PINSPOTTING JULY 2026

By M.G. Brown

Address: 496 Ellis Ave., Maryville, TN 37804
Website: thearmorymaryville.com
Phone: +1 (816) 665-8393
Hours: (USA Eastern): Mon-Thu 11am-11pm; Fri & Sat 11am-midnight; Sun 10am-midnight

Please check Pinball Map for the current game line-up.

We recently visited The Armory in Maryville, TN (USA) during their opening weekend. This new-from-the-ground-up multi-entertainment complex on the site of the former Maryville TN National Guard Armory has been in the works since 2023.

You are forgiven if you are unfamiliar with Maryville, TN; Maryville is a quiet community that traces its roots to the late 1700s when it was the site of territorial Fort Craig. The fort was built around 1785 by John Craig to protect early European settlers from Cherokee attacks. Initially, the town of Maryville proper spanned only 50 acres. Maryville College was established in 1819 as the Southern and Western Theological Seminary. Now, Maryville College is a 263 acre private 4-year liberal arts college with around 1,200 students year-round. The campus beautifully combines 19th and 21st century architecture and has a surprising expanse of well groomed athletic fields. 

Maryville has served as a ‘bedroom community’ for workers at the nearby Alcoa aluminum manufacturing plant since its founding as the Pittsburgh Reduction Company in 1888. There was a dedicated railroad to shuttle employees from Maryville to the Alcoa plant, the depot of which currently serves as a showcase for local artists. More recently, DENSO electronics of Japan has become Maryville’s largest employer with roughly 4,000 full-time employees and an unspecified number of contractors.

We noticed that Maryville is very much on the grow with many new condo and single family home projects in progress. Maryville has become an entertainment destination for visitors to the nearby TN Smoky Mountains and is only a short drive from nearby Knoxville. Other entertainment in downtown Maryville includes Brackins Blues Club, The Shed Sports Bar and Peaceful Side Brewery to name but a few.

The Armory is a project of the Gemini Hospitality and Advisory Group, founded by partners Jim Sounders and Jimmy Loup. Gemini Hospitality owns and operates a growing portfolio of East Tennessee concepts, including the highly acclaimed Bella restaurant and cocktail bar, as well as the Raven Steakhouse. Cory Giaquinta is the Chef for The Armory. Giaquinta has over 30 years experience in the food and beverage industry.

The Armory is 27,000-square-foot in total, which includes a 4,500 square foot rooftop deck and 1,000 square foot patio. The intent was to give Maryville visitors, residents and students at the nearby college a next-level entertainment venue built for play, competition, and connection. 

Featuring a curated bar with ice-cold 32°F draft beer, immersive digital games, and reimagined classics, The Armory space brings together mini-duckpin bowling, digital darts, a 9-hole putting course, shuffleboard, skeet shooting, bocce, yard games, and cutting-edge VR experiences powered by ValoArena — all under one roof.

Until the opening of The Armory on July 20th, 2026, similar entertainment required a drive or ride share to nearby Knoxville.

We were grateful on our arrival to see that The Armory has a very large free paved parking lot that should easily accommodate their expected weekend crowds.

On coming through the main entryway, you will be asked to show proof that you have signed and submitted a waiver via their online app or to sign a physical waver before you will be admitted to the facility. This is a one-time process that establishes a user ID for visitors or you can show the waver acceptance on your phone.

Once that is settled, a visitor must decide if they first want to play or dine. A host at the front desk can help visitors with whatever it is that they decide on.

We strolled around The Armory a bit before deciding what we were going to do and took note of the spacious sports bar area with many big screen TVs and lots of table as well as bar seating.

Nearby the sports bar are the mini-duckpin bowling lanes. The original plan was to have full-size ten pin lanes, but with the surging popularity of duckpin and mini-duckpin, it was decided to offer twelve of Brunswick’s Duckpin Social lanes which take up about one third of the lane space of conventional bowling; 16 feet of lane versus 62 feet for a regulation lane. The Duckpin Social pinsetters and scoring mechanisms are simple and do not require much attention, Brunswick’s Duckpin Social offers a selection of novelty games in addition to the classic ten-frame three-ball per frame Duckpin. 

Players can request lanes at the front desk and the lanes are rented by the hour. Up to six people can play on any one lane. Special 5” duckpin balls are provided and no special shoes or other equipment are required to play. If you are unfamiliar with the features of Brunswick’s Duckpin Social lanes, they have a good description on Brunswick’s website.

The Armory has a virtual reality gaming experience – which seemed to be very popular with the pre-teens in attendance – called the ValoArena. There is a keypad at the entrance where you can enter in player information and select your game. It seemed to me to be similar in many ways to the immersive ‘Holodeck’ featured on TV’s Star Trek:The Next Generation show.

The remainder of the first floor has artificial turf bocce courts, bag toss, electronic darts, skeet shooting, and of course pinball, which we will discuss later in this article.

A hostess directed us to take the elevator to the second level where the Lucky Putt mini-golf is located.

One of the ‘holes’ starts off with your golf ball inside a PinGolf game and when you ‘drain’ the ball, it rolls out of the pinball onto the mini-golf course. Each mini-golf hole has its own theme and they are decorated with colorful lights and graphics. Putters and balls to play mini-golf are available at the reception desk.

The second level has its own bar which is about half the size of the bar on the first level. A unique Moonshine tasting bar can be found near the second floor bar.

There is also a comfortable outdoor patio with relaxing chairs, with each grouping of chairs having a dedicated fire pit.

Both locations allow the option of ordering food or beverage via a QR code enabled app, or if you prefer the personal touch, The Armory is very well staffed with human servers.

After scoping out all of the games, we decided to return to the first floor bar and order some refreshments.

The Armory is still in the process of curating their beers on tap but when we visited they had about a half dozen brews on tap from the local Peaceful Side Micro Brewery. The Armory also offers bottled beers, wine and handmade cocktails such as The Dante’s Inferno which is made with pineapple juice, ghost pepper tequila and triple sec. A number of mocktails (non-alcoholic) and the Moonshine Bar are also available for visitor enjoyment.

The menu at The Armory is a work-in-progress, but currently can be broken down into categories of ‘shareables’ (small plates), chicken wings (boneless, bone-in and grilled with a choice of sauces), Tex-Mex (southwestern-style entrees), sides, salads, pizza, ‘handhelds’ (sandwiches), and the all-important desserts. There is a kids menu for those with lighter appetites. The current dining menu and drink selections can be found on the website noted at the beginning of this review.

The Armory has a private party room and arrangements can be made by contacting them to host an event of any scope including renting the entire facility and catering. Outside food and drink is not permitted.

As previously mentioned, we visited shortly after The Armory’s soft opening VIP night. About a third of the expected pinball games were in place and ready for play at the time of our visit. The pinballs were all popular Stern titles and brand-spanking new. The games played immaculately with no issues.

In addition to quarter slots and dollar bill acceptors, the pinballs have a ‘pay with your phone’ QR code and the games are numbered to easily report any issues. The on-staff techs were very responsive and helpful.

When fully stocked, The Armory will have twenty or so pinball machines available for play. At the current time they only plan to offer current games and no decision has been made on hosting tournaments or other competitive pinball events.

The techs are very good about updating the game lists on the Pinball Map, so keep an eye on that site as The Armory adds games and possibly rotates in different titles.

We enjoyed our all-too-brief visit to The Armory of Maryville. Here’s hoping that their estimated investment of 10 million US dollars will be popular and appreciated by both locals and area visitors. If your travel plans include a visit to the Tennessee Smoky Mountains, please put a visit to The Armory on your agenda for top-level play and refreshments.

Some photos and VR representations are supplied by The Armory of Maryville and used here with permission.