Author: paulryburn

The Downtown holiday parade has been announced for Saturday, December 6. It will happen on Beale Street at 4 PM, and the Grand Marshal this year will be none other than “The Grindfather” himself, Memphis Grizzlies shooting guard/small forward Tony Allen. There is a LOT happening that day, as always happens the first Saturday in December.

• St. Jude marathon/half-marathon in the morning
• Holiday parade at 4 on Beale Street
• People crowding all the Downtown bars to watch the SEC championship game (expect the bars to be extra, extra crowded if Mississippi State, Ole Miss, or Alabama is playing)
• Stumbling Santa, a 1000+ person pub crawl starting at the Flying Saucer at 7
• Memphis Tigers host Bradley at the FedExForum at 8:30

If you drive Downtown on the 6th, I would recommend allowing at least 30 extra minutes for heavy traffic, parking, and walking from where you park to your destination. The DMC has a parking map that can help you figure out where to park.

If you’re an IT professional looking for a job, the Church Health Center just added a database administrator opening.

The Metal Museum is having its annual holiday sale today starting at 10 AM. You can purchase jewelry, metalwork, and housewares made by renowned artists.

Here’s an article I disagree with for multiple reasons: Lorde just made history as the only person to ever look good in a tube top. This kind of thing is the reason I have to spend an entire month on this blog educating the public about the greatest fashion item ever. Not only do many women look good in tube tops, but in the photos in the article, Lorde isn’t even wearing her tube top correctly: She’s wearing a jacket over it, a no-no. I guess “The Gloss” is a magazine? I’m going to have to fire off an angry letter to the editor.

There’s a This Is Memphis Festival tonight at 7 at the New Daisy. Pretty good lineup of bands for only a $7 cover, and if you go VIP for $8 more you get a BBQ meal.

The annual Victorian Yuletide celebration kicks off Wednesday and runs through January 4 at the Woodruff-Fontaine House. Each room in the house will be decorated with items from the museum’s collection. There will be gowns from the period, as well as toys and dolls, and beds dressed in quits and blankets. The museum is at 680 Adams Avenue just east of Downtown.

Out in Cooper-Young, the Memphis Made Brewing Co. tap room opened yesterday. It will be open Fridays from 4 to 9 and will expand hours later. For those of you who know who my favorite pair of librarian glasses is, she’s working there.

Today should be a really fun day. About 30 of the Downtown crew are gathering at a house on Mud Island for the second annual “Friendsgiving,” a Thanksgiving dinner when all our friends can be together before many of us travel for the Thanksgiving holidays. I missed the first one last year and am really looking forward to tonight. There’s a strong possibility of shenanigans afterward. I’m going to start off at Panda’s bar at Bardog at 11 as usual, but with no time for an afternoon nap I am going to have to take it extremely slow at Bardog and subsequent stops. Time to go buy some PBR to take to the island then get this beautiful Saturday under way.

Tomorrow is a big day at the Memphis Farmers Market’s Winter Market at the pavilion at Front and G.E. Patterson. Cookbook author and master preserver Eugneia Bone will be there. At 9:30 she will give a cooking demo, showing how you can use every part of your Farmers Market purchases, even parts of vegetables that you thought were scraps. She’ll also give tips on how to preserve items you buy at the market. From 10 to 12:30 she will sign copies of her cookbook, The Kitchen Ecosystem. Adam Levin will provide the live music at 11. The Flyer has more about Bone’s weekend in Memphis here.

I was looking at Twitter last night and found an interesting map on Thrillist: most popular burger chains by county. The results were not what I would have expected. Most popular burger chain for Shelby County? Krystal, believe it or not. For my hometown of Little Rock, Sonic is most popular. The thing that really surprised me was the the most popular restaurant in San Diego County, where I lived for six months, is NOT In-N-Out Burger. It’s Carl’s Jr.

Potential good news for the Memphis tourism industry: Visa rules are being relaxed for Chinese tourists, making it much less of an ordeal for Chinese to visit the U.S. I see quite a few Chinese here touring Downtown and Graceland, especially in the winter months. People from China are among the highest spenders for tourists, so this could be a gain for the local economy if we can make it easier for them to get here.

The Grizzlies are up to seven players that are questionable for tonight’s game against Boston due to a stomach virus. However, all but Quincy Pondexter attended this morning’s shootaround and are now being said to be probable.

And while we’re on the subject of the Grizzlies, some people never change. Guess who sent this tweet yesterday?

“Hi @RobertPera! Any good promos going on for Bay Area @memgrizz fans to attend the Grizzlies/Kings game Nov 30? #GoGrizz”

Yep, the Nuh-Uh Girl is still asking for free stuff and discounts, even though she’s 2000 miles away. And she isn’t shy about asking, even asking the Grizzlies’ lead owner. Maybe there’s a ticket package that includes free food at the concession stands that Pera can give her.

You can view the Toronto Raptors tribute to Vince Carter that brought tears to his eyes at a recent game.

The Memphis International Jazz Festival is happening in South Main this weekend.

The Flyer has an article about the new Love Pop craft soda pop store on South Main, and on the updated lounge and new dishes by Chef Ana Gonzalez at Bleu. Love Pop has its grand opening tomorrow evening at 6 PM. 200+ craft sodas, ice cream floats.

Don’t forget that the annual Downtown tree-lighting is happening at Beale and Rufus Thomas this afternoon starting at 4:30. Jerry Lawler, Santa, Grizzlies Claw Crew, fun for kids.

A few more hours until the weekend! No definite plans for tonight but I’ll find something to get into. Thanksgiving dinner with our Downtown crew (Friendsgiving) tomorrow night, then Sunday I will take a night off from poker to watch WWE Survivor Series on the Network. Time to wrap up a few final things at work then kick the weekend off.

Back at work after a couple of birthday days off, putting together a dining guide for an upcoming tournament my company is holding in Rhode Island. One of the nearby restaurants has a build-your-own mac & cheese bar. Yum.

Oh wow. There’s a gourmet grilled cheese store too. My friend Katie Mac would be in heaven at that place.

This is mainly an event for kids, but even as an adult I think it sounds pretty cool: Discover the Ice Age is coming to the Cook Convention Center this weekend. You can meet mammoths, mastodons, saber-toothed cats and other megafauna that ruled the world during the Ice Age.

The Foo Fighters have announced a concert series for next summer and fall. They will come to the FedExForum October 7, 2015.

Big positive news for Memphis: Readers of the USA Today selected Memphis as the number-one NBA destination.

The Flyer has a Q&A with Billy Orgel, new owner of the Tennessee Brewery, about what he plans to do with his new piece of property.

From the MBJ: Live music venue The New Daisy has changed ownership.

The Bar-B-Q Shop is the winner of the MBJ’s 64-restaurant BBQ brackets.

The Methodist Healthcare Foundation is holding a cancer center fundraiser luncheon with Rob Lowe tomorrow. I wonder if he’ll bring Creepy Rob Lowe and Painfully Awkward Rob Lowe with him? Watch out for guys with binoculars if you take a swim at the Y tomorrow.

GoTigersGo.com has fan information for Saturday’s Memphis Tigers football game vs. South Florida. MemphisWeather.net says that we’ll be mostly rain-free for the game with temps in the 60s.

That’s it for this post. I’ll be at my usual Thursday spots after work this evening.

For those of you who are looking for a place to try for Downtown Dining Week but haven’t made a reservation yet, I’ll offer a recommendation: Cafe Keough. Like most participating restaurants, the cafe recommends reservations, but you may be able to get in without them for several reasons. For one, the cafe has been open less than a year and is relatively unknown. Another reason is that it is a huge space that would take a lot of diners to fill up. Also, it flies under a lot of people’s radar because a lot of people tend to not look north of Monroe for places to eat.

Chef Demitrie Phillips posted a photo of one of the Downtown Dining Week menu items, lamb souvlaki skewers over Moroccan cous cous, and it looked delicious. It’s part of their $20.14 “Tapas for Two” menu this week. You get a meze of olives, babaganoosh, and bulgur salad with warm pita to share for the first course, and then for the second course each person gets to choose an entree of the aforementioned souvlaki skewers or shrimp with garlic, mushrooms, peppers, and sherry butter over baked polenta.

Unfortunately I have already heard of one DDW restaurant that is half-assing it, putting out lower quality food than what you would get on their regular menu. I’ll be nice and not name the place, but one of my friends got sick last night from eating there. I guarantee you that won’t happen at Cafe Keough. Chef Demitrie takes too much pride in his craft to do that. I talked with the cafe’s GM last week and he’s really looking at this as an opportunity to impress people who might not otherwise stop in and get them to come back again and again and become regular customers. That’s what Downtown Dining Week is all about! The cafe is on Main Street between Madison and Monroe, in the ground floor of the Number 10 Main apartment building, across Main from Felicia Suzanne’s. Here’s a link to their DDW page. Although I am saying you can possibly get in without reservations, it might not be a bad idea to call and make them if you know you’re going to go.

Aldo’s Pizza Pies is giving away free pizza for a year to one lucky member of its beer league. If you join the league, you get $1 off beers except during happy hour, and upon completion of the quest to drink all 60 of Aldo’s beers, you get a 64 ounce stainless steel growler filled with the beer of your choice. If you want to sign up, bring your ID and talk to the bartender.

Interesting news hidden in an MBJ story about Crye-Leike moving its offices to Midtown: The move will clear the way for the building at the southeast corner of Third and Madison to become a boutique hotel. I have always loved that building’s architecture, which is just beautiful. With the already-existing Madison Hotel, and the Exchange Building being converted into mixed residential/hotel, Madison Avenue is going to become almost as much of a Hotel Row as Union is.

Here’s one for my fellow wrestling fans: Trailer for the upcoming Iron Sheik movie. Sheikie Baby has lived a heck of a life. He was an Olympic athlete, and a bodyguard for the Shah of Iran. He was forced to flee the country when the revolution took place, relocating to the United States and becoming one of wrestling’s top heels. Although he played an anti-American gimmick, he actually loves the U.S. He is one of Twitter’s most interesting accounts to follow, at @the_ironsheik.

Today is “constant Facebook notifications” day for me, also known as my birthday. Thank you to all of my wonderful friends who posted on my timeline. I truly am lucky to have all of you. Usually I show up at Blind Bear at 11 AM on my days off for day-drinking, but I figured I’d be taking up a bar stool drinking a $3 PBR that could be taken by a Downtown Dining Week customer, so I’m staying away until about 1. That’s still the lunch hour, but hey, a man can only go for so long without beer. That’s all for now, back tomorrow.

Last night I stopped by the Flying Saucer for a Dos Equis Lager or two, and who did I discover sitting on the rail but Bradley D. Birkedahl and Slick Joe Fick, two-thirds of legendary Memphis rockabilly band The Dempseys. They invited me to join them for beers and I snapped this pic.

From 2003 to 2010, I went to many Dempseys shows at the Saucer, Huey’s, and Blues City Cafe. They have since gone their separate ways and are enjoying successful careers. Thanks for inviting me to hang out, guys. It was truly a pleasure seeing you.

The Memphis Fire Museum is holding a Breakfast with Santa on Saturday, December 13. Santa arrives on a MFD engine at 8 AM. There will be two sessions. The first will have breakfast from 8 to 9 and professional photos with Santa from 8:30 to 10. The second will have breakfast 10 to 11 and photos 10:30 to 12. $10 for adults, $7 for kids. Admission includes a full breakfast, story time with Izzy the Dalmatian, and entrance to the Fire Museum. Make reservations at firemuseum.com.

CNN is coming to Beale Street on New Year’s Eve. “An Evening with… ALMOST… Elton John” will be playing the street that night and CNN will broadcast the entire show. This is CNN’s first time ever on Beale. I’m normally not a big fan of Beale Street on NYE but I have to admit I would consider going to this.

The Sacramento Kings have filed a protest of Thursday’s loss to the Grizzlies. The Grizzlies inbounded the ball with three tenths of a second left and scored the winning basket. The Kings said that one of their players may have tipped the ball, which would have started the clock sooner.

Sbnation.com has updated its college football bowl predictions. They’re projecting Memphis playing Arkansas in the Birmingham Bowl on January 3. That would be an interesting matchup. The Hogs need one more win to get bowl-eligible.

The Grizzlies host the Houston Rockets tonight at 7 at the FedExForum.

That’s it for now. I have tomorrow off for my birthday, so I’ll be staying out a bit later than usual tonight.

I’m quoted in the Memphis Flyer this week. Writer Toby Sells knew the new Bass Pro going into the Pyramid would appeal to people who hunt and fish. But what about Downtowners? Would Bass Pro be a place we would frequent regularly? Sells asked how much time I thought I would spend there. My response can be found here.

It’s almost time for the annual flip-the-switch party to turn on the lights on Downtown’s Christmas tree. This year Jerry “The King” Lawler will do the honor of flipping the switch next Friday, November 21, at 4:30 at Beale and Rufus Thomas. There will be free hot chocolate and donuts, and the first 50 kids will get a gift from the Magic Light Wand Company. Grizz, the Grizzline drum line, the Grizzlies Claw Crew, and Santa will be there as well.

LUNCHBOXeats is cooking Thanksgiving meals if you don’t feel like doing the work yourself. They are selling dinner packages as well as individual entrees, sides, and desserts. You can view the list and prices here. You need to place your order well in advance so they have time to get everything cooked. Can you believe we’re less than two weeks away from Thanksgiving 2014? Where did this year go?

The first 5000 fans in the FedExForum tonight get a free pair of Grizzlies earbuds. The Grizzlies play the Detroit Pistons and game time is 7 PM.

If you celebrate Hanukkah, the Belz Museum gift shop is selling menorahs for 25% off for the next week starting today. The museum is in Pembroke Square on the Main Street Mall.

The Mid-South Food Bank needs volunteers on Tuesday, November 18. They will be conducting a telethon to raise money to buy Thanksgiving turkeys for hungry families, and they need people to answer the phones and take pledges. The hours when they need volunteers the most will be noon to 6 PM. $15 provides a turkey to a family.

That’s it for now. It’s business as usual for me on this Saturday, which means I will be kicking it off at Panda’s bar at Bardog at 11. Rest of the day to be figured out.

Start Co. is starting its own BBQ team for Memphis in May BBQ Fest 2015. From what I gathered from their website, it appears as though it will be a whole hog team. I’m sure it will be an exciting booth filled with founders, mentors, and people full of ideas. Start Co. was the sponsor of the team I’m on, the Moody Ques, for 2014. I’m happy to see them branch out on their own, and I wish them the best and thank them for a great year this year.

This does mean that the Moody Ques is looking for a new sponsor. We compete in shoulder and have one of the largest booths in the park, and our booth has developed a reputation as one of the most fun places to be at BBQ Fest. We had back-to-back wins for Best Booth the past two years, with a professional event planner and a team of artists working on the design. Many, many people heard about our booth and came by for a look, resulting in lots of extra eyeballs on our 2013 and 2014 sponsors. We are putting together a packet for potential sponsors outlining what you will get for different levels of contribution – and, of course, those are just rough guidelines and we can tailor the experience to fit your needs. If your company would be interested in sponsorship shoot me an email at paul@paulryburn.com and I will have one of our team leaders contact you.

We may be looking to add some more members as well, so if you’re interested in being a team member shoot me an email about that too.

Never give up. That’s the lesson from last night’s Grizzlies game. 00:00:3 is all the time in the world. I watched the end of the game at Bardog, and when the Grizzlies came back from down 26 to win with a buzzer-beater pass from Vince Carter to Courtney Lee, the place went wild.

In other basketball news, former Memphis Tiger Antonio Anderson, a member of the 2007-08 team that went to the national title game, starts his coaching career tomorrow. He has been hired as an assistant at Wheelock College. I always thought he would make a good coach, with an excellent mind for the game and a lot of leadership qualities. Anderson was the glue that held the 07-08 team together.

The Loony Bin, the new gallery at 8 South Main, will host a “Loony Blooze” event tomorrow night. The live music lineup features The Suede Tones at 6, Theo & The Boogie Blues Trio at 7, and Zeke Johnson & Ms.Zeno at 8.

There’s a Groupon for Ballet Memphis presents The Nutcracker at the Orpheum December 12 or 13. Up to 50% off.

Tomorrow’s Winter Market theme at Memphis Farmers Market is Cooler Temps Mean Warmer Meals. Open 9 AM to 1 PM at the Central Station Pavilion, Front at G.E. Patterson. Live music by Adam Levin from 11 to 12:30.

From the MBJ: A new restaurant will open in the former TJ Mulligan’s space in The Pinch. The new business will be more of a restaurant and less of a bar than Mulligan’s was. It will have an outdoorsy theme that will complement the new Bass Pro down the street.

Four hours until my birthday weekend begins, although the actual birthday is not until Tuesday. No special plans, just hitting the usual stops. I’m leading off at Blind Bear tonight to help one of my BBQ teammates with his new website. Plans after that TBD.

Is that a WKRP quote? Kinda sounds like something Mr. Carlson would say.

Okay, I do have a little to report. In this MBJ article, Billy Orgel talks about plans for the Tennessee Brewery which he just bought. He said that although Untapped won’t be coming back, it did prove to him the building’s central garden space’s desirability as an event space.

This isn’t a Downtown event but it’s for St. Jude, so what the heck… on Saturday, November 22, the Saturday before Thanksgiving, there will be a St. Jude Give Thanks Walk starting at the Carriage Crossing Mall in Collierville. Your walk helps support an institution that has saved many children’s lives and never sends a bill to the families.

Old Crow Medicine Show plays the Orpheum on Saturday.

The Majestic Grille posted that reservations have already filled up for Brunch with Santa and Clark’s Christmas, two of their most popular holiday events. Reservations are still open for their Sunday Supper & A Movie series starting on Sunday, November 30 with Miracle on 34th Street. Details here.

Stop it with the “Pastner should be fired” comments after the Tigers’ exhibition loss to CBU. The team is green and Pastner still needs time to get them to work together. It’s just like the situation four years ago when Joe and the crew were freshmen. The good news is, the veterans Shaq, Austin, and Nick King are Josh’s guys, whereas four years ago the veterans were Cal’s leftovers.

A few of us got together last night at the Blind Bear and had an initial talk about the different directions we could take the BBQ team for 2015. I will probably have a post soon. There will be opportunities for people looking to join or sponsor.

Well, I guess I did have news to report. There’s a chance I may go to Burlesque Bingo at the Mad Earl at 8. In any case, I will hit the Silly Goose for happy hour after work. The cold won’t keep me at home!

The Grizzlies, fresh off a win over the L.A. Lakers, return to the FedExForum tomorrow night to host the Sacramento Kings. It is the first of the Thirsty Thursdays nights for the 2014-15 season. For $50, you get a club-level ticket, a flight of beers and food in the First Tennessee Club Draft Room. There are over 20 domestic and import beers available in the Draft Room, and there are also food pairings. I’ve been to Grizzlies games on tickets that are food and beer inclusive, thanks to poker wins at Bardog several years ago, and let me tell you they are a SWEET deal.

Tonight at 5:30 at the Cotton Museum, there will be a Cocktail Hour and Book Talk with R. Scott Williams about his new book The Forgotten Adventures of Richard Halliburton: A High-Flying Life from Tennessee to Timbuktu. I bet the talk will be of particular interest to my fellow Rhodes College alumni, because there is a tower on campus named for Halliburton. “Like a modern-day Icarus, he flew too close to the sun.” The museum will provide cocktails and light snacks for the event, which is free and open to the public.

If you’re a WWE Network subscriber, a new episode of Rivalries dropped yesterday: Rhodes vs. Flair. I watched about two-thirds of it yesterday and it is a can’t-miss. It starts out with rookie Ric Flair in the AWA in the early 1970s, idolizing flamboyant heel Dusty Rhodes who was in a tag team with Dick Murdoch at the time. It goes on to discuss Dusty’s 1974 face turn in Florida, the development of his “American Dream” character that connected with the fans, and his 1979 and 1981 world title wins. The episode then gets into Flair’s development of the equally flamboyant “Nature Boy” character that became the most hated heel in the Mid-Atlantic territory, leading up to his 1981 title victory over Rhodes that established him as the top man in the NWA for the 1980s. I was just getting to the Four Horsemen years when it was time to go to bed. Based on what I have seen so far, this is one of the best documentaries WWE has put on the Network.

In case you missed the news this morning: Humankind has landed a probe on a comet 317 million miles away.

Ride the Roo will offer a Downtown lunchtime shuttle during Downtown Dining Week next week.

Correction from yesterday evening’s blog: The Tennessee Brewery sold for $825,000, not $825 million.

Congratulations to my opponent at Blind Bear who knocked me out of poker last night not once, but twice. Well played indeed.

Back to work… I’ll be out at the usual spots in a few hours. I think it may be a Shorty pasta bowl kind of evening.

The MBJ reports that a new craft soda pop store will open soon on South Main with hundreds of varieties of soda. The store had a booth at RiverArtsFest recently.

Need a job? The American Queen Steamboat Company is hiring. They’ll have a job fair at Beale Street Landing November 22 from 10 AM to 1 PM.

Wiseacre Brewing Co. is expanding into West Tennessee and North Mississippi. Good to see Memphis-brewed beer gaining a foothold in locations outside the Bluff City metro.

The sale of the Tennessee Brewery to developer Billy Orgel has closed for $825 million. The brewery has officially been saved from demolition.

Congratulations to four Start Co. graduate companies that received funding recently.

Heading out for beer. Silly Goose, then Blind Bear poker. Once again, thanks on this Veterans’ Day to all who have served.