Opening date announced for new restaurant at Chattanooga Choo Choo

STIR restaurant

The opening date has been set for a new restaurant at the Chattanooga Choo Choo.

Stir will open at the historic complex Nov. 16.

The restaurant will include an oyster bar, an ice chef, and 350 brands of liquor.

SquareOne Holdings, the local company developing the eatery, has added three members to its leadership team: Fletcher Thompson, Scott Eiselstein and Jamie Walton.

Thompson, a Chattanooga native with years of management experience and expertise in the restaurant industry, is the new general manager. Eiselstein, known for his creative culinary flair, also hails from the Scenic City. He is the restaurant's executive chef. Partnering with Eiselstein as Stir's new ice chef and opening chef, Walton will cut the restaurant's signature artisanal ice, while overseeing the back of the house during the opening.

Prior to joining Stir as general manager, Thompson worked as a restaurant consultant in SquareOne Holdings and as former general manager for Carolina Brewery in Chapel Hill, N.C. He further expanded his management portfolio as the manager for CraftWorks Restaurants & Breweries for seven years. Thompson earned his bachelor's degree from University of South Carolina's Hotel, Restaurant, Tourism and Management School.

The career of Executive Chef Scott Eiselstein began in the early 1990s at The Sand Bar Restaurant in Chattanooga where he was first exposed to commercial kitchens. From there, he worked his way through the kitchen, ultimately becoming the manager and moving on to executive chef positions. He has headed up the kitchens of Southside Jazz Junction as executive chef, Cibo restaurant as sous chef, Tremont Tavern as culinary manager and Bluewater Grille as executive chef. He has a B.A. from Middle Tennessee State University. Eiselstein uses his fine arts background, combined with his more than 20 years of restaurant experience, to spark his creativity in the kitchen.

As Stir's permanent in-house ice chef, Jamie Walton brings more than 20 years of training and culinary experience to the restaurant's management team. Before moving to Tennessee, Walton served as executive chef of the Ragtime Tavern in Jacksonville, Fla. He has since worked as training and culinary director for SquareOne Holdings and as culinary training manager for CraftWorks Restaurants & Breweries Inc., overseeing the training for both Gordon Biersch and Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery.

Stir is hiring more than 100 team members in Chattanooga to staff the restaurant, which is scheduled to open Nov. 16.