Scott Maddux grew up in Baxter, Tennessee, surrounded by motorcycles. Both his father and grandfather rode bikes, and he had a great uncle who had a shop in Middle Tennessee. Harley-Davidson bikes were an integral part of Scott’s upbringing, so much that when he was old enough to buy his first motorcycle, he bought a 1974 FLH.
“When I got that bike, it changed the way I looked at Harleys,” he says. “I’d been turned on by the thrill and speed of bikes, but then I connected to the lineage of Harley-Davidsons, to that heritage. That started a new path for me.”
It was in the late-90s while driving a new bike back from Chattanooga to Baxter when Scott first considered running a Harley dealership. He pulled together an executive summary about reopening a shop in Cookeville and sent it to the corporate offices at Harley-Davidson. He quickly learned that you don’t buy a Harley dealership. You apply for one. Undeterred, he turned the experience into a learning opportunity and kept in touch with the folks he interacted with. He knew those connections would come in handy down the road. So, Scott made a good living in the telecommunications industry, and he bided his time.
“Lo and behold, an opportunity came up. They were going to open a new target market in northern Kentucky. My hopes were that if I could just get involved and make a good impression, that would be good for me,” he says. “My wife and I had just started a family, and we didn’t really want to move, but if I came in second or third, that could be good for me.”
Scott returned to his alma mater, Tennessee Tech, to help him form a business plan.
“I put together a great presentation and leveraged all those resources,” he says. “We were well over two hours into the presentation but they kept asking questions. Finally, they asked if there was anything else I wanted to add, and I said, ‘I don’t know if I’m the right person for Florence, Kentucky, but I’m the right guy for Harley’.”
The Madduxes were chosen unanimously as the right people for Harley. They moved to Kentucky and had just gotten started on the building process when word came down that a new market was starting in East Tennessee. When they asked if Scott wanted to meet them at the Knoxville airport, he jumped. Several things fell into place immediately, including the land in Maryville on Hwy 321. Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson opened in 2003, and it’s been a steady upward climb ever since.
Part of Scott’s vision for SMH-D always included a concert venue and restaurant. He wanted to create a place that everyone could enjoy, not just Harley-Davidson riders and passers-through. The Shed Smokehouse and Juke Joint, adjacent to the retail shop, grew from a modest stage space to a 16,000-square-foot capacity with room for 2000 concert-goers. (Read more about The Shed here.) The concert season typically kicks off in April, but now the first concert is slated for June 5.
“We really have something for everyone,” says Scott. “We have the Riding Academy New Rider Course, where you don’t even have to own a motorcycle to take it. We have a restaurant facility that’s open seven days a week. We smoke all of our meat here. We pride ourselves on having some of the best BBQ in the South. We have a project called Project RideMore, where we take people on Tuesdays and Saturdays on rides throughout our region. The more you discover the places around you, it makes riding more fun.”
Today, the award-winning Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson Family of Dealerships has grown to include three more sales and service stores (Rocky Top Harley-Davidson in Pigeon Forge, Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson in Kodak, and Wildcat Harley-Davidson in London, Kentucky), as well as three retail stores (Hillbilly Harley-Davidson in Gatlinburg, U.S. 129 Dragon Harley-Davidson, and Cherohala Skyway Harley-Davidson in Tellico Plains). A new retail shop in Bryson City, North Carolina, just opened in September 2019 but temporarily closed in March amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
In fact, spring usually kicks off the busy season for riders, especially for those headed to the Foothills Parkway, the Dragon, and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Unable to open, Scott used March and April to do a little remodeling, rearrange the retail stores to allow for improved social distancing, and prep each property for riders and buyers to return.
“This is our prime time. May is one of our bigger months. June is one of our bigger months. We’ve never closed down more than two days, maybe. The situation couldn’t have hit us at a worse time,” he said. “March is when we get our legs back with the concert and riding season. When we made the decision to close our doors on March 23, that was ahead of the state and local municipalities. In hindsight, maybe we shouldn’t have, but it was unknown. We have more than 300 employees, and my biggest concern was knowing how much tourism is in our business, and my thought was that if it’s as deadly and communicable as it’s being portrayed, then let’s hit pause.”
Retail operations and Project RideMore events resumed on May 1. For more information about SMH-D or upcoming shows at The Shed, visit SMH-D.com.