How much shopping do you do in the area? (Knoxville: for sale, hotels)

[Serious Conversation]

I've been out of town most of the holiday weekend and did my Christmas shopping. I bought most everything already, but it got me thinking over the last few months that I've actually not done much shopping here, and I can't help thinking I'm not the only one in this boat.

I get a lot off of Amazon, but I also do a lot of shopping in Knoxville and Asheville. There are a lot of basic items I'm just not finding here - haven't found a horseradish root. I wasn't able to find any Clarks shoes I liked, so got these in Asheville, as well as several other pairs of shoes. I got quite a few groceries - frozen turkey burgers, frozen organic beef burgers, etc., that are unavailable in this area at the Knoxville Costco.

Amazon is convenient, but I am just kind of surprised at how little I am shopping here. Most of my groceries come from Sam's, but other than grocery/perishable items, almost everything I'm getting is off Amazon or outside the area.

Do you find yourself doing a lot of shopping for items outside the area because stuff is either unavailable or expensive here?

[Rangerred]

I probably do nearly 100% of my shopping in the area and honestly rarely outside of Johnson City. Admittedly I don't really care about particular brands of clothing or shoes that may or may not be available in the region places like Mahoney's and Overmountain Outdoors pretty much run the gamut of higher-end outdoor brands and some boutique stores like Monkee's and a few others that hit the pricier brands for women's clothing, at least. It's not Nordstrom but there are numerous places to spend money locally if you have plenty of disposable income.

Again, speaking for myself, HH Gregg and Best Buy more than cover the electronics spectrum and I've been very happy with Simply Mac subbing for a legit Apple Store.

I'm surprised you couldn't find a horseradish root here. Especially at Earth Fare or Fresh Market. I buy almost exclusively natural/organic food and Kroger is hard to beat in terms of selection and price for dry goods and nearly all my meat comes from Earth Fare. Aldi also has some great stuff.

I think, at least in Johnson City, the retail options are pretty good for a city/metro of this size. Now if we could only get a Trader Joe's!

[sprintuser2014]

Many years ago I use to travel to Knoxville or sometimes even Asheville to shop as they had more and better stores even if we had the same store here. These days I never do that, I do some online shopping but much of my shopping is done locally now. We have a lot more than what we use to and I find we have most of what we need here. I do wish Kingsport would get a Fresh Market though which I love and hate going all the way to JC for!

[Ted Bear]

Food (some), hardware, and building materials.


Pretty much everything else comes from outside the area.


And I always give a local merchant the chance to price match (at least come close) so that I can spend my dollars locally if the product is the same/similar.


Any Krogers employees here who can explain why, on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, they had two frozen turkeys, and a couple of fresh turkeys left available for sale? I'm thinking that a Krogers would likely sell a thousand birds in the days before Thanksgiving, but there were virtually none! How can that possibly happen?


Wegmans just opened in Charlottesville. I'll run up there every couple of months....Bread, Fresh fish, meat, deli and hard to locate simple things which JC stores don't stock. Maybe they will come to Asheville soon. It gets really tiring shopping in these 1960's style stores (not to mention the filth of place like Krogers) in JC--including the new Food City on State of Franklin. What were they possibly thinking when they designed that monstrosity?

[Rangerred]

Idk, I've just never found it an issue finding any type of item whether it be gluten free, organic, or ethnic in any grocery store in JC. Obviously if you're looking for a specialized regional product or fresh seafood you might have issues but that is to be expected. There are even a couple specialty stores that stock Asian and Indian products. Food prices are high in the region but that's been discussed before and it seems nobody knows why this is the case.

Food City has always struck me as odd because they build these humongous new stores but I find there product variety to be severely lacking. It makes me wonder how they fit so few items into such a large building. Their prices are also very high but yet they seem to attract a lot of lower income shoppers while Kroger is frequented by those more well-off. At least this has been my casual observation in JC.

Speaking of Kroger, while the Sunset Dr. store is very old, small and needs to be replaced, the one on State of Franklin is fine. It stays extremely busy and is understaffed but in terms of product selection and price it is sufficient. I must say, however, that my grocery shopping also involves stops at Aldi and Earth Fare. For a city of 65,000 the variety and amount of grocery stores is impressive.

[jabogitlu]

Kroger is a nationally recognized entity. Even if you're used to Fry's or Fred Meyer, the Kroger will feel familiar and have many familiar brands. That's why I think many of the folks in JC shop there, who have relocated into the area.

I grew up in the area and I definitely preferred Kroger. Food City always seemed really expensive and had virtually no organic and/or "cleaner food" alternatives for many categories. Ingles is okay but just wasn't worth the bother. Whoever mentioned 1960s-era shopping experience hit the nail on the head. The stores are huge and I don't want to spend an extra 15 minutes trying to find products because they're spread out. I also didn't want to drive from South JC way out to Boones Creek or Jonesborough to find the Ingles. Same reason (among many) that I never shopped at Walmart in JC, either. I hardly ever found myself in North JC around that Walmart. I did pass by the west side Walmart headed towards Greeneville quite often but... meh.

If it wasn't at Kroger, Target, or Earth Fare, I didn't buy it. In other places I've lived, I've frequented Fred Meyer/Kroger and Whole Foods for a similar experience.

I lived in JC largely before the "Amazon boom," so I bought pretty much everything in town. I do a fair amount of internet shopping these days but I live in a tiny town of 4,000 people on the frontier of Alaska, so most of my clothes and household items come from the internet.

[jchometeam]

I have never had any trouble finding nearly anything here, though I do admit that items such as horseradish roots isn't exactly a basic item for me (I don't even know what it is). The only thing that I do not buy locally is cars and furniture. Other areas have much better selection and prices than the Tri-Cities when it comes to these items.

That Kroger store that has been mentioned is indeed outdated, but it is also busy. This is similar to the JC movie theatre in that I have never understood why people seem to want to tell businesses that are doing very well to renovate their stores just to be more aesthetically pleasing if it isn't going to increase their profit margins.

[Rangerred]

That Kroger store that has been mentioned is indeed outdated, but it is also busy. This is similar to the JC movie theatre in that I have never understood why people seem to want to tell businesses that are doing very well to renovate their stores just to be more aesthetically pleasing if it isn't going to increase their profit margins.

Funny enough, both Kroger stores in JC have been recently remodeled with the State of Franklin location adding a Starbucks and expanded natural/organics along with an overall facelift. The one on Sunset got a little sprucing up but is pretty small and definitely outdated. It is heavily trafficked, though. The same can be said of Target on Roan St. I thought for sure it would move out to State of Franklin where they could build a larger store but the store just completed a significant remodel, also with a Starbucks, and seems committed to its location.

[jabogitlu]

North JC (which we should start calling midtown, really...) and South JC along State of Franklin are known "best sellers" in the trade area. Especialy for North JC, I think proximity to the JC Mall is just too valuable to give up for some retailers. I worked at that Target for 5 years. Corporate kept putting off any significant investment due to their unknown relocation plans. So, the fact that they have remodeled is a big deal.

That development where Jason's Deli is, would have been a great spot for a Target, but it seems like the developers there just could never move the ball that much.

Seems like expansion up into Boones Creek is dead or very slow at this point, which I think in the long run is good for the area.

[Rangerred]

That development where Jason's Deli is, would have been a great spot for a Target, but it seems like the developers there just could never move the ball that much.

Seems like expansion up into Boones Creek is dead or very slow at this point, which I think in the long run is good for the area.

Hamilton Place (where Jason's deli is located) finally started seeing some development over the past couple years with a couple hotels, Academy Sports, and Planet Fitness. Coupled with the new Food City and ancillary restaurants it's nice to finally see more development along State of Franklin.

I don't think you'll see any major development at Boones Creek until the interchange is upgraded and even then, with annexation essentially dead, I think you'll see more development happening within the State of Franklin "loop" which is a positive in my opinion. Increased density is a good thing.