The Front Porch is having an oyster roast the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, 3-8 PM. Fresh-shucked raw oysters, po’boys and more will be on the menu. There will be both East and West Coast oysters, Gulf Oysters, wines by Valkyrie Selections, and local beers. For those not into oysters, a limited Front Porch menu will be available. Live music by Marcella Simien and others. Oysters will be sold by the half dozen until sold out. You don’t have to make reservations.
They will also have a limited number of VIP tickets. With these you get a cheese & game sausage platter, half dozen raw oysters and a half dozen char-grilled oysters, Low Country corn and potatoes. These tickets also come with two tickets good for beer and featured wines. VIPs get shaded seating with waiter service. Call 901-524-0187 to order these in advance of the event, because they will not be sold the day of. $50 inclusive.
Keep in mind that this event will be only two blocks away from the Memphis Music & Heritage Festival, so you can easily hit both. You’re going to be hearing a lot more about MMHF on this blog the next couple of weeks. It is a street festival on the Main Street Mall, from Union to Peabody Place, put on by the Center for Southern Folklore Saturday-Sunday, September 2 and 3. This fest features over 100 music acts, craftspeople, cooks, dancers and drum lines. If you want to find out what culture in the Mid-South region is all about, you must check out this festival. Absolutely one of my fall favorites.
Felicia Suzanne Restaurant’s patio is getting a face lift so for the time being, they request you enter through the Brinkley lobby for your safety.
The Memphis City Council approved a $6 million loan for a 481-space parking garage that will be part of the redevelopment of the Wonder Bread building out in The Edge. Another piece of great news about that project – it was announced that Orion Federal Credit Union is in talks to move its headquarters from its current space on U.S. 64 to the Wonder building on Monroe Avenue. Developers believe that a solid corporate citizen like Orion in the neighborhood would spur rapid growth in residential and retail.
The G-League expansion draft is complete, and new team Memphis Hustle got the rights to some quality players:
The Memphis Hustle selected the rights to these 11 players in the G League Expansion Draft: pic.twitter.com/wIkAbcXbFy
— Kevin Lipe (@FlyerGrizBlog) August 23, 2017
D.J. Stephens, Adonis Thomas, and Jimmer Fredette! Keep in mind that these are just the RIGHTS to these players, should they choose to join the G-League. They may not make that choice due to more lucrative contracts overseas. So we’ll probably never see the Jimmer play in DeSoto County… exciting to think about though.
100 Lives is this week’s film in The 15 Film Series at Clayborn Temple. The daughter of a school teacher becomes the 100th shooting victim of the year. The teacher realizes he must decide how he and others in the community will deal with the violence, and discovers that the greatest change is a change made in the heart. The writer, director, and star of this film, Phil Darius Wallace, will be there.
Next Tuesday at Clayborn, I AM A MAN Plaza Workshop #3 will happen 5:30-7:30 PM. Add your voice to this session, the third of four. The developer will discuss project details and design elements, and will have quotes from civil rights leaders to be incorporated. The plaza will honor the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers whose strike brought Dr. King to town.
Beer recommendation: I had a Ballast Point Manta Ray at the Flying Saucer last night. It was delicious, and it had a good Value Drinking Index. Value Drinking Index = (alcohol by volume) * (ounces) / (price). A VDI of 15 or higher represents an excellent value. Manta Ray has a VDI of 16.
Also, I think I found my favorite Saucer burger last night. It is the Terlingua, topped with Havarti cheese, beef chili, red onions, corn chips, and garlic herb mayo. I grew up on chili burgers at The Black Angus in Little Rock, and the Terlingua seems like a more grown-up version of those burgers.
Great news for Memphis Tigers football:
Memphis announces it has sold out football season parking passes for the first time in program history.
— Tom Schad (@Tom_Schad) August 23, 2017
From Lifehacker: America’s worst trolls live in Vermont, an Illinois suburb, and the South. Don’tcha just hate those crazy trolls?
Bad news for those on the Texas coast: Tropical Depression Harvey could strengthen into a very slow-moving hurricane, dumping up to four feet of rain by early next week.
Remember when Trump proposed a joint cyber-security unit with Russia? That is a horrible idea and Congress agrees. Legislation moving through the Senate would require the Trumpster to notify Congress before any such unit is created. He’d have to report on intelligence to be shared with Russia, counterintelligence concerns, and how those concerns would be addressed.
That’s it for now. I’ll be out at Silly Goose happy hour after work. Back tomorrow.