A Memphis in May Panel of Grillers will be the presentation at tomorrow night’s monthly Downtown Neighborhood Association at Beale Street Landing (6:00 social, 6:30 program). There will be BBQ catering by Hog Wild BBQ and a wine and beer bar. Free for DNA members, $10 visitors.
The experiment with bike lanes and a pedestrian promenade with seating on Peabody Place is coming to an end. It was an interesting project but it was under-used. The lack of turn lanes clogged traffic turning into garages and parking lots for FedExForum and Orpheum events. Peabody Place will be reverted to its previous striping next month.
The week before BBQ Fest I posted that I visited the new Sleep Out Louie’s, and that it had a great menu and friendly staff but the beer prices ($4 for a PBR 16 oz. can) were a bit high. Last week Sleep Out’s tweeted me that they had reduced PBR prices to $3 per can, very much in line with what surrounding bars charge. At happy hour the PBR is $2.50. I’ll try to get in there for a second visit soon.
I want to give a little link love to local coffee maker Launch Process Coffee. They had a free giveaway at the Blind Bear Saturday to introduce their product – unfortunately, the place was nearly empty due to BBQ Fest. The guy behind Launch Process came up and introduced himself (knew me by name) and offered to make me a cup of gourmet coffee. Trouble was, I am not a coffee drinker. I felt bad that he didn’t have a better launch. BBQ Fest is just a bad week to schedule any kind of event Downtown.
As your number one source of news and information about The Edge District, I want to link to a couple of articles that seem to have been missed by other sites. High Ground News has a great piece on the transformation of 10 acres in The Edge by Development Services Group (DSG). There will be a mix of office space, residential, and retail, and will adapt existing buildings and add new ones.
Meanwhile, the CA has news on the plan for the Edge Motor Museum at 645 Marshall. The blue streamers at Monroe and Marshall attracted Richard Vining to the neighborhood and helped convince him to buy the building, formerly a guitar workshop. Edge Motor Museum will house vintage cars and have a display on the history of American sports cars.
The Redbirds return to town for a game against Oklahoma City tonight at 6:35 (gates at 5:30). No special promotions tonight, just good baseball to be watched.
High Ground News has information about the Mini Ramp SK8 Jam held by Memphis Athletic Ministries at the Greenlaw Community Center on May 12. This was an all-ages skateboarding competition.
As I typed yesterday’s post about my own team The Moody Ques’ success at BBQ Fest, and in part because I was so tired I could barely put words together, I neglected to mention that my second BBQ family/fellow shoulder team Squeal Street BBQ also enjoyed success, improving from last year’s score in the 20s all the way up to 14th this year (out of 57 teams). They are applying a Memphis style of grit-n-grind to their BBQ strategy that brings incremental improvements every year. There aren’t many increments left before they will jump into the top 10.
That’s it for now. Back on my regular blogging schedule, so I should be back tomorrow with more news and a non-BBQ lunch photo.