There is a corner in Bearden that generations of Knoxville families know.

Long’s Drug Store opened at 4604 Kingston Pike in 1956. For nearly seven decades, it was part pharmacy, part lunch counter and part neighborhood gathering place — the kind of independent business where people knew one another, stopped for lunch, picked up a prescription and stayed to talk.

Brothers Nick and Alexander Braden grew up going to Long’s. They ate at the counter and knew the place as part of their neighborhood, like so many Knoxville families did. They never imagined they would one day have the opportunity to build something of their own there.

This fall, they will.

Nick and Alexander are transforming the former Long’s space into a new concept from Bradens Furniture centered on sleep, restoration and the environment we create around them.

On September 16, Knox News answered the question a lot of people driving down Kingston Pike have been asking: What’s going in at Long’s?

The answer is RestWell.

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Two Knoxville Businesses, Both Beginning in 1956

Long’s opened in 1956, when Clarence Long went into business with fellow pharmacist John Benson. The Peck family would eventually take ownership and keep it running — the pharmacy on one side, the old-fashioned soda fountain on the other — until it closed in 2024. For nearly seventy years, it did the thing a great neighborhood business does: it gave people a reason to stop.

There is a connection here that we did not plan.

Braden’s began in Knoxville in 1956, too.

For nearly seventy years, Long’s and Braden’s were two family businesses operating only a few miles apart. They sold very different things, but they shared something that is increasingly rare: they were local businesses built around relationships, trust and knowing the people they served.

Nick and Alexander grew up in that Knoxville — going to Long’s while also growing up in their family’s furniture business. Today, as the third generation of the Braden family in the business, they are building something new together.

RestWell isn’t simply another Braden’s Furniture location. It is a new concept with its own point of view, built by two brothers who believe there is a better way to think about sleep, rest and the bedroom.

That they get to build it in a place they grew up going to makes the opportunity particularly meaningful. We don’t take lightly the responsibility of becoming the next steward of a space that has meant so much to Knoxville.

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So, What Is RestWell?

RestWell began with a simple question:

What if we stopped thinking about sleep as a mattress purchase and started thinking about it as an environment?

A mattress matters enormously. But so do the materials against your body, the temperature of the room, the air you breathe, the light that reaches you, the sound around you and the routines that tell your body the day is over.

RestWell brings those pieces together.

It draws on nearly seventy years of Braden’s experience with furniture and the home, but it is being built as its own concept — a more thoughtful way to understand, experience and shop for better rest.

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Natural Materials. Traditional Craft. Quiet Science.

Those six words explain much of the thinking behind RestWell.

Natural materials because the materials closest to our bodies matter — and because materials like wool, cotton, latex, horsehair, cashmere and alpaca can offer remarkable functional properties.

Traditional craft because some of the best ways to build a bed aren’t new at all. Hand tufting, layered upholstery, thoughtful spring systems and skilled construction have survived for a reason.

Quiet science because better sleep shouldn’t require turning your bedroom into a laboratory. We want to use good research and thoughtful technology where they are useful — and then allow them to disappear into the background.

RestWell sits at the intersection of those three things.

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The Anti-Mattress Store

Alexander described RestWell to Knox News as an “anti-mattress store.” It’s a phrase that captures much of what he and Nick have set out to build together.

That doesn’t mean we’re anti-mattress. Quite the opposite. We care enough about the product to believe the traditional way of selling it can be better.

We’re working with Smee + Busby Architects here in Knoxville to create a space that deliberately feels different from conventional mattress retail.

No fluorescent grid of beds. No warehouse atmosphere. No race to cover every square foot with another mattress.

Instead, the store is being designed around discovery: distinct sleep environments, natural materials you can see and touch, places to understand construction, and enough privacy and quiet to actually experience a bed.

If we’re going to talk about rest, the store itself should feel restful.

If you want to explore the thinking behind RestWell before the doors open, much of it is already written down: the research on sleep and materials, the framework we use to compare mattresses, the brands that meet the standard, and the rest environment itself — air, light, sound and temperature.