What do burgers, a baggage station, and the year 1870 have in common? Urban Stack.
Fast facts
- The Urban Stack space is the oldest building still standing in Chattanooga.
- It was built in 1870 as the Southern Railway Baggage Depot — the passenger terminal stood on the corner of Market + 13th Streets.
- By the 1920s, the terminal was too small, so a new one was built — you know it as the Chattanooga Choo Choo.
- The baggage depot became an engineering building for the railroad until 2004, when it was given to the city.
- It sat empty for several years before it was renovated as a retail shop.
- Cornerstones Inc. then acquired the building from the city for saving + renovation.
- And — 141 years after it was built — it was bought by the Monen Family Restaurant Group in 2011 to house Urban Stack.
Bonus: Southern Railway built an administration building in 1922 on the former passenger terminal site — it’s now been adaptively reused as apartments.
The style
The structure is a traditional, one-story brick building. The interior is rustic, with wooden and iron accents + exposed brick and arched doorways. The Monens also left the concrete floors and used mostly reclaimed materials from the 1800s for the décor.
TryThis
Cornerstones Inc. created a walking tour in 2019 of 25 local historic structures to celebrate 25 years of saving + preserving our city’s buildings. Urban Stack is one of them — perfect for fueling up on the tour.
DYK? Urban Stack was the first LEED Certified restaurant in Chattanooga, using nearly half the amount of energy used by non-LEED restaurants.
Poll
