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Restaurant Scene: Calliope’s puffy pita gets more room to rise on M.L. King

Staff photo by Olivia Ross / Calliope's labneh is seen on Sept. 26. The restaurant helmed by Khaled AlBanna is expanding into a space on M.L. King Boulevard.
Staff photo by Olivia Ross / Calliope's labneh is seen on Sept. 26. The restaurant helmed by Khaled AlBanna is expanding into a space on M.L. King Boulevard. Staff photo by Olivia Ross / Calliope's labneh is seen on Sept. 26. The restaurant helmed by Khaled AlBanna is expanding into a space on M.L. King Boulevard.


Just because of proximity to the Chattanooga Times Free Press office downtown, $2 Lone Star beers at Bless Yer Heart, fried fish at Uncle Larry’s and trivia night at Hutton & Smith, I’m usually always somewhere along M.L. King Boulevard.

So it was only a matter of time before I noticed the space Bad Wraps occupied becoming emptier by the day. Owner Bryan Slayton had served 31 years in federal prison before serving what I’ve dubbed “domestic chimichangas” out of Proof Incubator space shared with Calliope and Poppytons Patisserie.

“I only had a six-month lease, even though I ended up staying eight months,” Slayton said during a recent phone conversation.

Slayton will still use the space as a commissary kitchen for his food truck and had nothing but good things to say about his tenure at the incubator.