Yesterday, 17 Shelby County businesses which are classified as “limited-service restaurants” by the Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission, and which had to close under Health Department Directive No. 8, filed two lawsuits against the county and the health department seeking damages. They also seek restraining orders preventing the County from enforcing the closure of those businesses.
Three of the businesses are Downtown restaurants – Blind Bear Speakeasy, Silly Goose, and Max’s Sports Bar. The owner of a fourth, Nick Scott of Alchemy, has had ties to Downtown for years.
Three businesses in Puck Food Hall closed last week. They are City Block Salumeria, Venga, and Doughjo. Revenues went down by 75 percent following the implementation of the Safer at Home order in March.
Tennessee will have two sales tax holidays in 2020. The first holiday, July 31-August 2, will exempt clothing purchases up to $200, and clothing purchases up to $3000. Double the limits last year, nice!
The second state sales tax holiday is August 7-9 and exempts food and drink purchases at restaurants – well, the ones that are legally allowed to be open, but hopefully that matter will be settled by then.
I gave a friend of mine who is shopping for a laptop to use primarily for college some general shopping tips yesterday. There may be others doing the same, so I’ll share those tips here too. Note that if you are shopping for a computer for a different reason like business, gaming, recording, etc. these recommendations would not apply to you.
Storage: Get a solid state drive (SSD), not a hard disk drive (HDD). 5 to 20 times faster.
A 128 GB SSD should be enough if you’re using it for school. If you need more storage later, you can buy a 1 terabyte (1000 GB) USB drive for around $50.
Memory/RAM (sometimes called DDR): Minimum 8 GB. You’ll have performance/speed issues if you get less.
Safest bet for school is a Windows 10 computer. Chromebooks may not be able to run the software you need. MacBooks are the best, but much more expensive and the extra cost isn’t justified.
$400-650 is a reasonable price for the type of laptop I have described. When you find the computer you want, shop around on multiple sites to find the best price.
If you want to shop for a laptop in person rather than online, Cooper Systems at 2744 Mt. Moriah Parkway is a good place. I would trust their recommendations way more than a sales associate at Best Buy.
I’m not saying you should buy from Amazon necessarily, but when you find the computer you want, search Amazon for its make and model number. Less than 4 stars, don’t buy it. Less than 4.5 stars, read the reviews carefully and see if you’re comfortable buying it.
Totally OK to buy last year’s model at a discount. Computers used to double in power and speed every 18 months but that is no longer true.
Elmwood Cemetery hosts The Plagues of Memphis, Part 1, an online event, tonight 6:30 to 7:30. Cost is $10. They’ll discuss diseases of the 19th century, and treatments such as leeches. You probably don’t want to eat dinner during this session. Just think, 50 years from now, Elmwood will be giving coronavirus tours.
There will be a protest outside City Hall at 11 asking Gov. Lee to close all Tennessee meatpacking plants, claiming they are COVID-19 hotbeds.
Let me share another photo of what my life is like away from the bars:
Yeah I’m managing to get by somehow. Also, thanks to Bill and Pam at River Time Market and Deli for my newest face covering:
I’ll wear it the next time I go out, which will probably be to full-service restaurant Slider Inn on Saturday unless good things happen this week.
Time to head to work. Back tomorrow with more news.