The Votes are in
farragutpress readers make their choices for their favorite businesses within reading area
Focusing on four Reader’s Choice champion businesses, quality service is a common thread.
They’re among hundreds of businesses evaluated for their popularity in the Farragut area, based on reader feedback to farragutpress, with our Third Annual Reader’s Choice section listing 93 winners in their specific business categories (See listings on pages 4C and 5C).
Among the four highlighted, Bill Jones Music (Best Music School/Store) not only offers the industry’s finest pianos and stringed instruments for customers at 10412 Kingston Pike, they “service” your purchase by having an on-site school with instructors to perfect your playing skills — the school is affiliated with the prestigious Yamaha Music Education System.
Recently beginning its third generation of family leadership in its 54th year serving the Knox metro area, Pattersons Home Appliance Center (Best Appliance Store) takes service so seriously they reduced their brand offerings to only the top-tier manufacturers — to ensure they could offer quality repair service for everything they sell.
Such service has been available at its location just outside of Farragut Town limits, 10632 Kingston Pike, since 1993.
Whatever you purchase at Concord Watch, Clock & Jewelry Center (Best Watch/Clock Repair) — no matter the age or brand — it can be serviced at the business’s 11130 Kingston Pike location.
That could include a grandfather clock made in Boston in the late 1700s, a 18-karat gold Rundell & Bridge doctor’s watch from England dating back to 1795, a Piaget watch given by the Sultan of Oman as a gift to a U.S. citizen, or a vast selection of Rolex, Omega, Piaget and other high-class men’s and women’s watches.
Service has a special incentive at This Little Scissor (Best Beauty Salon), 10967 Kingston Pike in Stonecrest Center.
Under the direction of owner/stylist Stacy Clower, each of four stylists rents a chair from Clower at the business and they become their own entrepreneurs.
What follows is more detailed information about each of these four popular businesses.
Bill Jones Music
Serving the Farragut area since 2005, which also doubles as corporate headquarters, Bill Jones Music has served the Knox County area since June 1973.
The two-story Farragut area location, which features 40 employees (including instructors), earned its first Reader’s Choice survey honor, with this year’s survey including businesses beyond Town of Farragut limits.
“We were very excited,” said June Chadwell, office manager/accountant. “We are just outside of Farragut (town) limits, but probably 90 percent of our students live that way.”
As for the popularity of Bill Jones Music (retail) and Bill Jones Music School, “We have a very diverse teaching faculty,” said Katrina Duval, an instructor and school administrator. “And we offer a large variety of instruments, anywhere from banjo to harp … and the violin.
“And we’re also the only school in Knoxville that is part of the Yamaha Music Education System,” she added. “The Yamaha program is something that is very unique.”
For more information about Bill Jones Music (retail) and Bill Jones Music School, call 865-690-6465.
Pattersons Home Appliance Center
At age 27, Mark Patterson has taken the reigns as the third generation president/CEO of Pattersons Home Appliance Center family of stores.
“Winning it is definitely super exciting. It’s the first year we’ve done it,” Mark Patterson said about the roughly 5,000-square-foot Farragut-area location and its six full-time employees, also becoming eligible for Reader’s Choice honors this year when the survey expanded beyond Town limits.
“It’s definitely a big honor in the Farragut-area because we have a huge array of loyal Farragut customers. They’ve been good to us and shopped with us and supported that store for 26 years,” he added.
Despite trends toward “online and big box” purchasing, “It’s good to see people value a small, family business,” Mark said.
“… The last few years we’ve won first place (in other surveys) in every county that we’ve been in (also two locations in Roane County and one each in Anderson and Cumberland counties),” he added.
A switch to the Whirlpool family of brands exclusively roughly 10 years ago — Jenn-Air, KitchenAid, Whirlpool, Maytag and Amana — was done with their customers in mind, Mark said.
“That’s really allowed us to focus in … to streamline that and grow our relationship with Whirlpool directly to better serve our customers,” he added.
For more information about Pattersons Home Appliance Center’s Farragut area location, call 865-635-9931.
Concord Watch, Clock & Jewelry Center
With a perfect Reader’s Choice record — voted the best watch/clock repair business all three years of the survey — Terri Anderson, Concord Watch, Clock & Jewelry Center co-owner, extended an enthusiastic “thank you very much” to the readership.
A jeweler with about 40 years of experience, Anderson and co-owner J.D. Miller (also a watchmaker for more than 50 years and a U.S. Marine Corps veteran) have been serving Farragut for seven years.
Also employed is a clockmaker who wishes to remain anonymous.
As for the key to their popularity on top of having top-line antiques and modern bling, “We can repair any watch, clock or piece of jewelry that comes in the door,” Anderson said.
In addition to conventional clocks, watches and jewelry they sell, there are semi-precious stones embedded and lining the walls of large split mineral samples (rocks).
For more information, call 865-288-7728.
This Little Scissor
Though This Little Scissor has been open only about 18 months, owner/master stylist Stacy Clower has fellow entrepreneurs alongside her.
“This salon is kind of untraditional. Soon after I opened I realized I wanted to help other stylists,” Clower said. “… I was helping them make the leap from working for somebody to helping them start their own business.”
Renting one chair to each of two stylists and two master stylist (one other stylist works on a commission), “I started them off at a lower (weekly) rent … like the rent’s kind of cut in half,” Clower said. “Everybody’s managing their own schedule, their own hours.
“With the stylists successful, it makes me successful as well,” she added.
Clower said she’s been styling hair for 22 years — including 10 years in salon management before opening her Farragut business.
“That (management) experience gave me everything on what to do and what not to do,” she said. “I was more well rounded, so I felt more confident going into owning a business versus not having any of that knowledge at all.”
For more information about This Little Scissor, call 865-776-7893.
