The Memphis Farmers Market normally runs at the Central Station Pavilion from April until October, but this Saturday, December 11, they’re back for one week only for “Harvesting the Holidays.” Over 40 vendors will be at the pavilion offering holiday gift ideas. Items for sale will include baked goods, seasonal produce and locally produced stocking stuffers. There will be hot cocoa and sweet treats.
Good news for those of us who wanted to support the market but couldn’t bear to get up at the ungodly hour of 7 AM for its opening… this week it opens at 10 AM, much more reasonable. It will be open until 3 in the afternoon. At 11 there will be a groundbreaking ceremony for the expansion of the pavilion and the market.
Bring the kids in the afternoon, because they can get their photo taken with Santa from 1 to 3.
That evening at the Trolley Stop Market at 704 Madison, there will be a concert to benefit the Farmers Market. $10 donation goes to MFM. Star & Micey will perform, and there will be dinner and drink specials all evening. 7:30 to 11 PM.
If you’re looking for a way to give to the less fortunate this holiday season, I have an idea for you.
The Hospitality Hub, located on Jefferson between Second and Third next to China restaurant, was established by the Downtown Churches Association to help the homeless navigate through the network of services offered throughout the city. They open three days a week and the homeless are invited in for coffee and conversation. Once inside, they can gain access to job training and placement, free vouchers to sleep at the Union Mission, and help for mental and addiction issues. The Hub also helps them get copies of birth certificates and other documentation they need to be able to work.
The CCC sent out an e-mail yesterday afternoon asking everyone to support the Hub. The e-mail didn’t say it, but I know the Hub has been in tough financial straits recently. The services it offers are too valuable to those who need it. No donation is too small, and this is a MUCH MUCH MUCH better use of your money than giving it to a panhandler on the street, who probably isn’t homeless and will use your money for alcohol and drugs.
or send your check to:
Hospitality HUB
146 Jefferson Avenue
Memphis, TN 38103
Any amount at all helps, but just to give you an idea, $35 pays for eight shelter vouchers. $50 pays for two job program participants to have work shoes. $75 pays for 50 MATA bus passes so participants can get to their jobs. $100 pays for eleven people to get the Tennessee state IDs they need to be legally hired.
Please consider supporting this most valuable program. Thank you.
This weekend is a family-friendly one Downtown, because the circus is coming! The FedExForum is full of lions and elephants as the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus makes a stop for the weekend. There will be five shows – 7 PM Thursday, 7 PM Friday, 1 PM and 5 PM Saturday, and 2 PM Sunday. It’s the circus’ Illuscination (Gold) tour, which you can read more about here.
A bonus tip if you attend the Friday, December 10 show: Stop by the Doubletree Hotel at Third and Union beforehand for Cookies and Milk with Santa. He’ll be there from 3 to 7 to benefit Porter-Leath. Santa will have candy canes and chocolate chip cookies, and for a $5 suggested donation to Porter-Leath, you can have your child’s photo taken with Santa.
Where to eat before or after the show? Three of the family-friendliest restaurants Downtown are nearby on Second. Kooky Canuck has huge ice cream sundaes, skillet cookies, and s’mores you make at the table. Flying Fish has all kinds of fun photos and fish on the wall, and is a neat place to take kids. Then, of course, there’s Huey’s, with great burgers and toothpicks to blow at the ceiling. Can’t go wrong with any of these.
My friends Dennis and Mary Pat were in town this past weekend for the Memphis Marathon. While they were here, they did some Christmas shopping, and reminded me of a very good place to pick up quality, inexpensive gifts: the Peanut Shop on Main Street.
I’ve shopped there in the past for gifts to take home with me to Little Rock. They have a huge selection of nuts, chocolates, and candy, and can package your purchases in decorative tins. The people who run the shop are SO nice; they still ask about my mother four years after I first shopped there for a gift for her. They’re known to remember people’s names a year later. If you want to support a Downtown neighborhood business that has been part of the community for years and years, it would be hard to think of a better one than the Peanut Shop.
This would be a great place to go if you’re a small business owner and you need to send out small holiday gifts to your most valued customers.
The shop is open until 5 weekdays, and (I think) 5:30 Saturdays. Closed Sundays. It’s located on the Main Street Mall between Madison and Monroe, next to Court House Deli and across from Brinkley Plaza and Felicia Suzanne’s.
In other news: My friends Dennis and Mary Pat told me the marathon raised a whopping $2.8 million for St. Jude. I know it’s a little inconvenient to have streets closed and people screaming at AutoZone Park at 7 AM, but you know what? If it raises almost three million for sick kids it’s worth it.
If you’re on Twitter, be careful when clicking on goo.gl shortened links the next few days – it’s a malware attack. More details here.
Big game on ESPN tonight: The #14 Memphis Tigers take on the #4 Kansas Jayhawks in the Jimmy V Classic. I hope the Tigers bring their A-game tonight and have learned how to rebound in the past couple of days. A win vs. Kansas would look real good to the NCAA tournament committee in March.
I’ll be at trivia at the Saucer (7 PM start time), but will be very distracted by the game. Usually I stand on the rail facing the trivia guy (whoever it is this week, Pete or Mikey), but this week I may have to stand on the opposite side of the rail so I can look at a TV. Go Tigers!
One of the nice things about having full-time earned income is that I can eat out now and then, take photos of my food, then blog what I ate in a “Paul’s Food Find” type of format. Yesterday, after starting with a few Bass Ales on Fire Sale at the Flying Saucer, I walked down the street to Rio Loco, where I had one of my favorite dishes, Tilapia Rio Loco.
There are five different tilapia preparations at the popular Mexican restaurant, but the Tilapia Rio Loco is by far my favorite. It’s topped with shrimp in a cream sauce, and served with an avocado salad and rice. Very tasty. I usually wash it down with a jumbo margarita, or sometimes a 25 oz. Dos Equis Lager.
In my lunchtime post, I included an address I found on Facebook where you can send Christmas cards to injured soldiers. I’ve since learned that the hospital which the address was for may not be able to receive the cards.
A few weeks ago, I posted about a competition, sponsored by the Rotary Club, where local businesses could pay to “adopt” and decorate 12-foot Christmas trees. The trees will be on display in Court Square from today through December 18, and there will be a lighting ceremony in the square tonight at 6 PM.
Come on out, take a look at the trees, and vote for your favorite. The top three winners will have $250 teacher grants donated to the new Memphis College Prep Elementary School in Uptown.
In other Christmas-related news, I wanted to pass along something I saw on Facebook. If you send Christmas cards, fill out an extra one and send it to A Recovering American Soldier, c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 6900 Georgia Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20307-5001. It’s an easy way to let our men and women in uniform know how much we appreciate them.
Congrats to my Arkansas Razorbacks, who did indeed get invited to the Sugar Bowl as expected. Their opponents will be Big Ten co-champs Ohio State.
It’s Monday, so the usual Monday stuff is going on tonight… Pint Nite at the Saucer, with most draft pints $3… half price pizza and wine at Spindini… poker at the Silly Goose, 9 PM and 11:30 PM games… cheap PBR during Monday Night Football at Mulligan’s Pinch… trivia at Huey’s at 9 PM.
I may stop by the tree lighting… Pint Nite afterwards.
If you want something to do tonight, and my plan of watching the bowl selection special on ESPN doesn’t appeal to you, I have a suggestion. Check out Sunday Supper and a Movie at the Majestic Grille.
The restaurant will show Holiday Affair (1949), starring Janet Leigh and Robert Mitchum, on their big screen.
A special three course dinner will be available for $24.95, starting 30 minutes prior to the start of the movie. It starts with a butter lettuce wedge with bacon crumbles, tomatoes, and blue cheese dressing. Main course is Neola Farms beef pot roast, braised in red wine with vegetables, and a baked potato with butter and sour cream. Dessert is white chocolate and pecan pudding with bourbon sauce.
If you don’t want the special dinner, their regular menu will be available too.
More details available on the restaurant’s special events page. Reservations recommended; call 901-522-8555 to make them.
I started the day about 3:30 yesterday at the Saucer, where I went to watch the Auburn vs. South Carolina championship game. Between people coming in after the Memphis Marathon, people coming in before and after the holiday parade, people there to watch the game, and people showing up for Stumblin’ Santa, it was pretty consistently busy, if not downright crowded at times. Oh well. At least the girls made some good tip money.
I was standing at my usual spot at the bar, and I was surprised how many people came up and ordered Bud Light. Seriously, you’re in a bar that has 200 beers and you order Bud Light? Here’s a recommendation if you do that: Try a Sunner Kolsch next time you’re at the Saucer. It’s similarly easy to drink, but lots more flavor. Try it, I think you’ll like it.
At 7 people in Santa suits started to roll in for “Bob & Roland’s 6th Annual Stumblin’ Santa.” This is not only a pub crawl where hundreds of Santas wander around Downtown, but it’s also an event where hundreds of toys are collected for Ronald McDonald House. They really do an awesome job with this, and I know the kids appreciate it.
This year, however, I didn’t stumble. It was my buddy Clay’s birthday. He has been out of town in Spartanburg, South Carolina for job training, and this is the only weekend he’ll be back in town before Christmas. Some of our group did the pub crawl, but I told Clay, “If you want to do something else I’ll skip it this year.” Clay decided he wanted a more low-key celebration. When the Saucer started to get ridiculously crowded, we moved next door to the Silly Goose.
Brick hands John D his Bud Light bottleEric and the birthday boy do Jager... Before...... and after.Me and Amy. Gotta love the "Nose Hair" commercial in the background.
By the way, Amy pictured above is opening Blues City Thrift, a new thrift store in the Broad Avenue district that will open in 2011. Her store will sell gently used clothing and merchandise at incredible prices, and all money raised from sales will be donated to Memphis charities. If you clean out your closet or have items around the house you don’t use, Amy would be a good person to give them to.
Okay, back to pics.
Erin doesn't want her picture taken!Stephanie and Amy doing... something.
After the Goose, we moved on to another spot and played pool. A little after midnight the gang decided to head south to Earnestine & Hazel’s. I’d been out almost nine hours by that point and decided to call it a night. I hope everyone who remained out had a good time.
Skipping the usual Sunday Fun Day routine – brunch at 11 at the Majestic then beer at noon at the Saucer. I’m in the mood to play poker, and Sunday is the day when the most fish (recreational players who know nothing about strategy) play online. Fish are nice to have in poker tournaments because they donate money to those of us who know how to play. I do plan on being at the Saucer at 8 PM to watch the bowl selection special, where I hope to hear the Arkansas Razorbacks announced for the Sugar Bowl.
