Just now I walked up the Main Street Mall to Jack’s to buy my morning Mountain Dew and my Sunday paper. As I passed Court Square, there was a group of five bums, obviously already drunk, sitting on the benches near the entrance to the park, hooting and hollering and screaming and carrying on. I looked across the mall and I saw a couple eating breakfast on the patio of Sleep Inn, clearly appalled at what they were seeing. Two more people who will leave with a negative impression of Downtown. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Memphis will never have a first-class downtown until the city gets serious about cleaning up the bum/vagrant/panhandling issue. Other cities do it; why can’t we? Smart City’s blog had an excellent post on the matter a couple of weeks ago.
As I walked up the mall, I noticed the the Main Street Convenience Store on the first floor of The Renaissance Apts./99 Tower has closed. Downtowners have given the place various nicknames over the years – “Ghandi Mart,” “Haji’s Fart Mart,” etc. Never thought that place would close, but there’s butcher paper and a “For Lease” sign in the window. Guess the store was kind of redundant with Jack’s right across the street.
Friday night I stopped in the Tap Room for a beer, and Niles the bartender told me, “Paul! You’re world famous!” I asked what he meant. “Today we had people from India come in here, and they told us that they had to stop in because they read about the Tap Room on your blog!” That’s pretty cool. Hope they not only had a beer, but something to eat off King’s Palace/Tap Room’s excellent menu, which I’ll say once again is the best on Beale.
Earlier this year, a lot of people were upset when the Flying Saucer stopped selling Dos Equis Special Lager on draft. In my opinion (and a lot of people apparently agree), the Special Lager is a better beer than the more common Dos Equis Amber. Well, if you want it all you have to do is walk up the street… Rio Loco has it on draft, and keep in mind that they have Happy Hour from 2 to 10 where you can get a 25 oz. mug for $3.99.
All right… short post today because I’ve got a full plate of activities. From 11 to about 1:30 I’ll be at Sleep Out’s (don’t forget, this is bartender Kimberley’s last day, so come say goodbye), then I’ll be doing the Downtown Home Tour the rest of the afternoon. After that I’ll hit Huey’s for the last hour of Di Anne Price’s set, and all of The Dempseys’ performance. As always, plans subject to change but this looks like what I’ll be doing. Looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day.