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Last night I hung out at the Saucer until about 9… thought about a trip to Bardog Tavern at that point, but I checked Foursquare and saw my friends checking into a location on Beale Street.  Since it’s Chad’s birthday weekend, I decided to join them.  Unfortunately that opened up the opportunity for the Nuh-Uh Girl to check into Bardog and steal my mayorship.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.  She’s in there all the time.  She usually hangs out near the entrance to the kitchen, hoping for samples.  It’s kind of like the bar version of a dog begging for scraps at the kitchen table.

No worries, though… I will get the mayorship back.  I have vacation coming up, and a good portion of it will be spent at Bardog.

Today is one of my favorite days of the year – the annual Cooper-Young Festival.  Half a mile of arts, crafts, food and music.  It’s centered, of course, at the corner of Cooper and Young, but it’s gotten so huge that it now extends almost all the way up Cooper to Central.  If you’ve never been to this, you really need to experience it.

I was thinking last night… for Foursquare users, this may be an opportunity to get a Swarm badge (for checking in with 50 or more people) without being at an airport.  Cooper-Young Fest is popular enough to do it.  Remember, Foursquare only keeps you checked in for two hours, so if you plan on hanging out all day (as I do), check back in periodically throughout the day.  I’d guesstimate that the best chance at getting the badge will be somewhere between 1 and 4 PM.

Weather forecast is for a high in the 90s, so it would be a perfect day to wear a tube top.  Ladies, if you want your pic on the blog, wear a tube top and come find me.  I’ll have on my purple Ques Brothers T-shirt, and will have the camera with me.  I plan on getting to the festival by 11, and once I get there, at no point will I stray more than 50 feet from the festival’s boundaries until it ends at 7.

I’m even getting texted pics of tube tops now.  Last night I was hanging out with some friends on Beale, and I got this text from someone at Calhoun’s:

Nikki in a tube top.  Nice.  Who knows, maybe if I’m lucky I’ll get enough pics at Cooper-Young that we can do a mini-Tube Top Month for the remainder of September.

For the past week I’ve been hearing a rumor that a restaurant called Maria’s Cantina, which already has a location in Southaven, plans on opening a Downtown Memphis location in 5-6 months. I’m told that the space on the ground floor of Barboro Flats, at Main and Gayoso, is where they’re looking to put it. Since I work nearby in Horn Lake, I decided to visit the Southaven Maria’s yesterday at lunch and give the place a try.

I found a reason to like the place as soon as I walked in the door and saw a Memphis Flyer rack. Flyers are near impossible to find south of the TN-MS border. For that reason alone I’ll be back, especially on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

I don’t know how much the possible Downtown location will resemble the Southaven location, but I’ll describe what I saw: Large, open dining room, long bar in the back of the restaurant. I counted 10 beers on tap, including Dos Equis Amber and Lager, which are staples at most every Mexican restaurant. I didn’t see PBR. There were three HDTVs at the bar and an additional one in the dining area. There was a 2010 Golden Tee Live in the bar area.

Large chalkboards indicated that they have live music on the weekend – one of my favorites, Aquanet, performed last Saturday. They have a happy hour from 11-7 and there are also game day specials.

Menu consists of nachos, quesadillas, “build your own burrito,” and about 20 different Tex-Mex entrees. Entrees are in the $10-15 range. They also have a kids’ menu, and of course a margarita menu. Unlike most Mexican restaurants, they don’t provide complimentary chips and salsa. Based on a recommendation, I went with the chicken chile relleno, and paid an extra dollar for the Mexican dirty rice with it instead of the saffron lime rice. This is what came out:

It was unlike chile rellenos I’d been served at Rio Loco and most other Mexican restaurants… this thing was HUGE and was stuffed generously with chicken, topped off with dollops of salsa and sour cream and served on a bed of rice and black beans. It was excellent and more than enough food to fill me up.

As I was finishing up my meal, the manager came over and introduced himself. I wondered if maybe he’d recognized me from my blog, but no – he’s just familiar with all his customers and he didn’t recognize my face, so he wanted to come over and make sure my first time there was a good time. Restaurants where the managers have that kind of relationship with their customers tend to do very well – especially Downtown.

I hope the rumors are true. It would be huge for the Main Street Mall to have this restaurant. Would generate tons of foot traffic and would be good for all the business on the mall.

Tomorrow will be a big day at the Cooper-Young festival, but first, there’s some stuff going on tonight.

The second in the series of Alley Jams concerts happens at Main and Gayoso. Grace Askew and Venus Mission will perform. Vendor sales start at 4:30; bands at 5. Concert will be followed by “Curious Pictures,” a digital art projection by the UrbanArt Commission.

Also tonight, MPACT Memphis is having a “Late Night” event at Mesquite Chop House. Chef Michael Patrick is extending happy hour to 11 PM, and 20% of the proceeds from the whole night go back to MPACT. Come eat some of Mike’s excellent food and support this fine organization.

Tonight is also Game 3 of the PCL championship at AutoZone Park at 7:05 PM.

And then tomorrow is the big day… Cooper-Young Fest. Say hello if you see me… I plan on riding a cab down there 10:30ish, and after that I plan on being somewhere within the boundaries of the festival until it ends at 7. Probably going to wear my purple BBQ team shirt. Hopefully being out in the sun all day will lighten my hair and help toward getting it back to the color it was before I dyed it for Stumbling Elvis.

Here’s a link to the Action News 5 story featuring Bardog’s Jean as Server of the Week and Demitrie as Chef of the Week.

Got an e-mail from an old friend, David the Worm, this morning. He’ll be opening for DJ Trashy at Rehab Disco tomorrow night.

Diversity Memphis will host a 5K walk starting and ending at the National Civil Rights Museum on Sunday. It will be a celebration of the different cultures in the community, and before and after there will be entertainment including Los Cantadores, Winston Stewart, and the Bar-Kays. Registration opens at 12:30 PM, walk at 2. More info here.

There will be a pirate festival Downtown this weekend – Saturday at Mud Island and Sunday at the Metal Museum. Details here.

Poker last night at Calhoun’s took an unexpected turn… about 20 minutes into the game, my screen on my Buzztime Playmaker box got dimmer and dimmer… by the 30-minute mark my box had completely died, leaving me on the virtual poker table, sitting out with about 8,000 in chips. Kitty was kind enough to let me borrow her box and I was able to log back on about 15 minutes later. By that time the blinds had reduced my stack, and they came through again at 800/1600 before I could find anything even resembling a hand. Finally I shoved what was left all in with QJ suited, but it wasn’t good enough. Michele said “about 6” of the boxes are like that, dying in the middle of games. Time to replace the boxes maybe?

All in all, a very good time at Calhoun’s though… we celebrated Chad’s birthday, and it was good to see my BBQ teammate Kao who flew in from Mexico for the weekend.

Since we’re rumored to be getting a Maria’s Cantina Downtown, I’m going to check out the Southaven one for lunch… first though, let me check Foursquare and make sure there’s no douche checked in there… no, it appears to be safe. Will post a report of my experience there at a later time.

The Silly Goose once again has beer. Their permit expired, and for a few weeks they were selling mixed drinks only… but now the beer is back, and tonight is their trivia night at 8 PM.

Cockadoos is expanding their lunch menu. This is what they posted to Facebook today: “COMING SOON!! Turkey burgers, chili, chili cheese dogs, hot dogs, rotel chicken pasta, chili mac, and our very own club sandwich The Cockaclub!!”

Word on Twitter this morning is that the Downtown Blue Monkey is building a patio. That will be a nice addition.

Today’s Groupon is a half-off deal at the Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum.

The finale of the Orpheum’s summer movie series, Casablanca, is scheduled for tomorrow… however, Orpheum president Pat Halloran has decided to extend the series to run throughout the year. Movie tickets are relatively cheap entertainment, he believes, and he hopes that the Orpheum’s movie patrons will become future patrons of the Broadway shows. The Orpheum makes the movies fun with trivia contests, costume contests, organ concerts, and other entertainment prior to start time.

Bruce Pearl and John Calipari have always had a rivalry, but this summer Pearl has really proven himself… he’s proven he’s every bit as big a douche as Coach Cal. Not only did he lie about high school juniors being at his house, but he lied about the reason he came clean – it wasn’t his conscience as he said, but the fact that he knew he’d been caught, and he was trying to do damage control. CBS national columnist Gregg Doyel says that it’s time for Tennessee to fire the Bruchebag. I agree. Taking away 25% of his salary is not enough. It’s time for Bruce to find employment at Taco Bell. Or, as my friend Air Traffic Mike said, a Conference USA school.

Also a good column in the CA today… if Tennessee had been sincere about wanting to punish Pearl and his staff, they would have banned them from recruiting immediately, rather than beginning the ban on September 24. Pearl was in town yesterday recruiting a top Memphis high school player, desperately trying to salvage next year’s recruiting class.

A very happy birthday to my friend Chad! He plans on celebrating all weekend long, kicking it off tonight at Calhoun’s. I will be there to wish him well, and hopefully to pick up another first-place prize at poker.

I’m going to let last night’s drunk post, with the rumor about Maria’s Cantina coming Downtown, stand as is.  The person I heard it from is not exactly the epitome of “credibility” (or “intelligence” or “common sense” or “maturity” or “fashion sense” or a lot of other things), but I’ve heard the Maria’s thing from others as well, so I’m going to let it remain on the blog.

Glad I’m not a real journalist and therefore don’t have to make phone calls to corroborate this stuff.  That would be a lot of f-ing work.

Drunk drunk driggety driggety
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Driggety drunk drunk driggety driggety
Drunk drunk driggety driggety

Okay. Yeah I went to the Saucer and drank some beer tonight.  And followed it up at Kooky Canuck.  But I gleaned some useful info for my readers.

That ground floor space facing the Main Street Mall in Barboro Flats, the new apartment building at Main and Gayoso?   That’s apparently going to be a Maria’s Cantina, based on conversations I had tonight.  I have seen this on Twitter before and someone who would know confirmed it tonight.  As the name suggests, it’s a Mexican place, and there’s one on Airways near Goodman in Southaven.  I’ve been told the new place will have a very decent happy hour until 7 PM, and will be open until 3 AM on weekends.  I’ve furthermore been told that the chile relleno is the best thing on the menu, for those planning orders in advance.

Quetzal, the Internet cafe/coffee shop/bar at Union and Marshall, has closed. The comments on this CA article offer some hints why. If you ignore the idiots arguing about whether “Obamma” (geez) or Bush is to blame for the economy, there are quite a few critiques of the service people received at Quetzal.

New details on the investigation regarding Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl. This article says the Big Orange Douche was shown photos of a recruit, and asked if he recognized the location at which the photos were taken. The Bruchebag said no, despite the fact that the photos were believed to have been taken at HIS OWN HOUSE. Hey Bruce, just in case things don’t go well in the investigation, I saw a sign at Taco Bell last week saying that they’re hiring.

Pearl isn’t the only college basketball douche in hot water, though. This NY Times article says that Eric Bledsoe, who played for Kentucky last season, received an “A” in high school Algebra III, without ever having taken Algebra II. Wow, that kid must be pretty smart. Well, that or someone fudged the grade. The allegation, if proved, could lead to Kentucky being forced to vacate their Elite Eight season last year. Wow, would vacated seasons at three different schools qualify John Calipari for the Guinness Book of World Records?

In other sports news, yesterday’s “Sports Files with Geoff Calkins” show, featuring R.C. Johnson, can now be viewed here.

Tomorrow night is the return of the Third Thursday block party on the block of Main between Gayoso and Peabody Place. Retail and restaurant discounts and live music. This month the music will be provided by Blind Mississippi Morris, Devil Train, and Mike Darby & House of Cards.

Calling all artists: The Downtown Neighborhood Association is holding a contest to design a T-shirt for its 30th anniversary. Besides the publicity and recognition that will come with winning, the person who creates the chosen design will receive a “River Experience” gift package with two-night hotel stays in New Orleans and Memphis and a Memphis gift bag. The People’s Choice winner will receive dinner for two at a Memphis restaurant. Visit the DNA website for more details.

Coming soon: Details on a Grizzlies promotion of interest to Downtowners.

This morning I got a text from someone who works Downtown that the Chocolate Factory inside Peabody Place has closed.

Lifehacker linked to a fantastic blog post this morning – No, you are not ‘running late,’ you are rude and selfish. Totally agree. Years ago, I used to put up with this from people who were late not once in a while, but consistently late – 25 minutes late to brunch while I sat there by myself waiting, 2 hours late to plans on Beale. So glad that I now have friends who respect my time.

All right… time to make a quick Target run before lunch is over. Not sure where I’ll be after work. Will probably start at the usual place, then go from there.

One of my favorite fall festivals, the Cooper-Young Festival, is this Saturday. Here are a few notes to help you maximize your enjoyment:

Wear comfortable shoes. If you loop around the entire length of the festival, you will be walking an entire mile. This is not the place to sacrifice comfort for the sake of stylish footwear.

If you want to buy tickets to the October 9 Cooper-Young Regional Beerfest, you’ll be able to do so at Saturday’s Cooper-Young Fest. (I’ll be buying my ticket that day!)

There’s usually one vendor who sells 24 oz. tallboy cans of PBR. This is the best beer value sold inside the festival. They usually have a booth somewhere in the vicinity of Soul Fish on Cooper.

When I drive to the fest (which I WON’T be doing this year), I like to park my car either north of Central or west of Barksdale, with the car pointed away from the festival. That makes my escape route super-simple when I leave, avoiding traffic jams.

Keep in mind that the Tigers have a home football game vs. Middle Tennessee State at 6 PM, so if you’re heading east from the festival late in the afternoon, best to avoid Central and Southern.

Better yet, avoid driving altogether. Call 323-3333 or 577-7777 to get a taxi. This is what I plan on doing.

Here’s a link to the festival schedule so you can figure out which bands you want to see, and when.

There’s also an additional, unofficial music stage: Celtic Crossing has bands on their back patio area, so be sure to stop by there for more music options. Their bands usually play well past the festival end time of 7 PM.

If the hot sun (or the beer) dehydrates you, the fresh-squeezed lemonade is a really good way to revive yourself.

The Memphis Flyer usually has a booth where they hand out maps of the festival. They also usually publish a festival map in the Wednesday issue preceding the fest.

Since it’s an election year, there will be plenty of politicians and political campaigns out talking to the voters. If there’s anyone you strongly support, grab a sticker from their campaign workers. If not, just try to avoid them.

Be sure to get a full charge on your mobile device if you plan on checking football scores throughout the day as you wander the festival.

They don’t allow pets at the festival. They post this all over their website and all advertising, yet there’s always that one person who tries to bring their damn dog anyway.

You can follow me at @paulryburn on Twitter, and I’ll try to tweet more C-Y tips throughout the day as I’m there. Of course, you’ll probably have to put up with tweets from me trash-talking Tennessee and Ole Miss, and commenting on any tube top action at the festival.

Speaking of which… I’ll have the camera with me. Ladies, if you want your pic on the blog, wear a tube top and come find me. This is one of the last festivals of the year when it’s still tube top weather outside.

Hope to see you there.  There are 8760 hours in a year, and sadly only 10 of them are devoted to Cooper-Young Fest.  I plan to take full advantage of them.

For those wondering when the Channel 5 story will air, honoring Bardog Tavern employees Jean and Demitrie, I now have a day. One of my blog’s readers was sitting next to Andy Wise last night as he ate a big plate of Aldo’s spaghetti and meatballs, and Wise said the story will air Thursday night.

The Orpheum will wrap up its summer movie series with Casablanca Friday night. Movie starts at 7:15, but show up at 6:15 for pre-movie events including a trivia contest with a grand prize package valued at $1000. Visit their website for more details and ticket info.

Grill 83 has announced their October Tuscan Wine Dinner. It will be October 12 at 6:30 PM, and here are the courses:

First Course: Pappardelle al Cinghiale Brasato, a homemade Pappardelle pasta, green olive braised boar, butternut squash and toasted walnuts, served with La Braccesca Syrah

Main Course: Vitello Agrodolce sulla Polenta e Funghi, a roasted veal tenderloin glazed with sweet and sour sauce, served over polenta and mushroom Ragu, paired with La Braccesca Sabazio.

Final Course: Semifreddo al Torrone, a nougat Semifreddo with cantuccini biscotti, accompanied by Le Rive Muscato

$59 per person, excluding tax and gratuity. Call 901-333-1224 or visit Grill 83 to make reservations.

It looks like the deli Joe Cooper is planning at Main and Adams is on hold. This CA article reports that Cooper’s investors backed out, and he is currently looking for new ones before he can move forward. Kinda surprised by that – who wouldn’t want a convicted felon as a business partner?

There’s a plan in the works to ease traffic congestion at the I-55/Crump/Riverside intersection. I-55 traffic will be rerouted straight through, and a roundabout will provide local access to streets like Crump and Riverside. Two things: 1) Please don’t start on this until the I-40 bridge construction is over; and 2) Downtowners will LOVE YOU if you can find some way to include easy access to the Metal Museum from Downtown north of Crump as part of this.

I wish the best of luck to my friends on the Squeal Street BBQ team, who will be competing in the Smokin’ Aces regional BBQ championship cooking contest in Tunica this weekend. It’s hosted by Harrah’s Casino. Admission is free both Friday and Saturday, and there will be bands, people’s choice judgings, and a chance to meet Memphis BBQ legends the Neelys.

Quick reminder that there’s an SMA meeting at the Peabody Corner Bar at 6, and the Redbirds play the first game of the Pacific Coast League championship at 7:05. And, of course, it’s trivia night at the Saucer, which is where I’ll be.