Chattanooga gains two venues for weddings, events

The interior of Granfalloon.
The interior of Granfalloon.

Granfalloon:

A word coined by author Kurt Vonnegut to mean a group of people who have nothing in common but find themselves together.

Chattanooga has two more options for wedding receptions and other events.

And they're both family-owned.

The Venue, an upscale event space in the former Patrick's Restaurant and Lounge at 4119 Cummings Hwy., in Lookout Valley, will host a boat show and tailgate party as its first event Saturday.

And the Granfalloon, the site of a short-lived coffee house on Main Street in Chattanooga's hip Southside neighborhood, has reopened under new management as a space geared for events - and come December, a daytime crepery and ice cream shop.

The Venue is a venture of Mike and Anne Strunk and their daughter Kate Courtney and her husband Russell Courtney.

Kate Courtney, a wedding planner, got the idea for opening a wedding venue in the 8,000-square-foot former restaurant building that's been vacant for two years as she drove past it during visits to her parents, who live nearby.

"It just popped into my head one day," she said.

Courtney wrote a business plan with the help of her father who's CEO of Bolts and Nuts, a fastener company on East 28th Street in Chattanooga, and was going to look for investors when she said her father told her, "I'm interested in this."

The family bought the building at the end of July for $490,000, according to the Hamilton County Property Assessor's office. It's undergone expensive renovations, Courtney said, including high-end new flooring and lighting and a mahogany bar.

Size is one advantage the roughly 8,000-square-foot space has over other Chattanooga wedding venues, she said. The building, which has an interior balcony and built-in stage, can hold some 400 seated diner for a wedding reception or 525 people at a cocktail reception.

"That's kind of what make us great," Courtney said, adding, "We have ample parking. We have over 120 parking spaces."

The cost to rent The Venue ranges from $500 for a weekday to $2,000 for a Friday (Courtney says Friday night has become a popular choice for wedding receptions) to a peak on Saturday for $3,000.

The Granfalloon has 3,000 square feet of space available "just in time for the holidays," according to a recent news release from the building's owners Ken and Carla Pritchard.

A coffee shop there that was opened by Amanda Halligan and Chelsea McInturff closed last month less than six months into what Pritchard said was supposed to be a one-year lease. But Pritchard, whose business Chattanooga Presents puts on the Nightfall concert series downtown on Friday nights in the summer, doesn't harbor any hard feelings.

"I admire their initiative," she said. "It's not uncommon at all for a new business venture to not make it."

Tara Villand, a "jill of all trades" who most recently served as Nightfall's beverage manger, will run the Granfalloon for Pritchard. No hard and fast rental prices have been set yet.

In late December, Adelle's Ice Cream and Crepery will open by the end of December and it will offer savory and sweet crepes and for breakfast and lunch as well as ice cream. It's named for the Pritchard's entrepreneurial-minded 12-year-old daughter, Adelle. She involved in planning the crepery and will work there on Saturdays, when school's out.

"Our family has always been big into crepes," said Pritchard, explaining they're big in England, where her husband's from, and the family eats crepes on what's known here as Fat Tuesday. "We say 'pancake day.' [But] it's crepes. That what they call them in England."

Granfalloon is a word coined by author Kurt Vonnegut to mean a group of people who have nothing in common but find themselves together. The Pritchards, who've owned the building and the 100-year-old, two-story former mill next to it since 2007, chose Granfalloon.

"We just kind of liked the name," Pritchard said. "It sounded fanciful and fun."

Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/MeetsForBusiness or twitter.com/meetforbusiness or 423-757-6651.

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