Believe it or not, there was a BBQ team assignment today that “Mr. Load-in” turned down. I know that will surprise many of you, who think of me as someone who’s always ready to jump in and get his hands dirty doing work for the team. This morning’s assignment, however, did not appeal to me in the least. They needed people to go pick up food at the nearest Piggly Wiggly, which a location search revealed to be in Olive Branch. Nope. Absolutely no interest in spending even one minute of my vacation in suburbia. I will continue to be available for team assignments at the Flying Saucer or wherever else I am needed.
Let’s get on to today’s news and then maybe we’ll come back and talk BBQ some more. The Flyer has a good article about The Wine Cellar, the downstairs room of Flight that has been renovated into banquet space. The space can fit a small party of 15 to 20 or a large party of 100, and can handle wedding ceremonies or other types of celebration. They have a large wine menu, hors d’oeuvres, and a $59 per person menu from which guests can select from one of three entrees.
norococo has an excellent post about Cafe Keough, with beautiful photos of the food, the drinks, and the space. Check it out here.
If you like to eat at Spaghetti Warehouse, check out this Groupon which will get you $20 worth of food for $12.
Jeff Johnson, owner of Local Gastropub, has teamed up with a designer and a branding expert to start a new restaurant consulting firm.
In the news: The remains of the Santa Maria may have been found. The ship sank in 1492.
The forecast for tomorrow absolutely sucks. After a week in the upper 80s, tomorrow the high will be only 67 according to the MemphisWeather.net forecast. The winds will shift to the northwest and the low will be 50. Ouch. The PBR hoodie may have to come with me to Friends & Family Night tomorrow. The weather this week does not bode well for tube top watching, which is a shame because Tube Top Month starts in 10 days and I have almost no pictures as of yet.
Yesterday I spent most of the day holding down the fort for the BBQ team at the Flying Saucer. My teammate Kao from Monclova, Mexico joined me. Between the two of us we took care of things at the Saucer. What we do for the team is so important that even the team vice-president stopped by briefly to check on us. We determined that we have more plates on the wall than any other BBQ team, a total of 37 combined. Do we get a trophy for that?
Our work wasn’t done when we left the Saucer, though. Every Monday some of the team leaders of Squeal Street BBQ go visit Melissa at Bardog for her happy hour shift. How bad would it look if the Moody Ques did not also send representation? So Kao and I headed that way. I ate a slider on behalf of the BBQ team.
We went back to the Saucer about 6, concerned that something might have come up that we needed to handle while we were away. However, things were in perfect running order, so we walked over to the Silly Goose, where our team vice-president had been hanging out all afternoon. We gave him a full report of our day’s activities.
I did have to handle one thing at the end of the day, though. I walked over to our team sponsor the Blind Bear to see if everything was in order, and discovered that there was way too much PBR in the refrigerator. “Daniel, let me help you get this under control,” I told the bartender. Thanks to my hard work I soon had the number of PBR cans down to an acceptable level. I will keep an eye on things this week and will jump in to help more if needed.
My friends at Squeal Street BBQ posted a photo of many, many cases of beer on the back of a trailer this morning, commenting that it is the most important part of load-in. Nice to see that “well, you know…” will have plenty of beer to drink as he stands at Squeal Street’s bar all day, in everyone’s way, like he did last year. The last thing you need in a 10 x 10 booth is someone who takes up a lot of space and who lacks the self-awareness to get out of the damn way. Come to think of it, that’s also the last thing you need in a 25 x 40 booth.
Right now I’m watching an isolated storm cell on the radar that just crossed into Shelby County. I am using Facebook to inform my teammates at the park of its location. Just another valuable service “Mr. Load-in” provides to the team.
I’m also watching the WWE Network some more to support the BBQ team. My teammate Nick is also on the Network and I want to be able to provide suggestions for shows for him to watch.
All right. Time to go check what the Fire Sale is so I can give the BBQ team a report. Happy Load-in Tuesday everyone!