‘We made a mistake;’ Kern’s Food Hall explains how parking will work

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE) — On Thursday, Kern’s Food Hall announced it was rolling back its decisions to make parking paid for guests who stay longer than two hours, with one managing partner telling telling 6 News the food hall they made a mistake.

The parking fees were announced on August 29, but a Kern’s spokesperson confirmed to 6 News on Thursday that they decided to suspend the plan for parking fees .

“We implemented [it] about eight days ago and we realized we made a mistake. It was done very quickly to, what we thought was going to, help the traffic and help parking for the customers to be able to have a better experience.” Alex Dominguez, managing partner for Kern’s Bakery said. “We didn’t communicate right and we did not get it out fast enough correctly. So we’re actually pulling that back and it’s going to be free parking for anybody that comes to Kern’s.”

Dominguez explained that instead of paid parking, there will be a validation process for Kern’s customers. Parking fees and validation will still be managed by the parking management vendor Metropolis, which uses a license plate reader.

When customers who have already set up an account with Metropolis visit Kern’s, they’ll get a text and then scan a QR code once they make a purchase, and their parking ticket will be validated. After that, they are welcome to stay as long as they like with free parking.

For those using the service for the first time, Dominguez explained that they will need to scan a QR code to sign up for the service, link their license plate, and then follow the same steps as those who already have an account.

He explained that Kern’s has already been working with Metropolis over the last 48 hours, and they have an agreement to suspend all parking charges until the QR codes are printed and in place.

Dominguez also explained that the parking fees were implemented because they were concerned about parking becoming full during Tennessee football games, leaving customers who wanted to visit the food hall with nowhere to park. He also shared that the system wasn’t communicated correctly, and customers were surprised.

“With the UT games and the amount of people that can come into town at one moment, [it] was a little scary to make sure we didn’t have [a] situation where the vendors were being hurt because we want the vendors to be successful and we want everybody to have a great experience when they come to Kerns. So showing up and not having any place to park would have been bad,” Dominguez said. “We want to positively impact the community around us, and if you’ve lost that trust because of something related to parking and nobody likes it, then we got to address it.”

When the parking fees were initially announced, Kern’s Food Hall shared that parking fees would be higher on game days. While it was not directly stated on Thursday, it seems that those who park at Kern’s and do not make a purchase may still be subject to parking fees through Metropolis.

After years of construction, Kern’s Food Hall opened in April. Since then, the area has been experiencing increased traffic, prompting the City of Knoxville to work on creating new crosswalks and traffic lights at the intersection of Fort Avenue and Chapman Highway.

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