, I should be able to either get the day off/switch schedules with someone or perhaps leave early if we do an evening.
Unless there are major objections, can we start looking at June 13th as the date?
Early evening (going until whenever) tends to work best for me - it also gives folks who are driving in time to get here. Again, I’m flexible here.
I’m going to be in Knoxville July 2 - 5 for the AAU national tae kwon do tournament. If you have a get-together that weekend, I’d love to join you. So I’m going to keep an eye on this thread.
Also, you can come watch the tournament!
Any of the dates Lsura has mentioned would be fine. I can’t do 4th of July weekend because of my job. We will probably just come for dinner and a couple of drinks since we are not big party people anyway. So don’t go out of the way to please just little old me. As far as restaurants go, I am flexible. I understand that people don’t want something they can get at home. Since Baker Peters is pricey we’ll axe that. Calhouns has been mentioned and that is fine with me. Anyone else with ideas?
Oh I forgot to ask a stupid question. Since I am new at this sort of thing how exactly does this work? We set a date, decide on a place and we meet right? How do we know who is who? Please don’t tell me I have to wear a name tag that says Straight Dope on it. Not that I mind, but this could attract the wrong kind of people (such as cops). I just don’t want to wander up to the bar and have to ask everyone up there if they are with the Straight Dope Message Board.
Me: Excuse me, are you with the Straight Dope?
Poor Soul at The Bar: Well no little darling, but I got some pure east Tennessee grown in the car.
Me: Thanks anyway. I’ll keep trying dude.
Ashkicker, of course you’re expected to walk up to each party in the restaurant/bar. How else do we spread the word?
Seriously, once the place is decided on, someone makes some sort of reservation (particularly if it seems to be reasonable group) and lets everyone know what name it’s under. I’ve seen fests use Cecil Adams, Ed Zotti or other names. If it’s a place that doesn’t need any sort of advance notice for a big group, then someone can make a point of wearing something that stands out (Straight Dope t-shirt…things like that) so that folks can recognize it.
Depending on the dates and if I can convince my SO (Reinhold Messner) to come with me, I’ll be there. Weekends during the summer shouldn’t be too much of a stretch for me. Since I will not have been in summer class (French 103! Yay!) long by June 13th, that would be an awesome date.
If we do it on the 13th, we’d probably be arriving somewhat late, since I’d have to drive from ATL to Knoxville after I finish my work at my internship. How long a drive would that be (figure on leaving here around 6)?
Hey guys… been reading the SDMB for years but never posted. This thread finally forced me to register!!!
Just wanted to say hey to the other East Tennesseans here!
There is a great Pizza place in downtown Knoxville called Barley’s. They have about every sort of beer you can imagine and there is also a bar if you prefer the hard stuff. Its just a few minutes off of I-40.
If you arrange it ahead of time, you can have them reserve the upstairs area for you (for free). I’ve held several meetings there in the past and things worked out well. It’s a pretty neat place… it used to be an old time train station/depot.
Hey, AutoXer. Glad you finally decided to quit lurking.
Okay… most of us seem to like the June 13th idea. Anyone who can’t make that, speak up. We can try to move it around so that we can accomodate the most people… the more, the merrier, right?
And so far, we have suggestions for Calhoun’s and Barley’s. Anything else in the way of meeting places?
I can’t believe I’m the ringleader of this. I’ve never even been to a party before and I’ll be the quiet one in the corner for this one. Yeesh.
If Noc and Reinhold go, I’ll go.
Why not have it in Gatlinburg? That’s close by, and a great place for a get-together. I’d be up for that.
I just checked mapquest.com and Knoxville’s 257 miles from Roanoke compared to Gatlinburgh’s 260.
They’re pretty much equidistant from you… how come you would go to one but not the other? 