Wine Race is typically held on the last Sunday in April. For those in the service\/hospitality industry, it’s one last chance to blow off steam before the busy Memphis in May tourist season begins. It’s a day when much alcohol is consumef.<\/p>\n
It’s a day of debauchery.<\/p>\n
Except in April 2023, things went off-track.The first 3 events got done, although the winner of the grape stomp had yet to be announced. Then – as the second heat in the wine relay was about to begin, I’m told – shots rang out and MPD cleared the street and declared the games over.<\/p>\n
Today the games will be finished. Thw wine relay will be completed and the winners of that event and the grape stomp will be announced.<\/p>\n
Security will be turned up good and tight. Thay’re not gonna let Beale Street be embarrassed twice in a row. I haven’t heard this, but I would not be that surprised if they wand guests coming on to the street.<\/p>\n
People will start gathering around 2, with the wine relay starting at 3 and the awards after that.<\/p>\n
Never been to Wine Race before? Here are a few of my personal recommendations:<\/strong><\/p>\n Park for free! The city does not charge for metered spaces on Sundays. As a general rule, it’s safer to park in areas north and west of Beale than in areas south and east of Beale.<\/p>\n If you absolutely want to park in a garage, the ones along Peabody Place (one block north of Beale) are good bets – Downtown Mobility Center, the one above Flying Saucer, the one next to Hampton Inn, the one next to Robusto by Havana Mix.<\/p>\n The best burgers on Beale are just steps away from the wine relay location. Why not get down there early and have one? Look for a place named Dyer’s and order a double-double – that’s two beef patties and double cheese – and fries.<\/p>\n Then go next door to Wet Willie’s and order a Call-a-Cab. It’s made with ice, strawberry and cherry Kool-Aid mix, and 190 PGA.<\/p>\n One thing, though: ABSOLUTELY DON’T order a Call-a-Cab if you will have to drive in the 4-8 hours following your purchase.<\/p>\n Don’t forget your ID! Whether it’s Memphis’ entertainment district, an Orlando trip, or some other destination, your adventure might be considerably less fun if you can’t show proof of age.<\/p>\n Some people like to watch the wine relay from above. If that’s you, get to Jerry Lee’s a bit early and make a beeline for the upstairs balconies. Just don’t look for me up there though –\u00a0 I prefer to watch from street level.<\/p>\n Back in April, I was having trouble with my legs and they were too bad for all that walking around an uneven street. They’re much better now, and I plan to be there in my 2023 Blind Bear Wine Race shirt.<\/p>\n On to the news…<\/strong><\/p>\n Speaking of the Blind Bear, I didn’t think Tony could possibly outdo the Greens Gumbo he had as the soup weekly special last week.<\/p>\n Then he gave me a sample of this coming week’s special, and yeah, I think he outdid himself.<\/p>\n Chicken jalapeno popper soup. Love those fresh jalapenos! It’ll be available this week starting MONDAY (so if you try ordering it today, no soup for you).<\/p>\n Let’s hear it for trash pandas! It’s International Raccoon Appreciation Day<\/a>.<\/p>\n A few people have told me they’ve hoped I’ve just been “on a break” from the BBQ team the past few years and that one day I wil return to the fold. With Memphis in May’s decision to move BBQ Fest to Liberty Park, I can assure you that I will never be back. I’m not mad at Memphis River Parks Partnership, because what they did at Tom Lee is a home run for the community. But a side effect of that is, BBQ Fest as I knew and loved it is dead.<\/p>\n Watch out for that combo flu\/COVID shot – my friends got it and it made them feel so ill that they had to cancel Saturday plans. Might want to avoid getting the shot on a Friday in case the following day needs to be a day when you call in sick.<\/p>\n WREG has coverage on that massive fire in West Memphis<\/a> yesterday, It was cleaning products. Glad to hear it wasn’t the warehouse Family Dollar runs in that area. I’d hate to hear about 1000 rats dying.<\/p>\n The Grizzlies made some roster moves<\/a> over the weekend. No big names were involved though.<\/p>\n People have been asking why I’ve tended to drink glasses of Coke\/Pepsi at bars lately. I’m trying to hold down expenses; it’s not anything to do with my health. It’s cheaper to ger a Coke refilled than it is to order PBR after PBR.<\/p>\n Headed to Blind Bear at 11 and will walk over to Beale between 2 and 3.\u00a0 Back tomorrow probably.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This year, we set a record for the longest Beale Street Wine Race in history… 5 months 1 week and it’s still not done. Beale Street Wine Race is an event in which servers from restaurants around Shelby County compete in a series of events: An opening parade, with floats A Queen of the Vine … Continue reading “Debauchery Day… in October”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27070"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27070"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27072,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27070\/revisions\/27072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/bear-popper-soup-scaled.jpeg\")
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