O'Charley's Closed on Kingston Pike in September. November Brings a Buffet and a Walk-Up Slider Window.
October 15, 2026
October 15, 2026
"There's not a whole lot through here that's relatively new, so this will be something new for the community to enjoy."
That's Blake McDavid, the Knoxville franchisee bringing Small Sliders to Cedar Bluff, talking to WhatNow Nashville in late July about why he picked 330 N. Cedar Bluff Road for his first East Tennessee location. He described the site in the plain terms of someone who drives it daily. "It's very heavy traffic here off the interstate. We've got the hospital right here, a lot of schools. It's just a good little trade area."
That was in July. Since then, the Cedar Bluff and Kingston Pike stretch lost a long-running sit-down chain, and two very different restaurants have lined up November openings. Put the three side by side and the pattern is clear. This part of West Knoxville is trading a booth-and-server dinner for two formats built for volume and speed: a large buffet on Kingston Pike, and a drive-through on Cedar Bluff Road with no indoor seating.
On Sept. 9, 2026, O'Charley's closed almost all of its company locations. The Tennessean's report, carried by Knox News, said this ended a 55-year run for a chain it called a Southern staple. Reports that the chain would close most locations the next day began circulating Sept. 8. Servers at several Tennessee restaurants confirmed their locations would close at 8 p.m. on Sept. 9.
The chain started in Nashville in 1971, with its first location on 21st Avenue. In Knoxville, WVLT reported that the Kingston Pike location had a sign on its door saying it was closed. "Thank you for your business and support over the years," the sign read. "We will miss serving you."
West Knoxville had already lost one O'Charley's earlier in the year. The Turkey Creek restaurant at 11036 Parkside Drive closed months before the September shutdown, and that property sold in June. Knox News reported on Sept. 23 that a corporation with ties to a popular fast-food chain bought the building. That's the same move in a different spot: a sit-down chain leaves, and the next owner of the building is tied to fast food.
No successor has been publicly announced for the Kingston Pike building as of early October.
The first November opening is about volume. Golden Corral's own location page lists restaurant #112 at 8503 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN 37919, with the status "Opening Fall 2026." When Knox News rounded up restaurant news on Aug. 12, it led with Golden Corral's return and called it "a long-awaited buffet chain."
The timing got clearer this week. A hiring event listing for Thursday, Oct. 8, at 420 N. Peters Road, running 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., says a new Golden Corral "opens in November 2026 at 8503 Kingston Pike." It also says the company is hiring 160 team members to open the doors.
That 160 is the number to hold onto. A restaurant that needs 160 people to open plans for big crowds: weekend families, after-church tables, groups that want everyone to pick their own plate. It isn't a straight replacement for a table-service casual dining spot, but it covers some of the same occasions. You can sit down, stay a while, and seat a large group, all without a fixed menu.
The listing says November. It doesn't give a day. Until Golden Corral posts a specific date, treat November as the plan, not a promise.
The second November opening sits at the other end of the format scale, and the county's planning file shows exactly what's being built.
Knox Planning's development plan report for case 5-G-26-DP covers 330 N. Cedar Bluff Road, on the east side of the road just north of Cross Park Drive. The applicant is Blake McDavid, and the case went on the May 14, 2026, agenda. The tract is about 19,415 square feet. The proposed metal building is 935 square feet and 22 feet, 1 inch tall. The staff report says it plainly: "There will be no indoor dining, but there is a walk-up window and patio." The Knox Planning case record shows approval for a drive-through restaurant with a walk-up window and patio.
For scale, 935 square feet is roughly the size of a modest two-bedroom apartment. Everything about the site is built around the car lane and the counter window. The report notes that access is from N. Cedar Bluff Road, which it classifies as a major arterial with 65 feet of pavement. It also places the parcel outside Knoxville city limits, in Knox County Commission District 3. That matters if you ever need to know which government handles questions about the site.
Knox News reported on Aug. 14 that construction had started on the site near Weigel's. McDavid told WhatNow he expected to open in early November. He said this would be the first of four restaurants planned for a territory covering Knoxville, Maryville, Alcoa, Oak Ridge, Halls and Sevierville.
The menu is short on purpose. It's cheeseburger sliders, waffle fries, queso for dipping, hand-spun milkshakes and Coca-Cola products. "We specialize in the one thing of the cheeseburger slider," McDavid said. "Our menu is very simple, but it's very craveable as well."
"We've got made-to-order sliders and waffle fries. We have queso that you can dip your fries and sliders in, and then we've got hand-spun milkshakes and Coke products." Blake McDavid to WhatNow Nashville, July 31, 2026
The early-November date came from that July interview. We haven't found a newer public update with a confirmed opening day or hours.
Take the three changes together and the weeknight options on this stretch shift in a specific way.
Before September, a Kingston Pike dinner could mean a server, a menu and a booth at a national chain founded in Tennessee. After November, if both openings stay on schedule, the newest options near Cedar Bluff are:
Both newcomers cut out the server-at-the-table step. At one, you serve yourself. At the other, you never go inside. The building plans and staffing numbers make that plain.
This fits a pattern we've written about in other parts of West Knoxville. In our look at Turkey Creek's openings this year, the quieter openings mattered more because they filled gaps people used to drive farther to fill. In our piece on Bearden's former rug showroom, a once-a-decade purchase gave way to a several-times-a-week gym. Cedar Bluff's version runs on speed and capacity. A walk-up slider window is built for quick, repeat trips. A buffet hiring 160 people is built for big turnout.
McDavid's own reasons for the site point the same way. He named interstate traffic, a nearby hospital and schools. Those are all sources of steady daytime traffic, and a drive-through on a major arterial is set up to catch that kind of traffic.
Both dates are plans, not confirmed openings. Here's where each one stood as of Oct. 8, 2026:
If you're coming from the other side of town, Small Sliders is on the east side of N. Cedar Bluff Road, north of Cross Park Drive, near the Weigel's that Knox News used as a landmark. Golden Corral's address is on Kingston Pike in the 37919 zip code, which is a different West Knoxville area from the 37923 Cedar Bluff site. That's worth checking before you tell a group where to meet. For more on how the Cedar Bluff area fits into the rest of the west side, our Cedar Bluff neighborhood page and our guide to West Knoxville's three housing markets cover how the area breaks down.
If you've lived near Cedar Bluff a while, you've seen businesses come and go on these lots, and you know a building tells you more about how a place plans to run than the sign out front does. If you're thinking about what this stretch's changing mix could mean for your own home, Jennifer Whicker can walk you through it with appraisal-backed numbers for your street. Request your free home valuation and see where your West Knoxville home stands this fall.
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