Author: paulryburn

The MBJ reports that a Nashville-based bar will take over 315 Beale, the space formerly occupied by Hard Rock Cafe which is moving down the street. Tin Roof is a chain of bars known for Tex-Mex food and live music.

The Orpheum has a good blog post explaining the steps a show takes to get from Broadway to Beale.

Dates and times have been released for several Memphis Tiger football games including a game vs. Tulsa on ESPN2 Halloween at 7 PM. No offense to the Tigers but I will be too busy watching skimpy tube top costumes that evening to pay much attention to the game.

Trolley line ridership is down more than 50 percent since green MATA buses replaced the trolleys.

The Flying Saucer invites all Beerkurds to submit photos for the 2015 calendar.

Hey Squeal Street BBQ team: Now that the blogger who was so complimentary of you has found a job, maybe he’ll have the money to join your team for 2015. Just think, he’ll be there all day, every day! Have fun with that, guys! You might find a Best Booth trophy and a Best Microwave Popcorn trophy in the MQs booth, but you won’t find him!

All right. Time to hit Publish and hit the Goose. I hope Jessica has the Fireball iced down.

Late lunchtime post today because I was in a three-hour meeting from 11 to 2.

There’s a new brewery over in Little Rock called Moody Brews. I wonder if they stole the name from the same band we did, or if they heard about our BBQ team and stole the name from us. Blog reader Ptolemy Kat suggested that we bring them on board as a beer sponsor. Not a bad idea.

SEE Memphis is having a Ray-Ban party today at 5. You can check out the latest Ray-Ban styles while enjoying free wine, cheese, and live music. SEE Memphis is on the Main Street Mall between Union and Gayoso. Somewhere in the Bay Area of California there’s a sommelier who hates it that she’s missing out on free food.

The Memphis Flyer has a good article about the many projects of Local’s Jeff Johnson. It’s a good read with information about Oshi, the new burger bar to open next month in the former Dream Berry space. Alcoholic milkshakes? Yummmm! I remember the old days Downtown when Dyer’s used to have those. The article also talks about future Mexican restaurant Agave Maria and Johnson’s thoughts of expanding the Local brand to Nashville.

Also from the Flyer: Adam the Poet pens verse at local events. He was at the High Cotton taproom opening last Saturday.

Walrus plays the Peabody rooftop tonight, with special guest Parmalee. $15 cover this week, with ladies and hotel guests free until 7. Doors open at 6. Walrus is one of the most popular bands in Memphis and should draw a nice crowd.

There will be a sing-along to the movie Mamma Mia! tonight at the Orpheum. Sing along with the stars to all your favorite ABBA tunes. Movie starts at 7. Show up at 6 for a showing of the latest cutting-edge fashions by MUSE. I hope these cutting-edge fashions include some tube tops!

That’s it for now. As always on Thursdays I’ll be at Jessica’s bar at the Goose after work.

Last week I posted some job opportunities at MIFA. Today there are a few more: Graphic designer, HR specialist and trainer, social service worker, ombudsman volunteer coordinator. View them here.

From Lifehacker: Why it helps your server out if you leave your tip in cash instead of on a credit card. They’ll get the money faster and may get to keep more of it.

Last night at the Silly Goose, Daniel gave me a sample of one of the new menu items to try: Thai meatballs. They were very good and came with pita points which were good for dipping in the sauce. Give it a try if you like sweet and spicy.

Felicia Suzanne’s is having another Tacos & Tunes Thursday on the patio tomorrow evening. $2 tacos from 6 to 8, $5 margaritas, and live music 7 to 10. Any time you can get two dollar anything from Felicia’s, that is a heck of a deal. Might be some good tube top watching on the patio too.

This is sad: 28-year-old disabled homeless veteran living in his car after the VA says they can’t help him.

My friends on Squeal Street BBQ have announced that they will be entering Best Memphis Burger Fest in September, They have secured the Double J limo for a ride back Downtown in style, and they are sending Bob to Cash Saver to pick up the Miracle Whip.

Good news about one of our local craft breweries. Wiseacre has expanded and has hired four new full-time and sixteen new part-time employees.

Congratulations to former Memphian the Nuh-Uh Girl, who passed her test and is now a certified Sommelier.

All right. On my way out for beer. Plan hasn’t changed: Goose first then Saucer for Sweetwater beer at 7:30.

Some like it hot
And some sweat ’til the heat is gone
Some feel the heat
And decide to put a tube top on…

I wonder if Power Station ever dreamed when they wrote that song, that 29 years later it would be parodied on a “Tube Top Month” blog? Probably not.

It’s Wednesday and I’m back with your daily distraction. Expect Downtown to be crowded tonight as Lionel Richie brings his “All the Hits All Night Long Tour” to the FedExForum. Special guest CeeLo Green. Showtime is 7:30.

Seth from Best Memphis Burger Instagrammed a BBQ sauce recommendation yesterday: Sweet Heat from Central BBQ Downtown, made with Thai chilis and habanero. “Game over! Best sauce ever!” he wrote. I am going to have to try some of that soon. I love spicy!

Last night I posted #rememberdave, in memory of tech innovator and connector of people Dave Barger. Dave left behind two young daughters. You can donate to their college fund here.

The app OfficeSuite Professional is free in the App Store today. Normally $15. View and edit Word and Excel files, view PDFs and PowerPoint files, save to your favorite cloud storage. Thanks Chad for the tip. More info here.

From the Daily Beast: Gertrude of Arabia, the woman who invented Iraq. Very interesting article if you’re interested in world history, women who made history, or how the modern Middle East took shape. She’s said to have had a larger influence on the Middle East than the much more well-known T.E. Lawrence.

If you like road trips and beer, check out the Great Arkansas Beer Festival next month in Little Rock. It’s on Colonel Glenn Road. There are hotels a couple miles north on Shackleford that would be a short cab ride there and back.

From Yahoo! Sports: The Houston Rockets are considering adding Lionel Hollins to their coaching staff to improve defense.

The folks at Sweetwater decided to hit the Cordova Saucer last night rather than the Downtown one, due to a huge trivia night that was happening out there. Apologies to anyone who read they’d be Downtown in my blog and went. They’ll be at the Downtown Saucer at 7:30 tonight. As far as I know there will not be a free beer giveaway there, although you never know. I heard they bought a lot of people beers at Local and Bardog yesterday.

Plans for tonight: There are bartenders, and then there are bartenders who post lots of photos of themselves in bikinis (and not just their damn feet) to Facebook. I prefer the latter, so I will be at Jessica’s bar at the Silly Goose about 5:30. A little before 7:30 I will wander over to the Saucer to meet the Sweetwater folks and learn about their beer.

Feel the heat
Torching the entire town

Feeeeeeel the heat
Sweating so much
Might bring the tube top down

The Memphis tech community lost one of its leaders this past weekend. Dave Barger, founder and CEO of LunaWeb, Inc., died in a kayaking accident.

Dave was one of the early organizers of the Memphis tech community. He was key in organizing the BarCamps in which techies and creative types came together and shared presentations and information. He also was one of the main people involved in the monthly social media breakfasts that kept people informed of the latest social trends. As Erik from MemphisWeather.net pointed out, Dave gave freely of his time, and of his money, to raise the local tech community to a higher standard. Many of the leaders in the Memphis social media community got where they are today because Dave helped them.

When I was laid off from my job in October 2008, Dave was one of the first people to reach out to me. He told me there might be a place for me at LunaWeb, and even if not he’d keep his eyes and ears open for other opportunities for me. I ended up going in a different direction, but I really appreciated Dave contacting me and offering help.

Rest in peace, Dave. Thank you for all you did, and you will be deeply missed by many. My thoughts and condolences are with his family, his many friends, and his LunaWeb family. If you have memories of Dave you’d like to share, put them on Twitter and hashtag it #rememberdave. These tweets will be compiled and given to his family.

Congratulations to the USA soccer team on kicking the ball in the goal one more time than the other team from Ghana did. We are awesome.

FiveThirtyEight now has the U.S. as slight favorites to advance to the knockout stage (63 percent probability). However, the U.S. still needs a point against Portugal.

There’s a People’s Choice homebrew competition this Saturday. Brewville @ DeNeuville happens at the DeNeuville Learning Center at 190 South Cooper from 4 to 7 PM. Everyone who attends is a judge, and can vote for their favorite beers in each category. Ticket sales benefit the DeNeuville Learning Center, which empowers women to improve their lives through education and community. If anyone I know is going to this, shoot me an email or Facebook message. With many of my friends away on a canoe trip, I’d be open to hopping in a cab and making a trip to Midtown.

The MBJ has an article about Sweetwater Brewing Co.’s move into the Memphis area. Starting yesterday, Sweetwater beers began to be distributed through Budweiser of Memphis. Don’t forget that Sweetwater will debut on 7 taps tonight at 9 PM at the Flying Saucer. First 40 people to say “don’t float the mainstream” will get a free beer. See all of Sweetwater Brewery’s kickoff events here.

The Downtown Neighborhood Association is having their monthly happy hour at Twilight Sky Terrace, on the rooftop of the Madison Hotel, Thursday at 6 PM. Yummy appetizers, happy hour drink specials.

The following Tuesday, June 24, a week from today, the DNA will hold a Sports Forum at Bleu in the Westin Hotel. A panel of sports writer/radio host Geoff Calkins, sports writer/radio host Gary Parrish, sports reporter Carrie Anderson, and voice of the Grizzlies Pete Pranica will offer a unique perspective on Memphis sports. Cocktails at 6, panel at 6:30. Parking will be available in Lee’s Landing garage.

From BuzzFeed: 21 reasons why summer sucks for anyone with big boobs. There are some nice tube top pics here. I became aware of this post when Blind Bear bartender Daniel posted it to his co-worker Kaylea’s Facebook timeline. I love how the URL for this article contains “underboob-sweat.”

There will be a second post today, and it will be one of the rare times you will see me break my Tube Top Month rule. In this case the exception is warranted. Check back around 5:30.

A manager at Local Gastropub posted that they have $5 food specials along with game day beer specials for the World Cup. VUVUZELAS ENCOURAGED. The magic words I wanted to hear. If I hadn’t already promised my happy hour patronage to Panda, I would be there. I will probably get in there one happy hour night during the World Cup at least. Other bars ought to copy the “vuvuzelas encouraged” concept. I don’t actually own one of the South African horns but I have three vuvuzela apps on my phone.

The MBJ has exclusive video of firefighters at the scene of the Blue Plate Cafe fire last Friday afternoon in Court Square. View it here. I bet that fire was hotter than a Romanian gymnast in a tube top.

This is a pretty cool story, and thanks to Darrin for sharing it: Would you pay $1000 to get free beer for life? Three investors wanted to open a restaurant that brewed beer right there onsite. However, it would take $220,000, and no large investors were willing. However, they had friends who said, “I’d be willing to throw in a grand or two.” So they created a unique campaign for funding: They offered free beer for life to anyone who invested $1000. Before long they easily had enough to open the restaurant.

Here’s another Kickstarter-type project you can donate to: The Nettleton Community Orchard. They plan to transform a privately owned railroad embankment lot in Memphis, Tennessee at the corner of Nettleton Avenue and Tennessee Street into a community fruit tree orchard. This will make the neighborhood more vibrant and will enhance awareness of our environment and community health. Seven fruit trees will be purchased and planted. The orchard will take much less effort to maintain than a community garden.

Green Beetle is tapping their Sweetwater 420 today.

In this blog post a Volunteer Odyssey volunteer talks about her experience volunteering for the Memphis Farmers Market. Two great organizations right there.

On my way out to see Panda, drink PBR and watch soccer. Back with more tomorrow.

If you have an event happening this weekend, it is a perfect week for you to let me know about it and get it listed in the blog. The reason why is that I will be looking for things to do myself! Nearly my entire Downtown crew will be out of town this weekend on a canoe trip, and I’m not going. If you have events email the info to paul@paulryburn.com, or hit me up on Facebook if we’re friends there.

The USA team plays Ghana today in World Cup action. FiveThirtyEight has crib notes for today’s games and calls USA-Ghana the most even matchup of all of the round-robin games.

The Brass Door is setting up a giant screen and cash bar outside for a watch party in the alley for the USA-Ghana match. You can bring your lawn chairs.

Ghana is rationing electricity to make sure people can watch the World Cup match.

From the Daily Beast: Why the Yanks don’t get futbol

From Mashable: Despite landslides, flooding, and sinkholes, the U.S.-Ghana match will go on

There’s a Groupon for 5 or 10 group fitness classes at Envision Memphis. Envision is the fitness club atop the Cadre Building at Second and Monroe. Very nice facility.

Saw this on Facebook: 27 reasons to avoid farmers’ markets. Figured the folks at MFM would get a kick out of it.

From the MBJ: Developers have the hots for South Main (photo gallery)

From Gizmodo: It only takes this electric bus 15 seconds to charge at every stop. Somebody show this to MATA!

Kevin Cerrito is hosting two Disney-themed trivia nights this week, with all six rounds being Disney questions. Wednesday night (7-9 PM) is the family-friendly version at Tamp & Tap, with Disney-themed prizes. (I wonder if my new friend Henry will attend.) Thursday night (8-10 PM) is the 18+ version at Green Beetle.

I got asked an interesting question yesterday. “Let’s say that a woman you think is amazing, beautiful, hot, whatever, just your type, told you, ‘I would date you if you gave up Tube Top Month.’ Would you do it?”

HAHAHA! I would have a lot of UNHAPPY readers, for sure! But yeah, I can think of three women who are awesome enough that I would kill the greatest thing to happen to Memphis since Jerry “The King” Lawler. So theoretically at least, there are people out there with the power to end Tube Top Month. I doubt it will happen though, so you can expect to be stuck with lots of tube top talk through July 6. I just LOVE those tube tops! ALL ABOUT THE TUBE TOPS #tubetops

It was a so-so weekend for me, but not a very good weekend for a few of my friends. You know who you are and you’re in my thoughts.

This isn’t Downtown news but the Slider Inn in Midtown is doing a Tiki Tuesdays Throwdown tomorrow, with fire dancers, a whole hog roast, island music, coconut bras and grass skirts. If I were a Midtowner I would be there. Aldo never ceases to come up with some really cool stuff.

So, am I the only person in the country not watching Game of Thrones? Maybe I should make a deal: Somebody explain to me what’s the big deal about Game of Thrones, and I’ll explain what’s going on these days in the WWE to you.

Reminds me: I read the recap of last night’s TNA Wrestling’s pay-per-view this morning before work. I cannot believe anyone would pay their hard-earned money to watch that crap. Dixie Carter as a character sucks, Bobby Lashley sucks, Jeff Hardy’s Willow character bores me even more than the Jeff Hardy character, lots of Dusty Finishes in the matches with ref bumps and the like. I could go on and on. Velvet Sky is still hot but I’m not paying $40 to look at her. Bully Ray (the former Bubba Ray Dudley) is awesome as a character but I’m not sitting through 2 hours and 50 minutes of garbage to watch him be awesome for 10 minutes. I haven’t seen anything this bad since WCW’s final year and I expect TNA to be out of business within nine months.

Now that I think about it, make that four women who could make me give up Tube Top Month. Velvet Sky could too. Although, it would be a crying shame because Velvet looks great in a tube top. Velvet is to me what the Suicide Girls are to my buddies Clay and John D.

All right, this post is getting ridiculously long and has taken nearly my entire lunch break to type, so I’m going to hit Publish now. Melissa Monday at Bardog is not happening this week, and I posted “where should I go to watch the soccer game thingy?” on Facebook. My Saturday bartender Panda replied, “It’s PANDA MONDAY – and hold up a minute… come see me!” A better response would have been, “It’s PANDA MONDAY – and hold up a minute… come see me, I’ll wear a tube top for you!”, but, good enough. Bardog it is for happy hour and soccer.

Happy Father’s Day! So happy that I am not getting any presents today.

About 4:15 I walked over to the High Cotton taproom for the grand opening. Not a bad walk from the Downtown core at all. It’s no farther from home than Max’s Sports Bar on the south side, and I walk to Max’s all the time. The taproom is a very nice space. It was already crowded so I didn’t take pictures. I will try to get back there this week and take some. They had the back of the brewery open, with two extra bars, so it never got uncomfortably packed at the opening. The two extra bars took cash so I didn’t have to whip out the debit card. I drank the saison all evening, which was delicious.

While I was there, I had pizza from the Rock’n’Dough food truck for the first time, and now I see why everyone raves about it. Living two blocks from Aldo’s place, I’m hard to impress when it comes to pizza, but Rock’n’Dough did it. I had a slice of pepperoni that was huge and cheesy. It was so good that I went back for a cheese slice, even though I totally didn’t need it.

While there, I caught up with my friend Craig David Meek who recently released his book Memphis Barbecue: A Succulent History of Smoke, Sauce & Soul. I’m only on chapter 3 but I have already learned a lot about Memphis that I didn’t know. Just to give a couple of hints: A building in which I spent a lot of time between 1997 and 2005 used to be a BBQ joint in the ’50s. Also, a food item that is very common in most Memphians’ diet these days might not have caught on in this city if BBQ hadn’t been involved.

I checked in on Facebook and Foursquare, and before long I was getting comments from my Downtown friends. “What are you doing in Midtown?” they asked. The taproom is ONE BLOCK EAST OF DANNY THOMAS. That’s not Midtown. The taproom is across the street from Kuzdu’s, which is considered a Downtown bar. If you walk out the taproom’s back door, you see Six-1-Six, very much considered to be a Downtown nightclub back in the day. I believe most Memphians consider Bellevue, a mile east of the taproom, to be Midtown’s western boundary. The Edge, in which the taproom is located, and Victorian Village are both Downtown neighborhoods despite being on the wrong side of Danny Thomas.

That’s the way we Downtowners think though… anything past Third is the wilderness. Overton Square might as well be Nashville to us. East Memphis is Knoxville. Cordova is somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Bermuda, maybe, although that’s kind of an insult to Bermuda.

Anyway, back to the taproom opening. There were some very nice tube tops and tube top dresses there, the Dead Soldiers were good, and overall it was a nice vibe. Glad I went.

The big event Downtown today is the Riverside Drive Open Streets party, celebrating the two lanes of Riverside that are now open to bike and pedestrian traffic. There will be music by the Mighty Souls Brass Band as well as bike art and exhibits. There will also be food trucks including Mark’s Grill, which tweeted its menu a few minutes ago. Things get started on Riverside at 4. Why not wear a tube top and get a tan on your shoulders?

If you want to take your dad to a baseball game, the Redbirds have a Father’s Day buffet today. Game time is 1:35. See memphisredbirds.com for information.

Leading off at Bloom’s bar at Bardog at 11 and then will figure out the rest of the day. Hopefully I will make it down to Riverside for a bit.

(Note: There was a second Friday update post yesterday with lots of news, so scroll down and read it if you haven’t checked the blog since lunchtime yesterday)

Every four years a conversation like this happens.

Me: “So the soccer players were out on the field and…”

Soccer fan: “The football players were out on the pitch.”

Me: “Yeah. So anyway, the soccer players were out on the field and…”

‘MERICA DAMMIT!!!

Congratulations to the Silly Goose. There was an event out east last night at Booksellers at Laurelwood called Literatini, a martini tasting to benefit Literacy Mid-South. The Goose won the vote for best cocktail, beating second-place Alchemy. It’s not easy to beat Alchemy in any kind of vote, and it shows how the Goose has really stepped it up lately with their new hand-crafted cocktails. Another Downtown bar, the Blind Bear, came in third.

From the Daily News: Questions raised about 100 N. Main developer. As my friend Mikey would say, rut roe.

Interesting news this morning: Localmemphis.com reports that a relative of former Tigers basketball player Pierre Henderson-Niles has been in contact with the NCAA, alleging that he was involved in a pay-to-play scheme under former coach John Calipari. Henderson-Niles played his final season under Josh Pastner, who was not named in the allegations and has said he does not believe them to be true.

Last night I was at the Flying Saucer, and I watched as two pieces of paper were pinned to the employee bulletin board. Both pieces of paper contained numerous pictures of women’s tops, and one was labeled “YES” and the other “NO” to communicate acceptable uniform standards. I think I saw a tube top on the “NO” sheet. BOOOOOOOOOO! Maybe I’ll rent the space across the street that used to be Jillian’s and open a beer joint with tube top uniforms.

Unfortunately I got stared at by an imbecile while I was drinking my beer at the Saucer. Some people just never learn. If that person would put as much effort into finding a job as he puts into bothering me, he wouldn’t be broke right now.

High Cotton Brewery has posted its lineup of seasonal beers for the taproom opening today: Cherry Beet Saison, Bourbon Barrel IPA, Hefeweizen, and Pilsner. They say that the pilsner won’t last long because supply is limited. The Facebook event listing shows 972 people attending. However, the brewery has said not to worry – they are installing additional bars for the event and you WILL get a beer. Beer sales are credit only, so don’t forget to bring a card. However, if you want to get food from the Stickem or Rock’n’Dough food trucks you will need to bring cash.

Plans for today: I’m leading off at Bardog at 11 as usual, but I am going to take it easy on drinking there and wherever I go for my second stop. No Fireball (THIS ESPECIALLY MEANS YOU BROOKE) and I plan on drinking plenty of water. I want to get to the taproom right at 4 and get photos for the blog before it gets super busy. Given the huge number of friends I have who have said they’re coming, my tentative plan is to stay all the way until closing time at 10, although I’ll be open to leaving if anything interesting comes up. Time to get this weekend started!