Farmacy — Restaurant in Knoxville

I have always enjoyed Farmacy's food, but the old location was tight on space and often very loud so I stopped going. They have now taken over a spot in Bearden which has housed several restaurants over the years and is a very large space--much better. And they now have a full bar. This is the space which this restaurant required from the beginning.

The new space is bright and beautiful. The community has immediately responded and having been there three times over the past two weeks, it has been buzzy and nearly all tables are full each visit. There is such a need for a restaurant like this in the area. I would love to see Farmacy add breakfast as an option, seeing as they do a wonderful brunch menu on Sat/Sun. Favorite dishes I have tried are the Brussels sprouts, the red pepper soup, the burger and the wedge salad. Recommendation to offer a half or side salad portion of the wedge salad as it is huge.

I judge nearly every restaurant I patronize by a very unconventional measure--how they serve hot tea. It shows attention to detail. A preferred (but rare) setup in American restaurants includes a personal teapot with the teabag(s) already steeping in extremely hot water when it arrives to the table, small containers for milk and honey, a good teacup with a thin rim and small spoon for stirring. The brand of tea matters. Lipton is at the very bottom, Twinings second from bottom, and almost anything else above those two are acceptable. Extra points for a great tea like Harney & Sons or Numi which elevates the whole experience.

The Farmacy arrives into these preferences at mid-range--B- on an A scale. Not bad at all. Having said this, tiny tweaks could push it into A range. The good: water was very hot, the mug/plate/napkin/small containers for milk & honey make a cozy presentation, the tea brand I had never heard of but it was decent and not Lipton or Twinings. I requested milk but they brought cream, which is too heavy for tea but it was all they had. On a previous visit, milk was in stock. Areas to improve would be: teapot, tea bags put immediately into the piping hot water before it's brought to the table for optimal steeping & allows the customer to pour a second cup because water stays hot in the pot, a better selection of tea (Earl Grey was the only black tea offered; I usually prefer a plain breakfast tea), and a small stirring spoon (this is the rarest item to receive outside of an upscale tea experience so I never expect this).

Twice now I have had Megan as my server and she has been so gracious, polite, responsive and accurate. Courtesy goes such a long way in influencing a customer's experience in a restaurant.

I do not give two flips about covid security measures because at the end of the day, this is a respiratory virus with a 99% recovery rate and if we didn't do all these silly things prior to 2020, then there is no rationale for doing them now. They are all based on optics and virtue signaling, zero data. Taking temperatures at the door is intrusive and proves nothing in terms of covid symptoms; healthy people should never be forced to mask the astounding 20 step-journey from the door to your table, at which point unmasking is fine because the virus can tell when you sit down. Please.

Our local board of health in Knoxville have helped to decimate the local restaurant industry with their made-up restrictions based on non-existent data that restaurants are a source of spread--they are not. It pains me for the amazing restaurant owners in our town who are undeserving of this discrimination from our health board and I applaud and wish to patronize our restaurants whenever I can to allow their businesses to remain viable. The fact that Farmacy has not only survived 2020 but has relocated and completely redecorated a new space in such a beautiful way in an otherwise tragic year makes them worthy of recognition.

I hope Knoxvillians will continue to support our small business and restaurant owners whenever possible,...

Our dinner last night was more than frustrating. We have been patrons to the Farmacy multiple times. We’ve shared date nights, celebrations, and brought many family and friends in because we loved the menu. Last night, however, was a huge miss for us. As an AARP member, I was excited to see that a valid coupon was on our local discounts for the Farmacy. Our waitress, who was very kind, needed to validate this with her manager. No problem, but the manager came out and wanted to know where I got this coupon. I explained this was from the website – it has a valid expiration date. She said her mom was the owner and she needed to text her about it. They would “probably honor it”, but she didn’t know where it came from. The address was for their Northshore location (which doesn’t exist anymore), but the expiration date was in the middle of February 2023. I explained to our waitress we didn’t even use the coupon. Our family also has a local small business and we’ve also signed up for coupons to be featured on sites before. No matter the case (sometimes web-based coupon companies sell through affiliate programs), we will always honor coupons that feature our logo! Again, I said I would save them the hassle – I would just get the Tuesday Special -- two $3 tacos. Since I will go into anaphylaxis because of cheese (mold allergy), I requested no cheese. I was immediately told absolutely no modifications. However, I could purchase the $15 meal of three tacos. Let me get this straight – a debacle has been caused because of this coupon that I’ve told you we won’t use. And now instead of giving me two tacos for $6 and saving your business ingredients, you want me to pay $15---and you must give me the ingredients so that you, in turn, will just throw away? Make it make sense. Don’t you think you could’ve made an exception – especially after everything that just happened? We were a small table of 3 people – and clearly this coupon problem hadn’t been a prior issue. The owner’s daughter took 50% off one of our meals, but after only having a cup of soup, I certainly walked out of there hungry. I would strongly suggest contacting AARP, Groupon (there is a coupon on there too), and maybe doing a quick internet search and finding all coupons related to your business if you aren’t going to honor them. Very disappointed in one of...

This is purely to review the food - the people were very charming despite being inattentive.

Our table ordered the vitality bowl and smash burger with a side salad and the black & blue fries.

The fries were the first out and the only highlight - while a lot of restaurants in this area over sweeten their dishes I’d say the brown sugar crumbles had their place but excessive given the sauces mixed together - probably need more of a disclaimer but overall a new dish that was good.

The vitality bowl had old avocado used (semi fermented) and the radishes were too thick cut and not cleaned properly (image attached). The bean and corn mix was good as was the sweet potato hash - the condition of the arugula was good but not trimmed properly so nearly impossible to eat.

The smash burger was not bad but nothing to return to either.

The dressings for the salads and bowls are very good.

We were able to try the Brussels spouts and pistachio/chocolate ganache dessert due to an apology from the restaurant for delaying our order from “an issue with the burner”…for about 40 minutes. Luckily we had no appointments and enjoyed the company but it wasn’t as though we were being checked on either - it was appetiser served - 30 mins - oh sorry your food had an issue and will be ready in 15 more min. We were clearly forgotten in a side room with other diners (odd given we were seated at least 10 before any other tables were filled).

Given three other tables were seated after our orders were placed and they received their burner-required burgers and dishes first it was clear they failed to put our order in.

Regardless - the apology Brussels smelled great but were sitting in a saturated sweet & sour sauce with a resemblance to something at a Panda express for unrefined 12 year olds would serve and covered in brown sugar, again.

The dessert had well-ripened strawberries(win), legit halva (huge win) sprinkled across the pistachio glaze and smooth chocolate ganache - the ganache was not well proportioned but the dish overall a win and more representative of what I expected from this sort of place (hipster NYC/LA vibes).

The restaurant is clearly build for 20-year olds still reliant on candy and junk food palates wanting cocktails for instagram or Tik Tok vids…

I would not recommended for anyone with actual culinary exposure or...