Authored By seanphippster

When The Honest Pint opened in 2010, owners thought that a smoke-filled atmosphere would fit with the Irish pub theme they were establishing. But times have changed.

Beginning July 1, The Honest Pint will transition to a nonsmoking venue.

Matt Lewis is a local businessman who owns part of The Honest Pint, Mean Mug, The Terminal Brewhouse, Hair of the Dog and Beast + Barrel. He said the upcoming change has been years in the making, but the recent success of the Big Chill’s transition to a nonsmoking establishment at their new Cherokee Boulevard location helped ease any fears he had.

“It’s one of those scenarios where you see people, talk to people, see trends and look at how we’re going to grow our business-and at some point, the scale tipped toward nonsmoking,” Lewis said. “Honestly, we talked about it before we opened, but we used Hair of the Dog as a business model.”

But unlike Hair of the Dog-which maintains a large outdoor patio-The Honest Pint is a fully enclosed space.

The location, 35 Patten Parkway, has been a smoking establishment for at least 21 years, including at the previous Parkway Billiards. But a cultural shift downtown, according to Lewis, has suggested the time to make a change is now.

“Unfortunately, these decisions are always about ‘how do we do this and upset the fewest people?'” he said. “The biggest thing that I want to get across to people is that we’re not changing our identity. In fact, we’re making sure to refocus being as true to our Irish pub identity as possible. We’re just changing one little detail about what happens when you’re here.”

Although the news may be troubling for some regulars, the change offers new customers-of all ages-the opportunity to enjoy the space. Currently, Tennessee’s Non-Smoker Protection Act bans smoking in all restaurants unless a venue restricts access to anyone under the age of 21 at all times. As a nonsmoking venue now, Lewis said families will be able to enjoy The Honest Pint.

“It’s very encouraging how much positive feedback we get on the food, so we really want to build on that business,” he said. “I hope someday it’ll change, but Chattanooga is not an adult tourism town; it’s a family tourism town. So we’ve got to adapt to that.”

Another component to the shift involves the restaurant’s position as an entertainment venue. Currently, all shows are 21-and-up only, but Lewis sees new possibilities as a nonsmoking venue.

“It’ll make it more interesting,” he said. “We thought that being a smoking venue hasn’t made much of a difference, but there are a lot of artists that don’t want to play here because of the smoke.”

Lewis understands this change may be discouraging to some of The Honest Pint’s regular customers, but he thinks the benefits outweigh the negatives.

“There’s no smoking places opening up,” he said. “Regardless of how bar-heavy they are, they’re all nonsmoking. At this point, we’ve been holding on to old ideas because we were nervous about making the change. What we hope is that, even if those folks get mad, time will heal and maybe they’ll get over it.”

Owners expect to shut down operations for a few days at the start of the month to clean the HVAC system and make small cosmetic changes.

Hair of the Dog will remain smoker-friendly, Lewis said. Pickle Barrel and Chattanooga Billiard Club are two more of the few remaining smoking establishments in the downtown footprint.