We stayed at The Read House for three nights this June, Kate, Charlie and me, and I drove back by myself on October 1 to shoot the hotel for its holiday season before a show down the road in Ringgold. Chattanooga is one of those towns that is three hours from everywhere, which is exactly why it works. You can get a 1926 lobby, a cave, a train car and an aquarium into one weekend without ever feeling rushed.
The Read House hosted our June stay and paid me to make the holiday video, and Chattanooga Tourism Co. helped line up the June trip. Everything below is what I'd tell you anyway.
Landon Bryant
@LandonTalks
01
The Read House
There has been a hotel on this corner since 1847, when it was the Crutchfield House. It burned in 1867, John T. Read put up the Read House on the same ground in 1872, and the building you walk into now went up in 1925 and 1926, ten stories, fashioned after the Palmer House in Chicago, two and a half million dollars, rooms from two dollars and fifty cents. They never closed a single day during the switch. It has been on the National Register since 1976, every governor of Tennessee since 1872 has stayed here, and the hotel calls itself the longest continually operating hotel in the Southeast. Nobody has argued.
The guest list is the fun part. Winston Churchill stayed in 1932 on a lecture tour and slammed a door on a reporter. Elvis checked in under a fake name in 1977. Coca-Cola was first sold in Chattanooga at the Read House drug store in 1904. Avocet Hospitality bought the place in 2016 and finished a twenty five million dollar renovation in 2018 that leaned all the way into the Roaring Twenties, which is why the lobby looks the way it does: dark paneling two stories tall, a black and white checkerboard floor, and a chandelier in the middle you will take a picture of whether you meant to or not. There are 241 rooms. The one I shot in October had a tufted silver headboard and a velvet bench at the foot of the bed, and the bathroom floor was black and white tile to match the lobby.
Bridgeman's Chophouse
In the hotel · 5 to 10 nightly · Resy
Named for Peter "Rabbit" Bridgeman, who worked at the Read House for forty seven years. USDA Prime beef, an eight ounce filet at $57, a sixteen ounce ribeye at $71, and the 2026 Times Free Press pick for best steakhouse in town. It is the steakhouse I was still thinking about on the drive home in June. This October I got a drink and an appetizer in at five o'clock before a 7:30 show. No dress code, but people dress. Cards only starting October 8.
Bar & Billiards Room
Off the lobby · Flapper Hour daily 3 to 6
The lobby bar with a speakeasy billiards room behind it. Flapper Hour runs every day from three to six, four dollar domestics, eight dollar house wines and wells. The Read House Old Fashioned is $17 and made with the hotel's own Woodford Reserve Read House Edition. There is a cocktail called The Death of Annalisa for $15, and if you do not know who that is yet, keep reading. Best bar and best place to play pool in the 2026 Times Free Press awards.
Room 311
The legend · Free tours on request · Bookable in October only
The story goes that a young woman named Annalisa Netherly was killed in the bathtub of Room 311 in 1927 by a jealous lover, and that she never checked out. The hotel is careful to call it a legend and makes no claims about ghosts, and then restored the room to its 1920s self anyway: clawfoot tub, AM radio, a real metal key. Anybody can ask for a tour at the desk. You can only sleep in it on select nights in October, by phone, and the package comes with a decanter of bathtub gin, two Annalisa cocktails, a hundred dollars at Bridgeman's, two ghost tour tickets and a $25 Starbucks card they will give you "should you make it until morning." We did not stay in it. Charlie was twelve and I am a coward.
The rest of the building: an indoor heated pool open six in the morning to eleven at night, a fitness center with a Peloton, a Starbucks in the lobby from seven to six, Monkee's of Chattanooga (a women's boutique on the lobby level, open until seven most days), and FLX Massage Therapy less than a block away, which does a ninety minute Read House Signature for $185. Valet is the only parking, about $28 to $30 a night plus tax. Check in is 3:00, check out is 11:00, and if you book direct you get first dibs on a free noon checkout. Dogs are welcome for a fee.
Chattanooga is on Eastern time
If you are coming from Mississippi, Alabama or Nashville, you lose an hour the second you cross the line. Your phone will fix itself. Your dinner reservation will not.
02
The Holidays at the Read House
This is the part I came back for. Come the holidays the hotel turns that lobby into a winter wonderland, trees and lights and the whole business, and from the Friday after Thanksgiving through New Year's it runs a calendar of things that are built for kids and the people who brought them. None of it was up yet when I was there on October 1, so here is the calendar straight from the hotel, and I'll be back with the video when the trees are.
Holiday Jubilee
Friday, November 27 · 4 to 7 PM · Free, no tickets
Live entertainment in the hotel, complimentary hot chocolate, cider and cookie stations, and pictures with Santa and Mrs. Claus. Bring your own camera; they mean it. The Elf Workshop runs the same evening, four to seven in the Green Room, $17 plus tax per kid for a bag of holiday craft kits, tickets at the front desk, and a parent has to stay in the room.
The Elf Tuck-In
Night of November 27 only · Call (423) 266-4121 to book
The one I'd book first. The package covers the Elf Workshop craft kit, then a bedtime story and a tuck-in by one of Santa's elves in your room, in a thirty minute slot between 8:00 and 10:30, plus a stocking for each child with candy and a small teddy bear. It covers two children; extra kids are $32 each. It only exists on the one night, it is limited, and you have to call.
Breakfast with Santa
Saturday, November 28 and Saturday, December 5 · 9 to 10:30 AM · Silver Ballroom
One seating, a full breakfast spread, and Santa and Mrs. Claus working the room for photos. Adults $37 plus tax and tip, children ten and under $27, babies one and under free. Tickets are on Eventbrite through the hotel's holiday page. The Silver Ballroom is the white room with the floor to ceiling mirrors and the plaster ceilings you will see in my video; it is the prettiest room in the building and this is the easiest way into it.
Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's at Bridgeman's
Nov 26 · Dec 24 and 25 · Dec 31 · Resy
The full menu with holiday features on each of those nights. If your family is the kind that would rather have a steak than do dishes, this is the move, and it books up.
New Year's Eve, Roaring Twenties style
Two packages · 21 and up for the party
The Party Package is the overnight stay plus two tickets to the hotel's Roaring 20s Party: heavy hors d'oeuvres, Gwen Hughes and the Retro Kats, an open bar, a champagne toast at midnight, a dessert and coffee bar, late night snacks, and two drink tickets for a Bloody Mary or mimosa in Bar & Billiards on New Year's Day. A $200 deposit holds it. The Getaway Package is the quieter version: the room, champagne delivered to it, and 25 percent off the night before or after.
The Hotsy-Totsy Holiday Package
Fifteen percent off the room, a $20 food and drink credit, and a plate of holiday sugar cookies, good for stays through December 29. It cannot be stacked with anything else and it has blackout dates, but if you are coming for the Jubilee weekend it is the rate to look at first.
03
Lookout Mountain
Fifteen minutes from the hotel and you are on the mountain that made Chattanooga a vacation town in the first place. Three stops, and you can do all three in a day if you start early. The whole mountain runs on Eastern time too.
Lookout Mountain Incline Railway
Round trip adults $24.99, kids 3 to 12 $12.99 · Trains every 20 minutes
Running since November of 1895, and the top of the track hits a 72.7 percent grade, which you will feel in your stomach. About ten minutes each way, 42 people to a car, a pizza place and a bar at the top station. Park at the bottom station in St. Elmo for three dollars. Closed Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, and the last car leaves forty minutes before close.
Ruby Falls
Adults $29.95, kids 4 to 12 $19.95 · Timed tickets, online only
A glass elevator drops you 260 feet into a cave, then it is about a mile round trip, 36 stairs, and roughly eighty minutes to the tallest underground waterfall open to the public in the country. It is sixty degrees down there every day of the year, so bring a layer in summer and skip the coat in winter. Leo Lambert found it in 1928 and named it for his wife. Open daily except Christmas, and they do not sell walk-up tickets, so buy the night before. Holidays at Ruby Falls runs November 27 through December 24 with Santa, lights on the plaza and a fire going in the castle.
Rock City and the Enchanted Garden of Lights
Window price adults $43 to $45, kids $33 to $35, cheaper online · It is in Georgia
The See Rock City barns were telling the truth. From November 13 through December 31 the gardens become the Enchanted Garden of Lights, nightly from four to 10:30, closed Christmas Eve, thirty two years running, adults $31 to $49 and kids three to twelve $21 to $39 depending on the night, online only, with Santa there every night through December 23. Daytime hours in the holiday stretch are ten to four. Tickets are dynamic, so the weeknight you book ahead is the cheap one.
04
Downtown on Foot
Leave the car with the valet. A free electric shuttle has run the length of downtown since 1992, from the Chattanooga Choo Choo to the Tennessee Aquarium with a stop every block, every fifteen minutes or so, and the Read House is on the route. It takes the day off on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's.
Tennessee Aquarium
Adults $39.95, ages 4 to 17 $29.95, under 4 free · About a mile from the hotel
Two buildings, river and ocean, and the ticket covers both. Open ten to seven as I write this, with the last entry at five. The IMAX next door is an add-on. There is a combo ticket with Rock City if you are doing both, and you should be.
Walnut Street Bridge
Free · Reopens October 3, 2026
Built in 1890, 2,376 feet long, closed to cars since 1978 and a pedestrian park since 1993, which makes it one of the longest walking bridges in the world. It has been closed for a forty seven million dollar renovation since March of 2025 and reopens the first Saturday in October, so by the time the lights are up at the Read House you can walk it over to the North Shore again.
Coolidge Park Carousel
$1 a ride · 11 to 7 daily
An 1894 Dentzel carousel with 52 hand carved animals that took twelve years to restore, across the river at the end of the bridge. A dollar a ride, and kids under two ride free with a paying grown-up. The cheapest good time in Tennessee.
Hunter Museum of American Art
Adults $20 · 17 and under free · Closed Tuesdays
A mansion on the bluff over the river with a modern wing bolted on, and the view alone is worth the twenty dollars. Kids and teens are free, Thursday nights run until eight, and the parking lot is free if you register your plate inside.
Chattanooga Market
Sundays through November 22 · Holiday Market December 12 and 13, 19 and 20
The Sunday market at the First Horizon Pavilion runs through a Thanksgiving Market on November 21 and 22, then moves to the Convention Center for the Holiday Market, two weekends in December with more than two hundred vendors. Free to walk in. The Convention Center is a five minute walk from the hotel.
05
The Choo Choo and the Hotel Chalet
A fifteen minute walk down Market Street, or the last stop on the free shuttle, is Terminal Station. The first train pulled in on December 1, 1909, the last one left on August 11, 1970, and a local businessman, B. Allen Casey, and his partners saved the building from the wrecking ball in 1973. Today the campus is free to wander and it has a little of everything: Frothy Monkey for coffee, Gate 11 Distillery, Songbirds, Westbound, and The Comedy Catch, the comedy club in town.
The Hotel Chalet at the Chattanooga Choo Choo
92 Choo Choo Ave · Restored Pullman train cars and chalet rooms · Michelin One Key
The other place I'd send you. You can sleep in a restored Pullman sleeper, 300 square feet, a private entrance and heated bathroom floors, or in the MacArthur Suite, which is a whole passenger car with its own 700 square foot deck by the pool. The chalet rooms are the regular option. The heated pool is open year round, seven to ten, and the restaurant, Elsie's Daughter, is an Appalachian bistro with weekend brunch from ten to three and two happy hours on weekdays, three to six and nine to eleven. There is a bar in the original caboose with a fire pit. Check in is 3:00, check out is noon, and parking is on site for a fee.
06
Planning the Trip
Getting there
I-75, I-24 and I-59 all meet here, which is how Chattanooga ends up within about three hours of Atlanta, Nashville, Knoxville, Birmingham and Huntsville. The airport, CHA, is about eight miles and fifteen to twenty minutes from the hotel.
Where to stay
The Read House, 107 W MLK Blvd, (423) 266-4121, for the lobby and the holidays. The Hotel Chalet at the Choo Choo for the train car. Both are on the free shuttle line.
Two nights, in order
Night one: check in, Flapper Hour, Bridgeman's. Day two: Lookout Mountain, the Incline up, Ruby Falls, Rock City after dark for the lights. Day three: the Aquarium, the bridge, the carousel, home by supper.
Holiday dates to book first
The Elf Tuck-In (November 27, by phone), Breakfast with Santa (November 28 or December 5), and a Rock City lights ticket for whichever night you are on the mountain.
The clock
Eastern time. Everything in this guide is Eastern. I cannot say it enough.
