FAST FACTS
The Meeting House What is it? A coffee shop and cafe, Monday through Saturday. On Sunday it becomes Red Bank Chapel, with services at 10 a.m. and, beginning this weekend, 5:30 p.m. It’s also the pick-up location for Anvil Crash Pad Rentals. Where is it? 3912 Dayton Blvd., Red Bank
Red Bank didn’t have the most welcoming vibe when Mayor John Roberts got elected about five years ago. The sliver of a city that sidles up to growth-charged Chattanooga was “anti-business, anti-just-about-everything,” as Roberts tells it.
A lot has improved since then, the fruits of which can be seen in at least one case-in-point: The Meeting House, located on Dayton Boulevard in the oldest building in town and one of the oldest business districts in the area.
This cafe-turned-church-on-Sundays opened in December, part of Mission Chattanooga, the same parent organization as downtown Chattanooga’s Camp House. The Meeting House becomes the Red Bank Chapel during times of worship, the inside outfitted interchangeably for coffee sipping and Bible reading. The same goes for Camp House, the popular daytime eatery and hangout that becomes the City Center Chapel on Sundays.
When Roberts got word that organizers wanted to open a coffee shop in Red Bank, he got to work straight away making connections and introductions. The space got built out last summer, the middle section of a short red-faced row of bricks along Dayton Boulevard near Morrison Springs Road. The Meeting House space had once been a drugstore/hardware store and later an athletic store and storage for an antique shop.