Category: tennessee

Tops Bar-B-Que, Memphis TN

Well, I done Tops wrong, to be blunt. I had mistakenly assumed that they were a sort of Memphis version of some other regional fast food barbecue chains, like Whitt’s or Rick’s in middle Tennessee / northern Alabama, or Buddy’s around Knoxville, where meat is smoked in one location and moved around to others and kept in warmers. It turns out that Tops, which has fourteen stores in the area – one of which is across the river in Arkansas, and another two in Mississippi – smokes the meat in each location. They use an indoor pit in each store, and the children and I visited the oldest existing restaurant on Rhodes Avenue in East Memphis, thinking, incorrectly, that they do all the smoking here. Continue reading “Tops Bar-B-Que, Memphis TN” →

Cozy Corner Restaurant, Memphis TN

My plans for the day o’ barbecue in Memphis took a hit when the venerable, and extremely popular, Cozy Corner Restaurant was damaged by a fire in January and was forced to close. Happily, a few days before our trip, Southern Living writer Robert Moss tweeted out that they would reopen in temporary digs across the street. The owners of Encore Cafe had reached out to them, giving Cozy Corner a stopover home with an abbreviated menu while their restaurant was repaired. Continue reading “Cozy Corner Restaurant, Memphis TN” →

Leonard’s Pit Bar-B-Que, Memphis TN (take two)

A couple of chapters back, I mentioned how quite a few restaurants in this part of the country go to town on the Elvis memorabilia, even if there may be some disagreement as to how much influence that The King had on their cash registers while he was living. Leonard’s does not play up the Elvis angle, but he really did seem to enjoy this place. There are stories aplenty about how he’d rent the previous location, at 1140 South Bellevue, for all-night parties in the early 1960s. Continue reading “Leonard’s Pit Bar-B-Que, Memphis TN (take two)” →

Saigon Le, Memphis TN (CLOSED)

We were last in Memphis three years ago. We had planned a trip last spring, but couldn’t make it work, and so this time we scheduled it around Marie’s birthday, so she could celebrate with her sister, who lives in town, and her brother, who was planning to come that way for MidSouthCon anyhow. I batted a few ideas around with Marie’s sister, who recommended that we have at least a small break from barbecue to sample something else in the city. She said that there are some excellent Vietnamese restaurants in town, including Saigon Le, which is just a few blocks from her place in midtown, on the corner of Cleveland and Court. Continue reading “Saigon Le, Memphis TN (CLOSED)” →

Fresh Pot Cafe, Hixson TN

I asked Marie to pick a place for our last stop on the trip, and she came up with a great one. It’s the oddly-named Fresh Pot Cafe, whose name reminds me that a straight-edge friend of mine was at a charity auction with me last month and was assigned bidder number 420. Har-de-har! Continue reading “Fresh Pot Cafe, Hixson TN” →

Moon Pie General Store, Chattanooga TN

I heard the most remarkably unkind and unfair assessment of the Moon Pie General Store from one of its neighbors in downtown Chattanooga after we visited here. She growled about them and – no joke – admonished us for taking our three year-old boy there, saying something slanderous. “Well, there’s supporting local business,” I said, not intending to get into an across-the-street skirmish, and concluded that I didn’t need to visit her establishment again. The Moon Pie General Store, after all, made us, and dozens of other people, feel welcome and nobody there badmouthed their fellow merchants. Continue reading “Moon Pie General Store, Chattanooga TN” →