Happi Hostess Cafe now open in Clinton
more restaurants will be coming soon
Taylor Bingham holds a platter of fresh-baked cupcakes in her new Happi Hostess Cafe and Bakery on Market Street in downtown Clinton. (photo:G. Chambers Williams III )
Owned by Taylor Bingham, the café operates from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday at 365 Market St. in the former location of the Cork & Cover bookstore and café.
Bingham creates baked goods such as her blueberry streusel muffins, which are available every day, along with a variety of cupcakes, bagels, cheesecakes, cookies, and more.
Lunch items include chicken salad, turkey and cheese, and pimento cheese sandwiches, an apple-pecan-spinach salad, and her special tomato basil soup, which also is offered daily.
Customers order from the counter for takeout or inside dining, and the café has six tables, with a total of 16 seats.
Bingham said she operated a catering business for a year before opening the café, and she still plans to do some catering. But it will be in-house, with rental of the dining room available for special events during the hours the café is not open.
Happi Hostess Café is the third of five new downtown restaurant businesses planned for opening early this year in Clinton.
Last month, Little Bird Macarons opened in the former location of Evans Candy Company at 226 N. Main St., and Vista de Rio Mexican restaurant opened on Oak Ridge Highway in the former location of the River View BBQ & Seafood restaurant.
Still to come, expected by the end of March, is the new Hamock’s Restaurant at 425 Eagle Bend Road, in the former Real Dry Cleaners location just across the Norfolk Southern Railroad tracks from Market Street.
Jason and Danielle Hamock, son and daughter-in-law of Darlene Hamock, owner of the former Hamock’s Perkadeli restaurant in Clinton, are opening the new location.
For the past four months, the Hamocks have been running a takeout-only version of their business from the rear of the new Onyx and Pearl boutique at 364 Market Street, accessed off Freddy Fagan Way.
Little Bird owner Molly Bookout said her store is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, offering her signature treats – which she calls “classic French macarons handmade with Southern charm and flavor,” along with other desserts and “grab-and-go lunches.”
“Our main thing is macarons, which are gluten-free French sandwich cookies, made of almond flour, egg whites and sugar,” Bookout said. “They are sandwiched together with fillings such as chocolate ganache (fudge), butter cream, banana pudding, cream cheese and more, and there is frosting on some.”
Vista de Rio is open every day from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., serving a full menu of Mexican food favorites.
Another new downtown business coming this spring is the Chunky Monkey ice cream shop, which is relocating from Norris to the Spindle Tree building at 303 North Market St., under new ownership.
The ice cream shop has been advertising for staff on social media, but no opening date has been announced yet.
Troy Shafer, who also owns a computer technology business in Knoxville, is taking over the Chunky Monkey business, whose previous owner announced in October that the ice cream shop had lost its lease at the 139 Little Senator Circle location in Norris.
Shafer said in late December that he had signed a lease with Kathryn Birkbeck on the Spindle Tree building. He previously operated a satellite office of his computer business near the previous Chunky Monkey, in the Anderson Crossing shopping center.
He said the new Chunky Monkey location will concentrate on ice cream and some baked goods.
There is another ice cream shop in the downtown area, Burr-Ville Sweet Treats, but it’s several blocks away, on Edgewood Avenue behind the Walgreens pharmacy.
