Daily thoughts of a Downtown Memphis resident
The Center City Commission will hold a public forum on Tuesday, July 22 at 5 PM, where concerned citizens can ask questions and speak their mind about the proposal to re-open the Main Street Mall to traffic. The event will be held at the Memphis Convention Center’s Riverbluff Room, located on the mezzanine level.
Comments will be limited to 2 minutes per person. They will be used in evaluating the CCC’s plan for Main Street. If interested in attending, RSVP to taylor@downtownmemphis.com.
I attended the South Main Association meeting at Ground Zero last night, and it paid off. My business card was one of three pulled from the fishbowl, and I won a Ground Zero T-shirt and hat.
Before the meeting, I talked to one of the members of the other major neighborhood association down here, the Downtown Neighborhood Association. He said their August meeting will be a good one to attend, because Memphis Police Director Larry Godwin will be there. Good chance to talk to Director Godwin about panhandling, cruising, and other issues that affect Downtowners.
The Memphis Farmers Market still needs volunteers. Check their website for details on how to get involved. They sell fresh produce every Saturday in the parking lot next to the train station on GE Patterson from 7 AM to 1 PM. This Saturday: Ah shucks, the corn’s in, music by Davis Coen, a presentation by Delta Pecans, and info on the connection between sodium and high blood pressure.
SMA is still doing their Trolley Tour night cookouts with free burgers, hot dogs, and Boscos beers for members, but they’re shortening the time frame to 6 to 8 PM, shutting down as the last hour of Trolley Tour starts.
A South Main home tour is being planned for June 21, 2009. Volunteers and committee chairs are needed. Hit southmainmemphis.org to connect on this project.
There’s also talk of having a South Main at the Redbirds night in August.
The main presentation involved meetings SMA has had with artists involving “dead spots” in the neighborhood. These are spots that have not been redeveloped yet, and which people may not want to walk by (example: Chisca Hotel). They are talking about hanging art in these spots as a temporary solution, to make them more visually appealing until they can be renovated.
They passed out sheets of paper and asked for ideas for murals, that reflect members’ image of the neighborhood. Based on these ideas, 20 murals will be painted by interns which the UrbanArt Commission has until July 1. All the murals will be 4 feet by 8 feet and will be hung outside, in a window, on a building wall, or wherever else they seem appropriate. They will be plywood and outdoor-durable, and one or more murals will be hung in each identified dead spot. If you have ideas for mural content, go to www.southmainmemphis.org and give them your thoughts.
Some of the shops of South Main will have a sidewalk sale this Saturday. Although we usually think of South Main as the block around GE Patterson where you’ll find stores like Muse, the sale will extend all the way to the north to the Main Street Mall, where Shelton Clothiers will participate.
Two political candidates showed up to work the room, Otis Jackson for General Sessions Court Clerk and Ray Butler for county trustee.
Ray Butler told us that, in addition to elections for his office, early voting begins for the Congressional primaries on July 18 (primary day is August 7).
That’s the news for now. Is EP Delta Kitchen still doing half-price appetizers from 4:30 to 6:30? Think I may stop by there after work. I haven’t had any of Chef Michael Patrick’s food in quite some time. That’s the downside of Hoop’s Bar opening… since November I’ve hung out almost exclusively there to eat and drink, and haven’t wandered over to the other side (EP’s) much. Think that’ll be the plan for after work… I can sit at the front bar and watch bums out the window. Probably Saucer afterward.
A horse carriage was struck by a pickup truck last night on Front Street about 10 PM. The driver is in non-critical condition at The Med. His horse received minor injuries and the dog was uninjured. The driver of the pickup truck was charged with failure to maintain a safe lookout.
I just added a new category to my Mid-South Alcoholic Supply store. This year I’ve seen a lot of people playing cornhole, a game played with two wooden platforms facing each other, each with a hole. Each player stands by one platform and attempts to toss bags filled with corn (so I guess it’s technically incorrect to call it a bean bag game) onto the opposing platform, and ideally through the opposing platform’s hole. It’s an outdoor game similar to horseshoes, but more fun and easier to score. I’ve seen people playing it at BBQ Fest, the South Main Trolley Tour, and other places around town this spring and summer.
It isn’t a drinking game per se, but I’ve never seen it played by anyone who did not have a drink in their hand. So I went ahead and added a cornhole category to Mid-South Alcoholic Supply, where you can buy cornhole boards, cornhole bags, and accessories like scoring stands with drink holders. Cornhole is very popular among college campuses, and the store sells cornhole platforms with popular college logos, including the Arkansas Razorbacks and Tennessee Volunteers (I couldn’t find one for the Memphis Tigers, sorry). Perfect for tailgating season, which is coming up soon. There are also standard cornhole platforms not tied to particular teams.
Off to the South Main Association meeting in a few minutes. As usual, I’ll take notes, and hopefully have a report typed up on the blog sometime tomorrow.
Just took a walk down the Main Street Mall and noticed that the restaurant at 51 S. Main is now closed and is available for lease. This was the home of a breakfast/lunch spot whose name I cannot remember. (Renee’s maybe?) They served burgers and also had a focus on healthy food. Not sure why they didn’t make it but the place is now closed.
If you’ve been thinking of opening a restaurant in Downtown Memphis, this might be a good one to check out. Here are the details of the place, as posted on the window:
Contact phone numbers are 901-531-8497 or 901-409-0975. This would probably work well as a breakfast/lunch or lunch-only operation. It’s on the Main Street Mall with lots of office buildings within a 2-block walk. Not sure how well it would work staying open for dinner, since there’s no parking connected to the business, although I would love to see someone give it a try. It’s less than half a block away from the Union Avenue trolley stop. If not a restaurant, it would be a great location for a coffee shop, and that might be something that actually work there staying open evenings.
Hope someone grabs this space and does something with it soon. Downtown employees can always use another option for eating out for lunch.
Over the July 4 weekend, a new hot-dog-eating world champion was crowned. Joey Chestnut took the title from 6-year champion Takeru Kobayashi, downing 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes, a new world record.
You may not realize that Chestnut has a Downtown Memphis connection… on March 23 of this year, he became one of the very few people to win Big Foot Lodge’s Sasquatch Challenge. The Sasquatch, a burger made with 4 pounds of ground beef, is free if you can finish it in under an hour. Many, many people have tried and failed. Joey Chestnut, however, finished it off in only 7 minutes and 36 seconds.
Congrats to Joey on his victories in both the Sasquatch Challenge and the hot dog eating world championship.
today is MEGHANS day to write a blog, and no I didn’t hack into Paul’s website. He’s actually being a normal human being and not an ass today. Hahahaha. Im kidding.
Paul decided to let me write a blog about whatever I want and he would post it. Believe it or not, I have to give Paul credit- writing blogs is not as easy as it looks! I mean, what can you seriously talk about for about 5 or 6 paragraphs? Hell, I can’t think of anything and Paul says this is my “golden moment.”
AND….. for my golden moment.
1st off.. i wasn’t a horrible BFF, Paul only chose to write about things that weren’t nice. I am a very nice person!!!! Also, Paul stretches the truth most of the time. Like when I would, as he said, “chase him down” at Saucer so I could be his waitress…. NO, i would walk by and he would stare at me if I didn’t say anything and then he would hit me in the arm. So, there!! The truth comes out! Paul is MEAN TO ME!!! He is the “bad BFF.”
okay, and now what about the times that Paul walks by Bigfoot, sees me working, and flips ME off?!? hmm… REAL, REAL NICE! Then, stumbles his drunk ass in and wants me to serve him, but I get called out on the blog for not serving him. Hmmm, who’s responsible?? That would be good, ole former BFF Meghan!
and third, lets clear this whole me being mean to him and his current BFF thing up, I WAS NOT a complete bitch for no reason. ANYONE who was at the bar at Bigfoot that night will assure you that they acted very rude towards me when they came in.. Paul told me that his drink was the worst drink he had ever had, and he had a makers mark and coke.. how could i mess that up??? Because I didn’t that’s how!! Paul was trying to show his ass in front of those girls! (p.s. this is not a “paul bashing” blog) Then, I did get a little angry when his BFF said her drink was horrible and blah blah blah afterwards because we were out of olive juice, which I told her before I even made her drink. Then, she proceeded to say that she was an upgrade from me. Whatever, Im not a catty girl, i wasn’t gonna come back with anything, so I did the most simple thing that I could do, which I also went to a manager first with, it wasn’t a decision that I took upon myself. Regardless, I have nothing against Suzy, I don’t know her. She did come in and invite me to Tubetopalooza, which was very nice of her. SEE Paul, I am a nice girl!
By the way, Paul says this is a great post so far AKA he’s totally being full of shit.
I’m thinking the only reason he’s letting me write this is because he said he has been drinking since 1 p.m. today because he totally called in to work today (Hi Camille 
) He “says” it was a planned vacation day, whatever. Also, as Paul already knows, i’m totally expecting a 100% tip for being very very nice today and being an awesome server!
ALSO, thanks to me Paul found out that we serve mountain dew here.. see i’m about as helpful as Paul’s blogs!
SOOOO, for all of my fans/and not-so-much fans… Here’s what I have to say!
Day off work today. Sitting here at the Second Street branch office getting some stuff done on the laptop. Although, the connection sucks here… the Saucer’s Wi-Fi seems to be down, so I’m sitting in the window and MoochNetting off Jillian’s across the street.
The South Main Association will have its monthly meeting tomorrow at 6 PM at Ground Zero Blues Club. The UrbanArt Commission will be there to discuss ideas for murals to brighten up the South Main streetscape. They’ll be looking for your ideas too, so if you’re an artist or creative person, this would be a good meeting to come to. Free appetizers for members (non-members $5 to attend) and cash bar. Ground Zero is on Lt. Lee Avenue next to the Westin Hotel, one block south of Beale.
Just received information about a dodgeball tournament to benefit Youth Villages:
Dodge This will be a 32-team dodgeball tournament to be held at the Wellworx sporting club on Shelby Oaks Drive on August 2nd. Presented by CH Robinson. The tournament is co-ed, and registration is $180 per 6-person team, $10 per additional player. All players must be at least 18. Registration deadline is July 25 and only the first 32 teams get in, so sign up now.
Had a beer with a friend of mine yesterday, and she told me that she’s now working for ADP, the largest payroll processing company in the country. She’s signing up small businesses that have 1-49 employees, and she told me stories about saving some of them a couple grand a year. They also have a guarantee that they can match or beat the price of their competitor. If you own or manage a small business and want to talk to her, shoot me an e-mail (paul@paulryburn.com) and I’ll put you in touch with her. ADP is a great company, one of the true blue-chips… I used to own shares of them in my Roth IRA.
Speaking of businesses, if you read the blog from work and haven’t scrolled back through the weekend’s posts, you may have missed the announcement about my newest website, Mid-South Alcoholic Supply. There you can find books about beer, wine, liquors, and drinking in general, as well as drinking games, glasses, mixers, bar sets and equipment, everything the accomplished drinker needs. My friend Dr. Booze is writing a blog for the site as well, where he’ll keep you informed on the latest developments in the world of alcohol.
It’s killing me to look at that picture of that South of Heaven Roll I took last night… I’m starving for one now, and Hoop’s Bar doesn’t open until 7 PM (or whenever Hoop puts the sign out). My health guru AL commented that her heart is palpitating just looking at it. Guess I’m going to have to hit Publish and go find SOMETHING to eat… so that’s all for now.
Tried the South of Heaven Roll on the menu at Hoop’s Bar tonight. Here’s how the bartender described it. You take a cheddar & jalapeno sausage. Wrap it with a slice of cheese, bacon and onion in a tortilla. Roll it up, dip in tempura batter and deep fry it. Result is shown above.
Hoop’s Bar is open from 7ish PM to 3 AM. Walk down Second between Peabody Place and Beale and look for the yellow sign that says “Hoop’s Bar” pointing to a flight of stairs. Wheelchair-accessible admission through EP’s next door.
When you think print media in Memphis, your first thought is probably The Commercial Appeal, right? Not according to Google. This morning I downloaded Google’s toolbar, which shows how relevant Google thinks a site is, called the PageRank, on a scale of 1 to 10. The higher the number, the more relevant Google considers the site to be. For example, Yahoo, considered a very relevant site, carries a ranking of 9. Wikipedia, another relevant site, is an 8. PageRank is one of the factors Google uses to order search page results.
So I decided to look up the PageRanks of some well-known Memphis media sites. The Commercial Appeal had a PageRank of 4 as of the time of this post. However, the daily newspaper is outdone by two weekly newspapers, the Memphis Flyer and the Memphis Business Journal, both which hold PageRanks of 5. It’s also outdone by a smaller daily newspaper, the Memphis Daily News, which also holds a 5.
Looks like the CA has some catching up to do.
TV station WREG had them all beat, though, with a 6. Eyewitness News is only a 2. Google doesn’t seem to know what to do with WMC-TV as its site doesn’t have a PageRank at all.
My blog has a PageRank of 4. I pulled up a few of the other popular Memphis blogs and they were 4s as well.