Soup Sunday comes early this year, on January 29, at FedExForum. This is the first time I can ever remember it being in January. For those who are not familiar with this event, it is the annual fundraiser for Youth Villages, a nonprofit that helps emotionally and behaviorally troubled children live successfully. Many of Memphis’ best restaurants prepare soup and other goodies in support of Youth Villages.
Soup Sunday works like this: The restaurants have booths all along the concourse at FedExForum. You get a cup holder that can hold four cups of soup (although some people modify it to hold more than four). You can sample all the soups you want, and vote on which was your favorite. Lines can get long, so you will often find yourself eating one cup of soup as you stand in line for the next.
I will give the same advice I give every year: Get there early. The event is 11 to 2, but this is not an event where you want to show up at 12:45. The best restaurants will have run out of soup well before then. Best bet is to be standing in line outside the arena at 10:55. Once you get in, seek out the restaurants you think will have the best soup. Insider tip: Bardog Tavern is a repeat winner with their Chicken Velvet soup.
Passes are now available for sale for the International Blues Challenge, which will return to Beale Street January 31-February 4. This is your chance to hear the best blues in the world, as bands come from many countries to compete in the challenge. Here’s the 2017 IBC schedule.
Small Shop Saturday returns to the Ghost River taproom this Saturday, January 7, from 1 to 4 in the afternoon. Every Saturday the brewery invites a vendor to set up shop in the taproom. Phillip Ashley Chocolates will be the vendor this week. These chocolates are hand-crafted in a local studio, using fair trade chocolate and the finest ingredients. At least one flavor of chocolate will be paired with one of the brewery’s offerings.
The following day, Sunday, January 8, the brewery will host Songwriter Sessions from noon to 3, this week featuring Crockett Hall and Graham Winchester. Bloody Beers made with Nikki’s Hot Products and Vice-Mosas will be the drink specials, and the Flying Sobies food truck will be back with their Cornish hens and waffles. Football will be on TV and there will be board games to play.
For those of you who live out of town, Thursday will be your best chance of the season to catch your Memphis Tigers on TV. The Tigers will host UConn at FedExForum at 6 PM that night with the game nationally televised on ESPN2.
Phil Gagliano, a Memphian who played for the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1960s, passed away last week.
Sad to hear that Memphis’ largest independent book store, The Booksellers at Laurelwood, will close next month. A liquidation sale will get underway Friday.
100 S’mores are going to be given away at Fourth Bluff Ice Rink starting tonight at 5.
Sorry if the updates are a bit infrequent this week. Not feeling too well. Back tomorrow, hopefully.