Chub Review of McKay's in Knoxville (new location)

McKay Used Books & CDs
230 Papermill Place Way
Knoxville, TN
865.588.0331

I had the good fortune to visit the new Knoxville location, which opened at the end of April. If Chattanooga is the working experiment, then Knoxville is the machine perfected. The structure is similar to Chattanooga, but bigger. There is room for growth here, and the aisles are not as claustrophobic. The organization is similar, but better executed. The VHS/DVD space is huge and easy to browse. More space is given to books on tape, and there seemed to be more VHS markdown tapes. Beside this area is an area for gaming equipment (Xbox etc...) and games - not sure though if it's browsing or behind-the-counter space.

The processing area, with the requisite legion of house elves, is totally closed off like Chatt. and they turned collections around quickly. I was only there for about 45min and only went to specific areas, but I can say that more space is dedicated to Fantasy/SF. Oh, and they have more shelves of RPG stuff, though not neccessarily better selection. Knoxville has more Comic graphics and trades, heavy on manga and indies, with pricing at about 1/2 price, sometimes better.

The biggest change I found was with music. The entire music collection is housed on a wide 2nd floor mezzanine that rings the entire building, accessible by stair or elevator. This made the music more browsable and the selection was way better than Chatt.

The store gets a thumbs up on general vibe. There are places to sit, and they even have shopping carts! The BR is sweeet, 2-holes and 3-urinals (i think), and I would not be afraid to sit a spell if nature called.

On the McKay website http://www.mckaybooks.com/ , they boast the Knoxville store as having more parking, but at 4pm on a weekday it was packed and I had to loop for awhile until a space opened up.

Since my time was limited on this trip, I did not get a full picture of overall selection, but it definitely warrants a pilgrimage this summer. On a ChubSquad scale of 5-monkees, I would give it a strong 4 if not all 5.

Directions:
McKays is just off I-40 on a road that parallels the interstate. Take exit 383 - Papermill Rd exit, go right, then turn right at 1st light. You'll head back west for about a mile, McKay's is on the left. To ramp back to I-40 west, take the Weisgarber Rd cross-street.