KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Naples Italian Restaurant served its final meal to customers on Wednesday after almost 50 years in East Tennessee.
Stephanie Koch said nearly 20 years ago, one dinner at the restaurant changed her life.
"I don't think we knew what God has in store for us but I knew he was the one," she said.
Koch and her husband were high school sweethearts and went on one of their first dates at Naples.
"Many dates in the blue room, it was very romantic," Koch said.
The couple would later go to college and end up in the blue room again but this time with champagne.
"I thought it was terribly romantic when they brought out the glasses," she said.
But little did Koch know, her glass would come with more than just bubbles. It would lead her to a life long story with the man she would spend the next 17 years with.
"As I picked up the glass I could see there was something in it and it was my ring," she said.
When her husband got down on one knee and proposed, she said yes and over a decade later they still think about the place where it all began.
"Naples was very romantic it holds a lot of memories from a lot of people," she said.
But this time those memories come with a bit of sad news. Koch said learning the restaurant is no longer open was startling.
"It is sad, everybody goes there, everybody knows Naples... you don't even have to get directions, you just go to Naples," she said.
Koch said she wishes she had just one more week to go back again, to share the joy she felt there with her four children.
"I'm disappointed we wouldn't get the opportunity to show them where mommy and daddy became one," Koch said.
But she and her husband believe open or closed, the memory of the restaurant will live on. And even if you can't gather around a table at Naples, you can still bring the memory of Naples to your own table.
"Naples will always be the center of our story or the beginning of it at least," Koch said.