On the corner of Forest Avenue and 22nd Street, a little more than a stone’s throw away from the hustle and bustle of the ever-famous “Strip,” one of the most dilapidated sections of the Fort Sanders area is transformed into a bazaar-like venue – a veritable bevy of produce and reasonable prices.
This two-block rectangle is known as the Forest Avenue Produce Market, and for the past 60 years it has been supplying Knoxville and much of East Tennessee with fresh, often homegrown, produce.
It is usually open for business every weekday from about 3 a.m. to 1 p.m.; only a few of the 11 venders remain open past 1 p.m.
On any given day, the market can see 50 to 100 customers, many of them restaurants and wholesale food stores.
“It’s a good value for them,” Paul Kapcar, an employee at G & A Produce, said.
It usually has more business during the summer because of the 20-30 farmers that set up shop, but the winter months are not downtimes, for there are still businesses and other consumers that need the fresh fruit and vegetables pass through this seemingly decrepit sector of the Fort.
“You get a lot of good-quality produce,” Kapcar explains.
Wan Nan Chou (most people call him “Joe”), a Taiwanese-American and UT graduate from the college of Agricultural Sciences in ’73, adds a touch of ethnic variety to the predominately fruit-and-vegetable emporium. His store, Asia Food, offers everything from tofu to curry to soybean drink.
Chou has worked in the restaurant business in Hermitage and Oak Ridge, TN, and he has also worked on the west coast. But Chou, 62, has made Knoxville his home.
“I like here better,” he said.
Taking special interest in each and every customer and doing his best to provide top-notch service, Chou uses his expertise to make sure that his customers always go home happy.
One customer, who was looking to buy tea, was surprised to find Joe asking him exactly what he was looking for in tea. While the customer stood in a state of confusion, Joe began talking about the various methods used in creating the different types of tea his store offers. He threw out so much information that only the most well versed people in agricultural science could keep pace.
After the sun goes down, the market, like the workers who push the produce, goes into a dormant phase. There are no cargo vehicles, the shops are padlocked shut and there is an eerie silence, quite the opposite from the daily grind of Forest Avenue.
It is the silence of uncertainty, for the future of the market remains unclear. Just recently Valley Produce, an 18-year vendor at the market, has moved from the area. The reason for the move was a need for newer and better facilities, according to Valley Produce president Mark Stansberry.
Valley Produce Inc.’s move took much of the restaurant clientele with it – restaurants like O’Charley’s and Outback Steakhouse.
Due to the age of the market and the condition of the facilities, it is not surprising that Forest Avenue’s market has begun to atrophy. Stansberry predicts it will one day be developed into housing for UT students.
Stansberry explains that it is “probably for the best” because the market can no longer offer the venders adequate facilities.
But some venders remain confident that the produce market still has many years left in it. “There’s a rumor that some of it might be torn down,” Kapcar said. “But it’s just a rumor.”
