Smoky Park Supper Club Repairs Storm Damage, Eyes New Restaurant Tenant

Construction crews have been working on the former Smoky Park Supper Club along Asheville's River Arts District greenway, and co-owner Kristie Quinn confirmed the work is focused on repairing damage left by Tropical Storm Helene, which sent the French Broad River to historic flood levels and devastated the surrounding neighborhood.

"The building is under construction to repair storm damage," Quinn wrote in a March 16 email. She added that despite the destruction around it, the building came through intact: "Although the area was devastated, Smoky Park Supper Club's former home stayed standing, by design."

That survival owes something to the building's unusual bones. The structure, conceived by Quinn and co-owner Matt Logan of 5 Walnut and designed by architect Myles Alexander of Form and Function Architecture, is assembled from 19 repurposed shipping containers fastened together into a three-story form. Alexander removed the bottoms of containers at the highest level to admit natural light while preserving structural integrity. The outside deck, built with cypress wood and furnished with pieces crafted by Peter White, a cousin of one of the owners, can seat roughly 150 guests; the grounds stretching to the river's edge can accommodate up to 200. The site itself was once a dumping ground wedged between the Smoky Park bridge and a railway before the owners reimagined it.

Alexander described the design intent in precise terms: "The owners wanted it to look like a shipping yard that someone had made a restaurant around, in the same way that local artists in the River Arts District have repurposed factory spaces into art studios."

The building had been sitting vacant since the Smoky Park Supper Club went defunct. Now, Quinn says the repairs may be only part of what brings the space back to life. The renovation also involves preparing for the potential arrival of an undisclosed local tenant who could return a restaurant concept to the venue. "As we all know the process is slow and involves lots of things. We are talking with some longtime local interests, and hope that continues to move forward," Quinn said.

No tenant has been named and no timeline for completion has been announced. The identity of the prospective operator remains undisclosed, and Quinn's language signals that a deal is not yet final.

The construction drew enough attention from passersby along the greenway that a reader submitted a question to the Asheville Citizen-Times asking what was happening at "that wonderful space," prompting the March 18 Q&A piece that brought Quinn's email to light. Visible work on the site, including a new deck, had been noticeable to neighbors walking the area.