Month: May 2007

As I was wandering Beale yesterday afternoon, I took a look down Third Street and noticed that a new Starbucks is going into the ground floor of the Westin Hotel. It’s not open yet, but it looks like it’s not that far away.

If anyone has info on the opening date, let me know. I hope this store keeps regular Starbucks hours (staying open until 10 or 11 at night) and not “downtown” hours (closing at 2 or 3 in the afternoon). It’ll be nice to have a Starbucks in Downtown Memphis that isn’t in the middle of a mall.

It happens every year on Music Fest weekend: Evangelical Jesus-freaks from all over the country descend on Beale Street carrying enormous signs, handing out pamphlets and telling the crowd they’re all going to hell. One particularly spirited man got on a megaphone and explained that you know the world’s coming to an end when you start seeing men wearing necklaces, and that good fathers and mothers would never let liquor or wine touch their lips. I saw one sign that read, “Ask me why you deserve Hell.” I didn’t ask.

I’ve posted pics of their signs from previous Music Fest weekends, and they generally don’t change year to year, so just refer to last year’s archives if you want to see them. I did see this one new sign though:

I think the sign shown above is a pretty accurate illustration of the amount of sense these people make.

Wish there was a way to embed polls within a blog. My question would be, who is the most annoying group during Music Fest?
a) the Jesus freaks who take over Beale
b) our local bums/panhandlers/vagrants
c) the “Need tickets! Sir, you got tickets to buy or sell?” guys
d) drunk frat boys who scream “woooooooooooo!”

It’s hard to pick an answer other than “all of the above.”

LoLo’s Table, the friendly neighborhood restaurant/bar right around the corner from my apartment building (it’s on Monroe between Main and Second) is serving a special Mother’s Day brunch next Sunday, May 13 from 11 AM to 8 PM. The menu is shown above (click the image to see it in a larger size). The brunch is $45 per person and the best time to get there is between 11 and 1, when they’ll also be serving eggs benedict, strata, and lobster hash in addition to the rest of the menu. It’s going to be busy, so you better make reservations soon.

Or you could spend the $45 to buy your girlfriend a tube top and just send mom a card instead. She’ll understand.

Just walked down the street past LoLo’s entrance and I stopped to look at their regular menu posted on the door… they have a $10 filet on the lunch menu! Nice!

I’m typing this from Bon Ton Cafe, a block farther down Monroe. Love their free wireless… think I may have to upgrade Bon Ton to branch office status. The Monroe Avenue branch office.

Great morning so far… got up early, got some work done on my next online store. When I got the idea for this particular store, it started out as a joke, but after I did a little research I began to realize that it could actually generate a LOT of sales if I do it right. I’ll roll it out toward the end of this month… as I said before, the theme for this store is a particular place. A wonderful, wonderful place. Longtime readers of my blog should be able to figure this one out pretty quickly.

Later in the morning I rode down to the Memphis Farmers Market on my bike, and snapped a few pics. I haven’t pulled them off the camera yet, so they’ll have to wait for the next post.

After I get done here, I’ll probably go have a beer with my waitresses, then spend the rest of the day wandering the streets. I don’t go in Music Fest – I actually got offered free tickets to blog the event and turned them down – because I have a lot more fun outside the festival.

Tomorrow I’ll probably skip brunch and sleep in a little later than usual, then wander the streets some more. Music Fest weekend: you never know what’s going to happen.

I’ll be around, and so will my camera. If I see anything interesting I’ll snap it and post it.

Here are a few pics from Wednesday night’s Mpact After Hours at the Orpheum:

Thanks to Chris Allen of Mpact for providing the pics. I took some with my camera too, but his turned out much better. Holy crap he even managed to get a decent picture of me! That almost never happens. By the way, the guy sitting to my right is named Sridhar and he’s a good person to know if you do web development in ASP.NET or PHP – he has positions available NOW. If you want to meet him shoot me an e-mail and I’ll do the introductions.

I titled this post “Mpact Memphis the way it used to be” because it reminded me of the events I attended during Mpact’s golden era from 2002-2004. Members got to socialize and network, got connected to a key element of the community (the Orpheum in this case) and we got to do something most people never get a chance to (sit on the Orpheum’s stage). Everyone got a free pass to one of the Orpheum’s summer movies, and several people won nice door prizes. Pat Halloran gave a presentation to encourage those in the 21-40 age group to get involved in the arts – if not the shows at the Orpheum, then the ballet, the symphony, or one of the other arts organizations around town.

I also noticed that a few of the old-schoolers from Mpact’s golden era are starting to make their way back in. That’s a good sign.

Mpact’s next After Hours will be Tuesday, May 22 at the Flying Saucer… needless to say, I will be there. It will be an NBA lottery draft watch party and will be covered by the local media. Members of the Grizzlies’ dance team and mascot Grizz will be there. There will be Grizzlies-related door prizes to win. And best of all, there will be waitresses in miniskirts serving beer. Here’s the flyer (click for a larger image):

That happens to be Tuesday Trivia Bowl at the Saucer as well. Rapscallions: I’ll need to hand off the team captain role/power of the pen to someone else that night. I’ll be hanging out with Mpact most of the time but will keep an eye on the trivia questions and will run over if I know the answer. I have a feeling several members of our team may be hanging out with Mpact that night, so Clay’s team might actually have a chance of beating us, especially if they ask a lot of questions related to Clay’s area of expertise (boy bands of the late 1990s).

Anyway, back to Mpact. They have a lot of other stuff going on this month too:

• They’re forming a 5K run team, to allow members to connect with Memphis’ running community through Mpact;
• They’ll be recruiting people to participate in Nexus on the 15th – you’ll be able to get a professional mentor to help guide your career;
• Their group that focuses on nonprofits will take a tour of the Oral School for the Deaf on the 16th;
• If you’re not sure what Mpact is all about, there’s an “Mpact 101” at Dish on the 17th.

And that’s just a sample of the calendar. Check out MpactMemphis.org for complete event listings. If you like what you see and decide you want to become a member, you can join online.

Every month, the Center City Commission’s “Inside Downtown” program hosts businesspeople, homeowners, and other people with a stake in Downtown Memphis, taking them on a tour of a notable building or area. This month’s meeting happened this past Thursday, May 3, and was a tour of the “New Main” block between Union and Gayoso. Once the most blighted block of the Main Street Mall, it now is home to apartments, condos, Sauces restaurant, Wang’s China Bistro, a dental office, and an eye doctor. The block now serves as a model for the redevelopment of the rest of Main Street. Here are a few pics from the event:

CCC president Jeff Sanford gives a presentation about New Main at Wang’s China Bistro. Wang’s was nice enough to host the event and provide a buffet for guests.

The audience listens to Jeff’s presentation at Wang’s before heading out on a self-guided tour of the block.

I want to make special note of See Main Street, the optometry clinic located on the New Main block. I don’t wear glasses or contacts myself, but several of my friends have gone there and have heaped praise upon the place – they’ve even told me, “Paul, you need to mention it in your blog.” So I went in and talked to them – they told me their 3 doctors see patients Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and do glasses and contact fittings Tuesday and Thursday. You can check out their website for more info.

This is a pic of one of the units at the One One O’Six Lofts, a condo development across the street from See Main Street. The first units have just recently been completed and the first tenants have moved in.

Another pic of the One One O’Six unit. There are 18 units in the building and some are still available; here’s a flyer with more information.

I also toured the Main Street Flats and Cornerstone Apartments, but I was walking through occupied apartments – people’s homes – and it didn’t feel right to take pictures to post on a public blog. They are some of the nicest apartment units I’ve seen downtown though. They’re 100% occupied but they said a couple of units will come available in June – if interested check their website for more info. If you’re serious about wanting to live there, you better call them NOW and leave a message… if you wait until Monday they may be gone.

I also stopped in Main Street Dental, and they were super-friendly. They gave me a tour of the office… they use technology to make the experience as painless and as little like a dental office as possible. They told me that the dental chairs massage you as you sit in them, for example, and their X-rays are digital and emit only a quarter of the rays that a traditional dental X-ray would. By the time I got back to the front, it was pouring rain, and they gave me a plastic dental chair cover to use as a poncho. Nice people. Here’s a link to an MBJ article about Main Street Dental.

Thanks to Jeff, Nicole and all the folks at the CCC, and the businesses on New Main, for a great tour.

While searching the Web, trying to find out exactly what time Lord T and Eloise will perform at Handy Park Saturday night, I came across this site – MemphisRap.com. Looks like a good site to check out if you’re into the local rap scene.

By the way, if anyone knows when Lord T and Eloise will be on stage, let me know. Looking forward to hearing them.

– BREAKING NEWS: King Willie has accepted the resignations of MLGW chief Joseph Lee and counsel Odell Horton. Herenton refused Lee’s resignation last month but said he’s now come to a “different point of view” (translation: Willie is trailing badly in the polls).

– Before we get started, here’s a Deal for you: Creative Labs has a 1 GB Zen Stone MP3 player on sale for $39.99. It’s comparable to the iPod Shuffle 1 GB (which sells for about twice as much) in that it holds approximately 250 songs. I’m assuming that, like the Shuffle, it can play the songs in either the order in which you load them, or in random order. Click the image below to get to the Deal.

– Did you know that there’s a radio station that plays nothing but Memphis music? I didn’t, until I read an article on the Memphis Business Journal’s website this morning. It’s an online station called AllMemphisMusic.com and it’s been broadcasting over the Internet since last August. This spring they’re partnering with the Memphis Convention & Visitors Bureau to promote Memphis in May and the 50th anniversary of soul.

– This morning’s Daily News had an article about Downtown Memphis, art, and Broken Windows theory. The theory claims that eliminating the small problems in a neighborhood – such as a broken window – eliminate larger problems like robbery, gang activity, etc. According to Broken Windows, would-be criminals see the small signs, like broken windows, as indicators that criminal activity will be tolerated in the area.

According to the article, Lauren Kennedy, a Rhodes student, plans to use art to apply a version of Broken Windows to Downtown Memphis. She counted 25 vacant storefronts between Adams and Union, and intends to work with local artists to put art in those storefronts, providing a little “window dressing” for the area.

Now that’s cool. It really shows how one person with an idea can make a difference – even a college student with no stakeholdings in Downtown business. Congratulations to Ms. Kennedy for thinking outside of the box, and I hope it inspires others. Once the artwork is in the storefronts I’ll try to snap some pics and post ’em.

– Wow, TONS of news about Downtown in the local media today. The CA has an article about the Humes Room downstairs at the Superior Bar on Beale, full of memorabilia from the old Humes High School that closed in the 1970s, including photos of its most famous alumnus, Elvis. Sounds like the room is not open to the public, although they let one tour company book tours there, and occasionally they’ll take select groips down there.

– Last night I took the laptop to Dan McGuinness Pub (aka the Peabody Place branch office) and got a lot of work done on my upcoming websites. That’s a really good place to take a laptop – I love the Saucer but I’m a lot more productive at McGuinness. Think I may get in the habit of hanging out at the Saucer with the early-evening crowd, then when they leave around 7:30-8:00 I’ll walk across the street to McG and fire up the computer and work until the battery dies.

– Rusty Lemon plays the Peabody rooftop tonight from 6 to 10. $5 cover, free before 8 for ladies. According to the Weather Channel there’s a 60% chance of scattered thunderstorms this evening, and if that’s the case it will move inside. Undecided whether I’ll do that party, the one at EP’s, or neither. For the after-rooftop crowd, Snozberry will play the Flying Saucer starting at 9:30.

The Memphis Flyer has written a story about my new online store the Tube Top Boutique. Check it out here. Wow, they put it under “Business Buzz”… makes me feel like I should have a suit and tie on.

In the article they refer to me as a “Flying Saucer uber-patron” and a “tube-top fetishest, er, enthusiast.” Yeah, I suppose both of those are true. Although, it may surprise you to learn I’m not typing this at the Saucer… I’m across the street at the Peabody Place branch office, where it’s quieter. I have three more websites in the works and I want to get started on them.

The Mpact event at the Orpheum tonight was outstanding. They had food from McGuinness, Sawaddii, Another Roadside Attraction, and Central BBQ, and Pat Halloran gave a presentation about the Orpheum. Then they drew for door prizes… I didn’t win anything, but The Nuh-Uh Girl won a movie party for 10.

The Nuh-Uh Girl got some good Downtown gossip too… Cielo is in the process of renaming itself The Molly Fontaine House and plans on converting to more of a lounge atmosphere, with more musical acts during the week, and smaller-portion dishes. Cool. That’s a great place. The only drawback is, it’s too far for me to walk… I guess I could ride my bike there, but it kind of seems odd to ride up to an elegant restaurant like Cielo on a bike.

Didn’t make it to Pearl’s Oyster House tonight, so no more pics to post. I’ll try to get there sometime in the next week and will have a full report for you then.

Time to work until the laptop’s battery runs out… see you later.

Earlier this week I posted that Pearl’s Oyster House opens tonight. I have since found out that they’re having a private party tonight, and will open to the public tomorrow.

Luckily, friends of mine have reservations for a table of 10, so I’ll still be able to get in there and take pictures. I’ll probably hit the Mpact After Hours at the Orpheum at 6 and then walk down there a little later in the evening.

I forgot to mention that Pearl’s plans on having a lunch buffet as well… that means that there most likely won’t be a lunchtime post one day next week.