A new grocery delivery service, Bluff City Greens, has the potential to be a game-changer for those Downtown, on Mud Island, and in Soulsville. This is an employee-owned grocery delivery service. You pick what you want online, and they do the rest. Their selection is quite extensive and includes a lot of items you can’t find at Walgreens, Family Dollar, and City Market. Really, their selection reminds me of a combination of the former Jack’s Food Store and Easy Way at Main and Jefferson. There’s free delivery on your first order. After that delivery is $3.99 (Downtown) or $0.99 (Soulsville).
This is a game-changer for Downtowners who don’t have a vehicle, or who have a vehicle they’d get rid of if not for runs to Kroger. It’s also a game-changer for South Memphis, which Bluff City Greens wants to expand into as they hire more delivery drivers to address food desert issues in that neighborhood.
A hearing for bars limited service restaurants closed by the Shelby County Health Department has been rescheduled for Monday. The bars seek an injunction allowing them to reopen as they build a case to show that they are no more the cause of COVID-19 than full service restaurants. Judge McCalla will hear the case at 2 Monday. The rescheduling allows two separate lawsuits to be combined.
Recap of the COVID-19 task force press conference yesterday: Health Department director Dr. Alisa Haushalter said it is now taking 5-7 days to get reports of new cases back from the labs. This makes it harder to do contact tracing, because those infected have been infected for up to a week before the Health Department is informed. It also makes it more important to look at a 7-day rolling average of new cases, since the number of new cases on any one day cannot be assumed to be yesterday’s tests.
She said the task force is working on “trip wires” on advice from the CDC. These are conditions under which new restrictions would be automatically triggered, speeding up the process of implementing them, if certain thresholds were crossed. She said they expect to have a draft of what the trip wires will look like in 1 to 1½ weeks. A reporter asked if Haushalter could give an example of a potential trip wire. Haushalter did not want to, because she wanted yesterday’s message to remain on masking. If we get more Memphians to cover their faces, she said, none of these trip wires will ever get triggered. She did say the trip wires would be a “laser-focused approach” that would have the most impact.
Haushalter said the results are preliminary at this point, but so far we are not seeing as big an impact from people going out and socializing on the July 4 weekend as we had around Memorial Day.
Mayor Strickland took the stage to present some data. Since the making ordinance went into effect, the city has received 324 complaints about lack of masking in area businesses. Investigation by Code Enforcement officials found 229 of those businesses to be in compliance, 124 warnings were issued, and two businesses were issued summons to court, meaning they had three strikes. One of those businesses was a Kroger, which will nationally implement mandatory masking for customers starting Wednesday. The other was a neighborhood market. Strickland said those businesses as well as convenience stores are the subject of many complaints.
Strickland said there has been a big improvement in the number of Memphians wearing masks, and echoed that statement in his daily COVID-19 online update, encouraging everyone to keep it up. Hey, remember when Haushalter announced the closing of the bars limited service restaurants? She said the restrictions didn’t have to stay in place for long if we did better on masking. Well, we’re doing better, so…….. ?
Strickland said the city and county are working on reducing the amount of time you have to wait in line to be tested. He encouraged anyone who is symptomatic to not let the wait in line discourage you from being tested.
This wasn’t discussed in yesterday’s press conference, but UPI reports (UPI still exists?) that a COVID-19 vaccine candidate is looking really strong and enters its third phase of testing next week.
Early voting for the August elections begins today and continues through August 1. You can early vote at any location and here’s a list. Downtowners will want to go to the location at Poplar and Second. It’s open 9-5 Monday-Friday, 10-4 Saturdays, and 8-4 the final day of early voting Saturday, August 1. Note that if you vote absentee, you MUST mail your ballot to the Election Commission. You cannot hand-deliver it. If you do, your ballot will be stamped “not counted.”
The Daily Memphian’s Bill Dries is back with his outstanding ballot basics article.
The Commercial Appeal has an update on Cafe Lit that is coming to 111 Madison. The space will be part performance venue, part soul food restaurant. The owner plans to tell the story of African-American history through food, art, and entertainment. “Lit” is short for “literature” and African-American literature will be a major theme. The building was an Overstuffed Deli location years ago.
To my fellow Downtowners who spend their evenings on rooftops: Be on the lookout for a comet about 45 minutes after sunset. Space.com has viewing information. Bring binoculars if you have them.
There’s an open house at 266 Lofts apartments, 266 S. Front, today from 10 to 7. They’ll show off 266 as well as their other properties and there will be food and giveaways.
Yesterday I returned to STIX, this time to try something from their hibachi grill. After looking at the options, I selected the Sukiyaki steak. It comes with Julienned scallions, onions, carrots, broccoli, and steak tossed in teriyaki sauce. You can choose your temperature of meat (I chose medium rare) and your preferred rice (I got steamed; fried is $1 extra).
It was as delicious as it looks. It came with yum yum sauce (which Perjorie T. Roll is standing on) and soy sauce packets, which I poured on the rice.
Next up I plan on trying the shrimp steamed buns, the Asian versions of sandwiches. They sound good because they come with sriracha ginger slaw.
I ordered online, and don’t forget there’s a STIX901 promo code that’ll get you 10% off.
Time to put in some work and then the weekend is here. Back tomorrow with more news.