BBQ Fest info

(Members of my team:  Scroll down to the last paragraph)

I know a lot of people who read the blog aren’t familiar with BBQ Fest, so I wanted to post and give everyone an orientation to it.

BBQ Fest is the unofficial nickname of the Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest.  Almost 300 teams compete in ribs, shoulder, whole hog, other, and patio porker categories.  There are also awards for best booth, best team shirt, Ms. Piggie contest where team members dress up like female pigs, etc.

Each team has a booth which is like a private party for that team.  In order to eat a team’s BBQ, you have to be a team member or an invited guest.  That kinda sucks that you can’t go around sampling everyone’s BBQ but it’s a Health Department regulation – if the teams served BBQ to the public then they’d be considered restaurants and would have to go through the inspection process, which would take too long to get done and would get really expensive.  There are two ways you can sample BBQ from various booths without being an invited guest:  The People’s Choice Competition, which lets you judge BBQ samples, and the Cooker’s Caravan where you are taken on a guided tour of various booths.  For People’s Choice, you pay $4 to judge 5 BBQ samples, and can judge as many times as you want.  The Cooker’s Caravan tours run from 11:30 AM – 3:30 PM Thur-Fri and leave every 30 minutes.  More info here.

Teams have various methods for indicating who is an invited guest into booths.  My BBQ team uses wristbands with the team name and booth number printed on them.  These are not the same as the team member wristbands.  Guest wristbands only give you access to a particular booth; you still have to pay the cover charge to get in Tom Lee Park ($8/day).  Team wristbands allow the wearer to enter the park for free and bring in supplies, food, and beer and liquor.  Some teams use methods other than wristbands for indicating who is a guest, such as hand stamps and printed passes.

Every year there’s a problem with people trying to sneak in booths and freeload, without actually knowing team members or being an invited guest.  For that reason many team members have security at the booth entrance (I refer to my team’s security as the “Door Gestapo”).  I’m a big part of the reason my team has to have a Door Gestapo; last year we had people claiming to know me, and who were able to recite details about my personal life, because they read the blog.  If I’ve told you you’re invited and you don’t have a wristband, call my cell when you get close to our team’s booth and I’ll come to the door and wave you in.  Invited guests:  Please don’t be offended if the Door Gestapo cards you; they have to do that to show the police that we’re not serving alcohol to minors.  If they don’t know you personally, they will card you.

There is a Friends & Family Night Wednesday night from 5 to 10 which is for team members and for close friends and family only.  This is a good chance for teams to get the party started and work out any kinks before the masses arrive the next day.  The park is open to the public 11 AM – midnight Thursday-Friday, 10 AM – 11 PM Saturday.

Many of the teams have sponsors, who pay large sums of money (usually $5,000 or more) to put up signage and for their employees/clients to have access to the team booth.  In some cases sponsors completely take over the booth for a particular night, and team members serve the sponsors and aren’t allowed to bring their own guests that night.  Other sponsors are more laid back and just want to hang out with the team and their guests.  Thursday night tends to be the most popular night for “sponsor night,” although this is not universal.  My team does not have a sponsor this year, so our invited guests don’t need to worry about access being restricted on any night.  We already have several sponsorship offers for next year that we will look into after this year’s festival is behind us.

Friday tends to be the biggest party night; by Saturday things are winding down and some teams already have started to pack up and leave by Saturday afternoon.  My team plans on partying all the way through ’til close, in case there’s any doubt, so people I invited who plan on coming Saturday, don’t worry, we’ll be there.

The ribs teams take up the northern two-thirds of the park, with the shoulder teams next, and the whole hog teams at the far south end.  We’re in the shoulder competition, so if you come in the Beale entrance, plan on walking for a good 10 minutes before you get to us.  Our booth is roughly parallel with the stairs leading from Butler Street to Riverside Drive (just slightly south of there actually).

Awards are handed out Saturday afternoon around 5,6ish I think.  My team placed 12th out of 80 shoulder teams last year and this year we’re looking to crack the top 10 and take home a trophy.

Hope you found this orientation helpful.  BBQ Fest confused me the first couple years I went to it.  Hope this post alleviated some of the confusion.

Forecast is for rain tomorrow night, so those who are coming to Friends & Family Night tomorrow may want to stop by Walgreens or one of the gift shops on Beale and purchase a cheap disposable poncho.  These can usually be bought for $3 or so.

Members of my team:  Our team captain Chuck will be at the Saucer tonight around 6:30ish (note: he operates on Chuck time, so it may be more like 7) to hand out team wristbands and Wed night passes.  These are for fully-paid, full team members ONLY (not guests).  If you’re one of the people who joined through my blog and the team doesn’t know you, you’ll need to show ID to pick up your wristband.  Feel free to stay and play trivia at 7 if you want; a large number of our BBQ members are on the Rapscallions trivia team, and there are also a few on the much less successful Weiss Asses team.  Looking forward to a great weekend.

Tuesday update: Little Tea Shop, Itta Bena, wetlands, Gus’s Chicken, Happy Mexican, and more

Suhair from the Little Tea Shop on Monroe is on the Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” this week.  Click here for the schedule of shows, and remember we’re on Central Time, so adjust backward one hour.

A reader e-mailed me the names of the piano player and singer from Itta Bena… I met both of them Saturday night but couldn’t remember their names to save my life (thanks to beer).  They are Rick Steph and Susan Marshall, and they are both very accomplished musicians and have recorded with some heavy hitters such as Cat Power, Lucinda Williams, and others.

The same reader also told me that the live music in Pearl’s basement on the weekends has been attracting some very nice looking ladies lately.

Yesterday I was contacted by Save the Wetland, an organization that is trying to save the wetland at the north end of Tom Lee Park from being destroyed by construction for the new Beale Street Landing.  The person who contacted me listed several reasons why it would be bad to destroy the wetland, including loss of habitat for some species, increased pollution, and destabilization of the riverfront that could lead to erosion.  The wetland is the rocky area you will see as you walk the sidewalks nearest the river at Tom Lee Park.  Don’t know, I have mixed feelings about this one… the Landing is something I believe will be good for Downtown… but on the other hand it’s a shame to lose the wetlands.  I don’t know.  Check out Save the Wetland’s site and decide for yourself.

Congratulations to Gus’s Fried Chicken, which made the list of Inc. Magazine’s 100 fastest-growing inner-city companies.  Extraordinary growth is a sign the magazine looks for when making its list, and it notes that Downtown Gus’s has had a 129% growth rate since 2003.  The article cites the personal interest owner Wendy McCrory takes in her employees as a secret to Gus’s success.

I tried the Happy Mexican for the first time last night… at least the first time since the ownership changed about a year ago.  I met my health guru AL there for dinner.  AL ordered vegetarian tortilla soup with mushrooms and veggies in broth, and tortilla strips on the side to add to the soup.  Except she didn’t add them.  No kidding, that was her DINNER. That looked like the most boring meal imaginable.  I, on the other hand, had the Enchiladas Rancheros – three cheese enchiladas topped with tender pork tips, cooked tomatoes, onions, bell peppers & enchilada sauce, then garnished with lettuce, guacamole, sour cream & tomatoes.  It was gooood.  I pointed out to AL how I was getting several of my daily servings of veggies, since the dish had the lettuce, guacamaole, and tomato garnishes.  It also had very yummy tasty melted cheese and pork tips.  Mmmm pork.  I like to look at the enchiladas as a warm-up dish for BBQ Fest later in the week.

AL told me I should check out a fitness boot camp Energy Fitness is starting up.  It meets from 5:45 to 6:45 AM Mondays and Wednesdays and runs for 18 classes.  Yeah I’d say there’s very little chance I’ll be attending that one.  However, it did give me an idea – how about a drinking boot camp?  We could use it to get in shape for Pub Olympics at Hoop’s Bar next month.  If there’s any interest in this let me know.  I figure we can start the drinking boot camp at the Ques Brothers BBQ tent Thursday.

Another extremely early night for me last night… I had two beers at the Saucer after dinner with AL, then made it home by 9:30.  Still resting up, because the party starts in two days at BBQ Fest Friends & Family Night.

Even though many of the team members will be absent taking care of BBQ duties, the Rapscallions trivia team WILL have a presence at the Saucer tonight.  It may be just me and one or two other folks, but there will be a team named the Rapscallions there.  Afterward I’m going to walk down to Calhoun’s for a beer or two.  Or three.  Or four.  Or five.  Mmmm beer.

Time to walk to Jack’s and buy my wake-up liter of Mountain Dew.  Mmmm high-fructose corn syrup.

MPD launches new crime site. Plus: Opera, walking tour of Mississippi, line dancing

The Memphis Police Department has launched a really cool new real-time crime tracking site.  On it you can watch a ticker detailing the most recent crimes committed around town, see a map organized by crime type of the last 50 crimes committed, check criminal records, and do a lot of other cool stuff.  Here’s a link to the new site.

The latest rumor I’m hearing about the Downtown Blue Monkey is that it may open Friday.  This is second-hand information, so don’t go and plan your whole weekend around it.  They’ve given us plenty of target opening dates before and missed them.  If it does open Friday, I won’t be able to check the place out before Sunday due to BBQ Fest.

There will be opera in Felicia Suzanne’s courtyard today at 11:45 as part of the CCC’s Downtown Alive! program.  Felicia’s will have box lunches for sale for $8, or you can BYOF.

Also, the Downtown Alive! program will present a 30-minute walking tour of the Mississippi by Jimmy Ogle at lunchtime Tuesday.  Meet at 11:45 at Confederate Park, on Front between Court and Jefferson.  Learn how Memphis evolved from the Mississippi River, and the impact it has on our city.

On Wednesday, there will be a line dancing workshop at the Cossitt Library at Front and Monroe.  Learn the Cha Cha, the Cuban Shuffle, the Electric Slide, and the Cha Cha Shuffle.  There’s no time listed, so call 526-1712 for more details.

Exhausted from a big weekend… walked down to Tom Lee Park and took some pics of the BBQ team building the booth, as the start of the 2008 BBQ Fest photo album.  After that walked up Second, ate at the Flying Fish, and realized I was DONE for the day at 5:30 PM.  Allergies were killing me and I was dead tired.  So I came home hours earlier than usual, having never made it to Itta Bena and Calhoun’s as planned.

3-day week for me at work due to BBQ Fest.  Time to get it started.

Been busy

Not much time to post this weekend… been busy with pre-BBQ Fest networking.  Running around to various places, telling friends where my team’s booth will be, finding out who else has a BBQ booth I might be able to get into, calling around and getting stuff donated/borrowed.  So I’ve been barhopping to the extreme… yesterday I went to the Saucer, Rio Loco, the Saucer again, Big Foot, the Saucer a third time, then Itta Bena, then Raiford’s.

Had the fish tacos at Rio Loco for the first time – they’re the Saturday lunch special.  Wanted to compare them to the Flying Fish’s fish tacos, but they’re very different.  Rio Loco serves them grilled inside a soft taco shell, and provides a plate of fixin’s (lettuce, sour cream, pico de gallo, dressing) so you can build your own tacos.  Pretty tasty.  As usual, I went there to get some food in me to keep from getting wasted early in the day… and then I went and got a jumbo margarita with my food.  That margarita nearly put me down for the count.  I managed to stay awake during my second shift at the Saucer by dancing around and signing “ABC” by the Jackson 5.  I bet I sang it about 14 times.

Later in the day I went to Big Foot with some of my BBQ team members and we split an order of garlic bread, topped with cheese and bacon.  It was goooood.  Otto: “Pretty much everything’s better with bacon.”  Indeed.  The bartender told us that my former BFF would be arriving shortly, so we finished up and high-tailed it out of there, as no one was in the mood to deal with her stupid-ass self.  We headed back to the Saucer, where I turned in my usual sucky performance at darts.  I do all right at pool but I will never be a good dart player.

About 10 I left the dart tournament and wandered over to Itta Bena.  They have a piano player and singer Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, but previously I had never been there late enough to catch the show.  Here’s a pic:

The piano makes for a mellow, laid-back setting that is a huge contrast to the partying going on outside on Beale Street.  I’ve been told that the piano draws a sizable regular crowd on Friday nights, and it’s starting to catch on Thursdays and Saturdays as well.

From there it was on to Raiford’s, where my friends Tom and Meredith were having an after-party, having gotten married earlier in the day:

And here’s a pic of the bride with two of the bridesmaids:

About 1:30 Raiford’s started to get super packed, and I was tired out from 12 hours of being out, so I called it a night.

Oh, by the way, they have a banner out front saying that Raiford’s is now open for ’80s Ladies Night on Thursday nights.  Hmmmmm.  There’s a good chance I’ll pay the place a visit Thursday night and check it out.

Busy day today as well.  My BBQ team is loading in and building today, but I struck a “no physical labor” agreement with the team when I joined last year.  Besides, I’m a lot more useful to the team when I’m out networking, securing donations and inviting girls to the booth.  Places I plan to hit today:  Big Foot, Majestic, McGuinness, the Saucer, Itta Bena for Sundays with Sam, and Calhoun’s.  I also have to call my mother at some point for Mother’s Day at some point.  For those who check my blog to figure out where we’re doing brunch, it’s Majestic week 1 on the schedule.

I’m finally going to try the Happy Mexican.  I’m meeting my health guru AL there tomorrow.

All right… time to post and get another long day started.

Pajama Jam @ Flying Saucer tonight

The Flying Saucer celebrates its 11th birthday tonight, and is having a pajama party to celebrate.  No cover if you wear pajamas or lingerie.  Music by the West Tennessee Wife Swappers (one of whom, I’d like to point out, is a fellow member of the Ques Brothers BBQ team).

Trying to decide if I’m going to dress up… I don’t have a pajama top, just bottoms, so if I dress the part I’ll wear my bathrobe and whatever old T-shirt I can find along with the pajama bottoms.  The problem with dressing up is, I can’t exactly leave the Saucer and go to other bars in that outfit.  I sure as hell wouldn’t go to the Rooster or Raiford’s with a bathrobe on.  Maybe McGuinness.  Or Black Diamond.

Ah, heck, I’ll probably do it.  I’m not one to pass up chances to dress up and make a fool of myself.

Something different for lunch today… Cafe 61

Last night I was hanging out at the bar at Itta Bena, and I spent some time talking to one of the servers who has a job at Cafe 61.  She told me that the food was phenomenal, out of this world.  So I decided to vary up my lunch routine a little and give 61 a shot.

I had the crawfish and cheese enchiladas, and they did not disappoint.  Three enchiladas loaded with crawfish and smothered in lots of cheese, with rice, a small salad and a cold corn/black bean salad.

I’ll definitely be back… looking forward to working my way through the rest of the lunch menu.

Weird stuff I find online… custom beer pong tables

I use Gmail, and it displays text ads that it thinks I might be interested in.  This morning it displayed a good one – IAmBeerPong.com, a company that builds custom beer pong tables.  You can choose color, as well as various options for cup placement.

Definitely a site for people who take their drinking games seriously.  I wonder if Hoop and Tony at Hoop’s Bar have seen this site… might come in handy for Pub Olympics next month.

Vote for Calhoun’s for best Memphis Sports Bar. Also: BBQ, former BFF, SMA meeting, tech entrepreneur event tonight

Calhoun’s, the friendly neighborhood sports bar on G.E. Patterson in the South Main District, has been nominated for Best Sports Bar in Memphis Sport Magazine’s annual poll.  Go here to vote for Calhoun’s.  Lots of reasons to vote for Calhoun’s… awesome flat panel TVs… awesome game packages on the TVs… awesome beer selection… awesome bartenders… awesome owners… awesome beer specials when the Cardinals and Cubs are playing.

Had a 4-hour BBQ team planning meeting last night at the Saucer.  Earlier in the week I asked to be more involved, and boy did I get my wish and then some.  It’s all coming together though.  Can’t wait for the end of next week!

I guess I need to get back on good terms with my former BFF, so I can invite her and her roommates and her mini-me and her Club Atlas party buddy to our BBQ booth.  Although, the way she drinks, that could add a couple extra hundred dollars to our liquor budget (not to mention a huge bottle of Gatorade for her to chug after she’s all drunk and dehydrated).  She was in the Saucer last night and I thought about going over and talking to her, but she was with someone who doesn’t seem to be able to observe the Mikeyism “this is an A and B conversation, so I’d better C my way out.”  I hate to say it but I actually miss her a little.  Hopefully I’ll get to talk to her and extend the booth invite sometime in the next few days.

The South Main Association has its next meeting next Tuesday, May 13 at 6 PM, and they’re doing it in a great venue… the Red Rooster!  Free appetizers, cash bar, presentation by Reggie Williams, VP of Community Relations for the Memphis Redbirds.  Free for SMA members, $5 for non-members.  More details at southmainmemphis.org.

LaunchMemphis’s kickoff party, the Tech Fuel Networking Event, is tonight from 5 to 7 at the Fox & Hound Sanderlin.  This is a place for technologists, entrepreneurs, and business professionals to share ideas.  Open to the public, free appetizers, discounted drink specials.  More events coming this month too… check them out at launchmemphis.com.

Still thinking Itta Bena after work (gotta hand out BBQ invitations there too), then Saucer, then Rooster.

What’s going on tonight?

The weekly “It’s Thursday, what’s going on Downtown?” post:

  • Triggerproof plays the Peabody rooftop tonight from 6 to 10; $5 cover, ladies free before 8.
  • Symbiosis plays the Madison rooftop 5:30 to 10:30
  • Q107.5 patio party with Garry Goin & G3 at EP Delta Kitchen, 8:30-til
  • Afterglow at the Flying Saucer, 9:30, $3 cover
  • Tom, Dick & Harry at the Red Rooster
  • Amateur Night at Club Lame… er, um, I mean Girls’ Night Out at Club Atlas
  • Trivia night at TJ Mulligan’s in the Pinch, 8 PM
  • Ladies’ Night at Tug’s at the River Inn of Harbor Town, half-off drinks

Tonight I’ll probably start off at Itta Bena since I didn’t make it there last night, then I’ll hang out at the Saucer until 11:30ish, then the Rooster.  Plans subject to change.

Veggie burgers

I can’t believe I’m writing a post about vegetarian burgers.

A couple of days ago I wrote that there was a veggie burger on Big Foot’s menu (which I didn’t order).  My health guru AL e-mailed to ask if it was any good, and if it was from a box or made from scratch.  I didn’t know, so I asked my readers.

One reader responded that it was from a box, but “it’s totally yummy” and like everything else, they make it Big Foot style, meaning HUGE, with two patties.

Another reader concurred that Big Foot’s burger was good, but said that the veggie burger at Tug’s at the River Inn at Harbor Town is the best she has had.

A third reader recommended the veggie burger from Huey’s, noting that you can get it in place of beef on any of Huey’s specialty burgers.  She recommended the veggie Smokey Melt in particular.

So there ya go… my blog is veggie-friendly now.  Check back today… I’m typing up several posts this morning and setting them to publish at various times during the day.  On tap:  A chance for those who love Calhoun’s Sports Bar & Grill to show their appreciation, what’s happening tonight for Thursday party night, and who knows what else is in store.