Memphis March 2026

An Enduring Legacy

THE BROOKS ON MEMPHIS COLLEGE OF ART

simple. They often stop you from doing the things that make your life happy and complete—like running your family farm.

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These conditions can lead to unexpected symptoms, such as tingling and numbness in your hands, legs, or feet, shooting pains in your arms or legs, or a loss of strength and stability.

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The right approach is the whole approach. At Semmes Murphey, Whole Spine Care is our patientcentered approach for pain-free living. It starts with an environment where you are heard, supported, and empowered—and extends across the widest range of treatments available in the Mid-South. From conservative care to the most advanced surgical techniques, each step along your journey will be thoughtful, personalized, and rooted in more than a century of experience.

We have been focused on spine care since our founding in 1912, constantly developing treatments that are faster and better, and deliver complete, lasting outcomes.

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on the cover: Autumn Gathering, 2022, Watercolor © KONG WEE PANG.

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FEATURES

60 50 Years of Photography

A half-century of Memphis Magazine covers presents an eclectic array of imagery. ~ by anna traverse

100 30 Years on the Fringes

The Memphis music scene, as captured by the camera lens of Aaron Brame.

106 2026 Society of Entrepreneurs

Jack Soden is honored, among others. ~ by jon w. sparks

139 ROAD TRIP

A Day at the Races

Oaklawn is a celebrated horse track with nostalgic family appeal.

~ by alex greene

142 A Grand Farewell

A new exhibition at the Brooks considers the robust life and enduring legacy of the Memphis College of Art. ~ by jon w. sparks

148 SIPS

The Apple of Her Eye

Maggie McLendon brings a natural spirit to Erling Jensen, the Restaurant.

~ by bruce vanwyngarden

152 CITY DINING

The city’s most extensive dining listings.

160 LAST STAND Moments, Treasured

What to make of significant days after significant loss? ~ by frank murtaugh

SPECIAL SECTIONS

27 FACES OF THE MID-SOUTH

150 FAITH &

Memphis Magazine (ISSN 1622820x) is published monthly for $18 per year by Contemporary Media, Inc., P.O. Box 1738, Memphis, TN 38101 © 2026. Telephone: 901-521-9000. For subscription info, call 901-575-9470.

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CEO AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF anna traverse

EXECUTIVE EDITOR michael finger

MANAGING EDITOR frank murtaugh

SENIOR EDITORS jon w. sparks, bruce vanwyngarden

STAFF WRITERS michael donahue, alex greene, chris mccoy

EDITORIAL INTERN sey neuringer

CONTRIBUTORS aaron brame, jesse davis, tom jones, vance lauderdale

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CREATIVE DIRECTOR brian groppe

ADVERTISING ART DIRECTOR christopher myers

GRAPHIC DESIGNER neil williams

PHOTOGRAPHERS aaron brame, justin fox burks, michael donahue, adrian ishee, daniel lynn, jon w. sparks, julie yarborough, evan zimmerman

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SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE shaune mcghee

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES kelli dewitt, chip googe

4 published by contemporary media, inc. memphis, tennessee 901-521-9000

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CONTROLLER lynn sparagowski

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PUBLISHER EMERITUS kenneth neill

march 2026

EDITOR

The Campsite Rule

BY ANNA TRAVERSE

In an earthquake, you would not want to be seated on the northern wall of the Memphis Magazine conference room. e bookshelves there, weighted with the bound volumes of this magazine’s archives, sag helplessly, the wooden boards no match for so much paper. I sometimes sense that the archives are looking back at us — down at us — making notes, keeping score.

Fifty years: an eternity, and also a blink. For 50 years next month, this magazine has been adding to those shelves: with pages and stories, perspectives and photos, art and advertising. For a story you’ll find in this issue (“Cover Me,” page 60), I attempted to understand our history aesthetically, from the outside in: by considering our covers as an assemblage, or a quilt.

More than just covers, my colleagues and I have been spending time over the last several months thinking about the thematic threads that tie together all those sheets of paper. e thickest thread, of course, is the city itself: Memphis, the word atop every cover we’ve ever published, the obsession propelling every story we’ll ever write.

It’s funny: e more stories I’ve published in this magazine, the smaller I feel. Early on, publishing a real story in a real

magazine seemed like a really big deal. I hoarded print copies; I entertained (but abandoned) the idea of clipping and gluesticking my pieces into a scrapbook. But then, as happens, we just kept publishing more magazines, and I kept writing, and the experience became more rhythmic than singular.

We’ve published more than 600 issues — each one demanding ideas, labor, and capital. Each one feeling like an accomplishment to the people who worked on it; each one arriving like an offering for the people curious enough to read it. Here we are, at your doorstep. Please pick us up and spend time with us. More than bombastic, I’ve come to see the experience as something deeply humble: What we want most from you is the simple gift of 20 minutes or an hour of your time, and we will wait patiently until you choose to

open and look beyond our cover.

We’re mere stewards — stewards of an idea: that Memphis should have her own storytellers, her own collection of ideas and people and beauty and commerce and curiosities. Stewardship isn’t meant to last forever. Many of the people whose tenures at this magazine left the biggest imprints didn’t actually work here for very long. But they followed the campsite rule: ey left the place better than they found it, allowing those of us here now to keep pressing forward, to keep looking for new stories to tell.

If you live in an older home, you know just what I mean. I grew up in a bungalow constructed in 1920; my husband and I now inhabit a four-square

built around 1905. For me, those two structures are central containers of memory. For the houses themselves, I’m merely someone passing through. Someone trying to leave the place better than I found it. I sort of think that our fractious, distanced society would work better if we tried to apply some notion of stewardship to more arenas. At the dog park

we frequent, I’ve witnessed so many people do odd jobs not because they have to, and not because someone asked them to, and certainly not because they’re being paid. ey just enjoy that the dog park is available to all, and want to keep it clean (or as clean as a dog park can be!) and welcoming. Several regulars walk around and pick up waste that others left behind. ere are folks who reliably refill water jugs during the winter months, when the hoses are turned off. People bring bags when the supplies run low. ey petition the city to add picnic tables, add lighting. Most of all, they watch out for each other. Sure, yes, not everyone is saintly. Sometimes

disputes break out, and not among dogs, either. What I mostly witness, though, is good, faithful stewardship. I hope to do those stacks of archives proud this year. I hope to leave this place just a little better than I found it — and then I hope whoever’s next sets to work fixing whatever we’ve left undone.

Trust matters.

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MARCH 2026

COMPILED BY SEY NEURINGER

DRUM TAO

The world-renowned drum group showcases their talent with Wadaiko drums, Japanese flutes and harps, and brilliantly unique performances. GERMANTOWN PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, MARCH 1, 3 P.M.

LUNAR NEW YEAR TASTING Enjoy the taste of the Lunar New Year with good food, music, and lion dances. Brooks Museum of Art, March 3, 6 p.m.

THE LAWRENCE GRADUATE BAYREUTH TUBEN

QUINTENT This LGBTQ quintet combines tuba, song, and dance to bring you inventive performances. CROSSTOWN ARTS GREEN ROOM, MARCH 3, 7:30 P.M.

BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE MUSICAL Welcome a beloved classic hit to the stage and join Marty McFly, Doc Brown, and their famous Delorean in a journey through time. ORPHEUM THEATER, MARCH 3-8. MEMPHIS GRIZZLIES BASKETBALL March 4 vs. Portland, March 7 vs. L.A. Clippers, March 12 vs. Dallas, March 18 vs. New York, March 20 vs. Boston, March 25 vs. San Antonio, March 27 vs. Houston, March 28 vs. Chicago, March 30 vs. Phoenix. FEDEX FORUM

STORYFEST Students from Middle College High School join forces with the Orpheum Theater Group to share original performances. HALLORAN CENTER FOR PERFORMING ARTS AND EDUCATION, MARCH 4, 7 P.M.

MEMPHIS TIGERS BASKETBALL March 5 vs. USF. FEDEXFORUM

PRETTY LITTLE ROOM Set in a 19th-century asylum, this opera is based on the true (and tragic) love story of Alice Mitchell and Freda Ward. CROSSTOWN THEATER, MARCH 6, 7:30 P.M.

THE ORCHESTRA UNPLUGGED: WHO WAS GUSTAV MAHLER? The Memphis Symphony Orchestra and the Orpheum Theater Group collaborate to explore the work of composer Gustav Mahler. HALLORAN CENTER FOR PERFORMING ARTS AND EDUCATION, MARCH 6, 7:30 P.M.

WOMEN IN THE ARTS Celebrate the importance of women in the arts with this series of talks, artist markets, and performances. DIXON GALLERY AND GARDENS, MARCH 7, 10 A.M.

CARLENE CARTER Grammy-nominated country music artist Carlene Carter takes the stage. BARTLETT PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, MARCH 7, 7:30 P.M.

RECENT FUTURE + GENERAL LABOR Two genreblending artists transform the night with their merger of synth-punk, techno, and industrial music. CROSSTOWN ARTS GREEN ROOM, MARCH 7, 7:30 P.M. ONE ENCHANTED EVENING: A NIGHT OF MAGIC, MYSTERY, AND SONG FEATURING JOE M.

TURNER Magician, mentalist, and musician Joe M. Turner astounds and mystifies audiences in a mix of magic and music. THE PEABODY, MARCH 7, 7 P.M. BANANABALL A baseball experience unlike any other. Think Harlem Globetrotters, but with bats and mitts. AUTOZONE PARK, MARCH 7-8.

AMERICAN MOSAIC WITH LINNAEA

BROPHY Celebrate 250 years of American classical compositions with the Germantown Symphony Orchestra and violinist Linnaea Brophy. GERMANTOWN PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, MARCH 8, 2 P.M.

THE CITY OF TOMORROW: A TOWN HALL This woodwind quintet confronts social issues through their music. Crosstown Arts Green Room, March 11, 7:30 p.m.

SPEAKER GIRL, JOYBOMB, AND SUNWEIGHT These bands’ blends of pop-punk, electronic, and indie rock offer a glimpse into Memphis’ alternative scene. CROSSTOWN ARTS GREEN ROOM, MARCH 13, 7:30 P.M.

GRIND CITY COFFEE XPO Explore the diverse flavors, brews, and culture of Memphis’ coffee scene. CROSSTOWN CONCOURSE, MARCH 14, 9 A.M.

BAKITHI KUMALO AND THE SOUTH AFRICAN ALLSTARS Award-winning multi-instrumentalist Bakithi Kumalo brings Paul Simon’s Graceland album back to the stage. HALLORAN CENTER FOR PERFORMING ARTS AND EDUCATION, MARCH 14, 7:30 P.M.

THE HOT SARDINES This NYC-based jazz band brings its talent down South to revive decades-old jazz tunes. GERMANTOWN PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, MARCH 14, 8 P.M.

ST. PATRICK’S DAY LITERARY SALON Don your green clothes and learn about traditional Irish plays and verse from the Irish Literary Revival. TABOR STAGE, TENNESSEE SHAKESPEARE COMPANY, MARCH 15, 7 P.M.

LADYSMITH BLACK MAMBAZO Explore the sounds of isiscathamiya through performances by this Grammy-nominated group of South African singers. GERMANTOWN PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, MARCH 20, 8 P.M.

ROBERT EARL KEEN Country music artist Robert Earl Keen explores a new chapter with his return to the stage. GERMANTOWN PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, MARCH 21, 7:30 P.M.

NATE BARGATZE: BIG DUMB EYES WORLD

TOUR Chuckle your way through a night of “good, clean, funny” comedy by Nate Bargatze. FEDEXFORUM, MARCH 26, 7 P.M.

SOUND FUZION This pop ensemble from the University of Memphis plays across genres, including R&B, jazz, alternative, and country. CROSSTOWN ARTS GREEN ROOM, MARCH 26, 7:30 P.M.

EVERGREEN SOUND SESSIONS: LJ1S AND BRANDON BLVD

This series spotlighting talent in Memphis brings producer LJ1S and musician Brandon Blvd to the stage. CROSSTOWN ARTS GREEN ROOM, MARCH 27, 7:30 P.M.

FLAMENCO VIVA CARLOTA SANTANA Get swept away in the spirited art of flamenco performed by the Flamenco Viva Carlota Santana Company. BUCKMAN PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, MARCH 27, 7 P.M.

BRAZIL BY NIGHT Explore the cuisine, music, and dances of Brazil in this night of performances by the Collage Dance Collective and Iris Collective. FEDEX EVENT CENTER, MARCH 28, 7 P.M.

VERDI’S REQUIEM Experience the traditional melodies of Verdi’s Requiem through a quartet of vocalists from Opera Memphis. CANNON CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS, MARCH 28, 7:30 P.M.

JEFF ALLEN Comedian Jeff Allen brings sets packed with wit, clean comedy, inspirational stories, and charm. BARTLETT PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, MARCH 28, 7:30 P.M.

CHINESE COLLECTION DUB EMBASSY The CCDE combines reggae, dancehall, ska, and Afrobeat to create a sound and style unapologetically Memphian. CROSSTOWN ARTS GREEN ROOM, MARCH 28, 7:30 P.M.

MEMPHIS REDBIRDS BASEBALL March 31-April 5 vs. Norfolk Tides. AUTOZONE PARK

Dixon Blooms

CLASSIC DINING

Broadway Pizza

BY MICHAEL DONAHUE

Owner Dewana Ishee is “getting the job done” and then some, with pizzas, sandwiches, salads, and cakes galore.

IIshee’s step-dad, Doug Cox, left his construction business to help out at the restaurant after it became successful. “He had a sixth-grade education and mom, no education. She never went to school.”Customers liked her mother. “She was a straightforward, honest person,” and Ishee adds, “she was good to people and people were good to her.”

week only on Mendenhall, but their hamburger steak dinner, catfish dinner, chicken parmigiana, and spaghetti dinners are offered at both locations.

n its 49-year history, Broadway Pizza has never operated on a street named “Broadway.” And they have never made the thin-crust, hand-tossed, New York-style pizza. eirs is the Chicago-style, square-cut pizza, says Dewana Ishee, who owns Broadway Pizza with her husband, Denny.

e restaurant began at a little beer joint in Memphis called the Top Hat Lounge, says Ishee, the daughter of Broadway Pizza founder Jeanette Cox. Cox worked as a cook and server at the lounge, which was owned by her stepfather, Roy White. ey sold little pizzas at the Top Hat. Her mother then went to work for White after he opened White’s Pizza on Austin Peay Highway in Raleigh in the 1960s. In 1977, after White sold that business for an Exline’s pizza location, Cox bought what became the first Broadway Pizza at 2581 Broad Avenue. “My mother couldn’t read or write,” says Ishee, “but she could cook.”

e building had housed the old La Rosa Tamale Company, but when Cox bought it, the place had been empty for 10 years.Owners

of nearby restaurants, including Fat Jimmy’s Pizza on Summer Avenue, helped her mom get started.

“Fat Jimmy took booths out of his restaurant and put them in our store because we had no tables or chairs,” Ishee says, while “Galler Foods gave her all the frozen and dried products we needed.” Cox told them if her restaurant made it, she’d pay them back, but they told her, “Don’t worry about it.”

e restaurant, which first opened as Jeanette’s Pizza, was a hit. Cox opened at 10 in the morning and stayed until closing — which was often very late. “Back then, when beer joints closed at 2 or 3 in the morning,” says Ishee, “you’d think it was noon at Broadway Pizza. We would be packed.”

Her mother even had to install a shower at the restaurant “because she didn’t have time to go home.”

Ishee took over Broadway Pizza about five years before her mother died from cancer in 2008. She worked with her stepfather until she took over ownership in 2010. “I’ve been there my entire life,” she says. “I only had one other job. I worked at Libertyland when I was a little kid.”

e business also includes their sons, Adrian and Andrew. “I just about delivered my kids at the store,” says Ishee.

Fourteen years ago, the family opened a second location at 629 South Mendenhall. ey sell about 40 types of pizzas at Broadway Pizza, but the “Broadway Special” (sausage, beef, pepperoni, Canadian bacon, mushrooms, olive, bell peppers, and onions) and the “Around the World” (beef, mushrooms, bell peppers, and onions) are their two most popular.

Asked what makes their pizzas special, she says, “No preservatives in our meat. We make everything fresh. And the cheese that goes on our pizza” — some 2,000 pounds a week, according to Ishee — “we chop that fresh every day.”

Meat-and-three soul food plate lunches are sold seven days a

They began selling cakes on the counter at the Broad store. Originally, they made sheet cakes, but now they offer 10-inch, two-layer circular cakes. “We were just doing strawberry, chocolate, and German chocolate, and it grew,” says Ishee. Now the selections include maple bacon, turtle, strawberry lemonade, and orange creamsicle.

As for a third location, Ishee doesn’t want another brickand-mortar store. But she is “in the process of looking at a Broadway Pizza food truck.”

ey’d sell pizza as well as other items, including hamburgers, club sandwiches, and their cakes from the truck, which would be “more like a gourmet food truck. I’m leaning there now.”

Meanwhile, it’s business as usual at Broadway Pizza. “No matter how big or how small the order is, we get it done,” she says.Like the time they cooked 25,000 wings for FedEx. “We had friends, everybody, come and help us.”

And at the end of the day, she says, nobody asked to be paid. “ ey came in and did it because they wanted to see someone be successful. Getting the job done is the thing.”

Broadway Pizza, 2581 Broad and 629 S. Mendenhall

The Shrine Building

Our history expert solves local mysteries: who, what, when, where, why, and why not. Well, sometimes.

BY VANCE LAUDERDALE

Cotton Hotel, it came down in 1984; the Raymond James Tower now stands on the site.

In the late 1800s and most of the 1900s, cities across the country were home to so many “benevolent societies” that it’s difficult to keep them straight. Newspapers often ran full-page “Lodge Notices” for not only the Shriners and Elks, but the Moose Lodge, Knights of Pythias, Odd Fellows, Scottish Rite, Masons, and dozens of others.

e Al Chymia Shriners

Department Store, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the Goodwyn Institute, and the new campus on North Parkway for Southwestern Presbyterian University — better known today as Rhodes College.

Another local firm, KaucherHodges & Company, would do the actual construction. Established in 1907, they had erected several local school buildings, the first Campbell Clinic, and also won the contract to erect the first buildings at Southwestern. Construction began on the Shriners’ new

organized here in 1891, holding elaborate ceremonies and pageants in hotels and other meeting halls. In 1921, wanting a place of their own, they purchased a pair of nineteenth-century buildings on Front Street that housed Orgill Hardware and demolished them to make way for their spacious new Temple.

13-story Temple in August 1922, and members hoped to move in within the year. A newspaper carried this headline: “Temple Literally Going Up Overnight” and they weren’t exaggerating; the crews used floodlights so they could work night and day. e Shrine Building stood out from older buildings around it.

DEAR M.T.: When it opened in 1923, the top floors of this downtown landmark served as the headquarters and private “clubhouse” for members of the Al Chymia Temple. is was the local chapter of the national organization founded in New York City called — are you ready? — e Ancient

Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine.

Perhaps you have it confused with the Elks Club, down the street at Front and Jefferson, which served as the national headquarters for that fraternal organization. Later converted into the King

Newspaper renderings (as shown here) depict an astonishing structure with turrets and arches, looking like a palace out of Arabia. Two local architectural firms joined forces to design the building — Hanker & Cairns and Jones & Furbringer — and they drastically simplified the design. ey made a good team; between them, they created such landmarks as the Hotel Tennessee, Chisca Hotel, Claridge Hotel, Lowenstein’s

The Commercial Appeal noted, “ e construction is on an especially high plane of individuality. Faced with white enamel brick and terra-cotta from the sidewalk level to the top of the roof garden, the structure will be one of the most striking and handsome in the city.”

Inside, the top seven floors would serve the Shriners.

“Included in the plans will be lounging, club, reading, and visitors’ areas, along with pool and billiard rooms, a regulation bowling alley, a roof garden which

will be the peer of any in the South, together with an enclosed winter garden on the top floor.” In the basement was “the largest and most modern indoor swimming pool in the South.”

On the ninth floor was “the assembly room of the Shrine, with a seating capacity of 500. Around this room will extend a mezzanine floor, which will provide seating for 200 more persons, together with room for the band and patrol.” e top of the building was capped with a boxlike structure that displayed the Shrine logo — a golden scimitar and crescent — and this was topped with an elaborate stone spire, painted in “gold and other colors.” Banks of spotlights would illuminate this tower at night, making the Shrine Building, already perched atop the river bluffs, visible for miles. e lower floors would be leased to other companies, and rent from these spaces would pay for the upkeep of the building. In those early days, the ground floor held ticket offices for the local railroads, and the American Optical Company took the entire fourth floor. An eclectic variety of other tenants included physicians, dentists, accountants, architects, and insurance agencies, along with J. Cohen Tailors, Edith’s Hair Shop, Hermitage Loans, Elizabeth’s Children’s Clothing, Cleo’s Letter Shop, Babcock Lumber Co., DuBelle Cosmetics, Katherine-K-of-Memphis Corsets, and Horace Hall’s barbershop.

Despite all the news about the construction of the Shrine Building, when it was finished the local newspapers carried no announcement of a grand opening, a ribbon-cutting, or any special event. Maybe it would have seemed anti-climactic, since the Shrine was almost fully occupied by September 1, 1923 — the day the builders promised it would be finished.

Sixty-Six Monroe quickly became a prestigious address downtown, and Shriners from around the country paid visits to the Al Chymia Temple, to see how it compared to their own. at rooftop proved to

be the most popular feature for the general public, offering concerts, parties, and dances.

e Washington Syncopators, described as “entertainers whose versatility has stamped them as artists in their line,” proved to be so popular that WMC Radio broadcast “their usual snappy program of dance hits, with a breezy dash that is refreshing.” When that band wasn’t available, the manager of the Shrine Cafe organized his own little orchestra, the Skyline Serenaders, to draw the crowds.

Some of the entertainment borders on the bizarre — or downright offensive. On May 8, 1924, a rooftop reception and dance featured “twenty-five little people comprising the personnel of the Wright Midgets.” The Commercial Appeal assured ticket-holders that “the midgets will appear in full dress — all of them — and will dance with guests during the amusement rendezvous.”

But changes were on the horizon. Back in 1922, when members of Al Chymia were soliciting funds and selling $100 bonds to help finance their new building, they published a newspaper ad, headlined, “A Gild-Edged Investment at Merits Your Attention.”

“No question can or will be raised as to the financial integrity and responsibility of Al Chymia Temple,” they assured readers. “No contingency within the range of human probability, seen or unforeseen, could arise that would release the Shrine from its obligations.”

Unfortunately, nobody — not even the Shriners — anticipated the financial “contingency” known as the Great Depression. On January 14, 1938, the local newspaper announced, “Shrine Building Goes on Block.” Faced with overwhelming debt, the Shriners moved out of their Temple and put it up for sale. e buyer was the New York Life Insurance Company, who moved their offices to the 12th floor. e Shriners moved out and shared facilities with the Elks Club.

Over the next several years, stretching into decades, city directories showed the Shrine

Building usually half-empty. Entire floors were vacant, and somebody might take the elevator to the fifth floor to visit Mrs. MacKassey’s Hair Shop, but they’d walk past empty offices and shops to get there.

In 1990, the authors of Memphis: An Architectural Guide praised the building, but regret-

been replaced by larger ones, to light apartments now located where once the Shriners shot pool.” In 2005, Turley upgraded the building again, this time transforming “ e Most Elegant Address in Memphis” into 74 luxury condos. As we go to press in February, four of those are available. Take your pick from a

ted that “the vaguely Spanish cupola that rose over the center of the south façade had to be removed for structural reasons.”

ey wrote that in 1981 the Henry Turley Company, working with architect Tony Bologna and developer Mel Greer, had completed a transformation of the former Temple into 84 spacious apartments. “Much of the interiors of the Shriners’ floors was preserved, including the original terrazzo floors, arched windows, ornate plasterwork, and corbeled ceilings.” e basement swimming pool, empty for years, was refurbished. e only changes visible from the outside were minor. For example, “small windows have

fourth-floor, one-bedroom space for $145,000. Or how about a two-level “Roof Garden” corner residence — at 4,000 square feet, larger than some homes in Central Gardens — for $900,000? And the Shriners? Oh, they’re still around. Many years after they left downtown, they built a new Al Chymia Temple on Shelby Oaks Drive. In 2021, however, they moved even farther east; today, their home is in Oakland.

Got a question for Vance?

EMAIL: askvance@memphismagazine.com

MAIL: Vance Lauderdale, Memphis Magazine, P.O. Box 1738, Memphis, TN 38101

ONLINE: memphismagazine.com/ask-vance Or visit him on Facebook.

Motherless Children

Tayari Jones deftly weaves narrative threads of ghosts, missing mothers, and found family in her exquisite new Memphis-set novel, Kin.

BY JESSE DAVIS

“You can’t save a person who doesn’t want to be saved.”

— PEARL CLEAGE, TILL YOU HEAR FROM ME

Tayari Jones doesn’t remember when she started writing. She has always enjoyed crafting stories as a pastime, but Jones, now the author of five novels, including 2018’s award-winning An American Marriage , didn’t consider a career as a writer until she was in college.

“ A writer and teacher asked her, “‘What are you thinking about?’ and I got ready to tell her and she said, ‘Don’t tell me. Write it down,’” Jones says. “With that, she became my first audience. By taking me seriously, she taught me to take myself seriously. Knowing that my teacher wanted to know what I thought changed the way I thought.”

LINEAGE LOST

The notion of lineage forms the thematic background for Jones’ new novel, which follows two young Black girls, Annie and Vernice, from Honeysuckle, Louisiana.

Both girls grow up without their mothers. Annie’s mother, Hattie Lee, left her daughter to move to Memphis and follow her own path. Or, as Vernice thinks, “Annie’s Mama was doing GodKnowsWhat, out in GodKnowsWhere,” so Annie is raised by her strict grandmother. One tragic night forever altered the course of Vernice’s life when her mother was murdered by her father, who then killed himself, leaving Vernice to be brought up by her Aunt Irene.

Kin begins with the utterance of Vernice’s fi rst word, “mother,” enunciated in full — not “mama,” but “mother.” e scene takes place on vegetable-canning day, amid the humidity of boiling water and the hiss of radio static. Because of the special occasion, the novel at first seems to echo with the hard-won wisdom and wit of Southern women, all gathered to preserve the harvest together. e realization quickly grows, though, that the women who populate the pages of Jones’ newest novel lead lives characterized by loneliness and absence. Vernice and her “cradle friend,” Annie, share the same hurt; they are both motherless children, and their lives bend around that absence.

In Kin , Mrs. McHenry, a fi xture of Atlanta’s high society, tells Vernice that generations of Black mothers tending to the children of white families created a wound. “Our mothers were stolen from us. Somebody should write a book about it,” she says, in something of a mission statement for Jones’ novel.

Jones is still in touch with Pearl Cleage, the professor who told her to “write it down.” In fact, in something of a full-circle moment, Cleage joined Jones to co-host the Atlanta book launch for her newest novel, the Memphis-set Kin (Knopf), released in February.

“She is my North Star. I’m a graduate of Spelman College, and she’s a graduate of Spelman College, so I feel a lineage. I have literary grandparents. She is a part of a continuum,” Jones says. “ at’s something that comes up in my books in small ways.”

“I’ve been thinking a lot about my foremothers,” Jones says when I ask her to speak more on the idea of a lineage — and its notable absence in her new novel.

“My grandmothers, one of them worked as a domestic, and I know the name of the family she worked for. She worked for a family called the McGuinesses. I know the McGuinesses’ children’s names. ey have no idea who I am. ey figured so prominently in our imagination, but we’re nobody to them. What is it like to care for children during the day, and how does that affect your own children?

“What does it mean when you’re kind for a living? What does that do to the way you understand your own kindness?”

In Kin , Jones draws out these questions of sacrifices made and privations suffered to sustain a life and a family. What remains for her family after a woman has poured out her store of care for another family’s brood? Whether love or finances or the pleasures and freedoms

of an unencumbered individual, what must be sacrificed on the altar of family, stability, and security?

There is no easy, one-size-fits-all answer to such questions, but as Jones guides Vernice and Annie through their lives, the girls make answers of their own.

THE HEART OF WHAT REMAINS

As they grow up, Vernice and Annie are well-fed and clean, but they are never doted on. Aunt Irene’s constant refrain is that she doesn’t know how to talk to children, and Annie’s granny thought she was through acting as the sole guardian of a child.

As Vernice and Annie navigate between points both rural and urban, tracing a path between a Mississippi brothel, the Black high society in Atlanta, the Memphis nightclub scene, and stops in between, they find no life is free of sacrifices and no one’s responsibilities or challenges are quite the same. Queer characters populate the novel as well, as Jones hints at the important role community plays in the rearing of children and the determination of life’s paths, as well as the pain and isolation that often accompany lives led outside the strictures of social acceptability.

“Children desire guardians who love and want them. All children do, regardless of the circumstances of a child’s birth,” Jones says, and the genuine love of a parent cannot be faked. “I do think about women’s lives before the advent of reliable contraception. There were all these unplanned children. Babies arrived and someone had to take care of them.”

The circumstances of those unplanned babies’ births affects not only them, but the rest of the community as well. People, usually women, have to step up and care for their nieces or grandchildren.

In Kin, Aunt Irene’s brief vacation back home becomes an indefinite stay as she takes on the responsibility of rearing her deceased sister’s young daughter. Responsibility, rather than any desire to be a mother, forces her to bid farewell to a job and a beau in Ohio and try to make whatever life she can in small-town Louisiana.

“The idea of pregnancy just looms,” says Jones. “Writing this book I had to really ponder, if you cannot control your fertility, you cannot control your life.”

The question of what families owe to each other is at the center of the novel. Friends and relatives warn Annie that Hattie Lee might not be the kind of mother she wants, that nurturing doesn’t come naturally to all women, but Annie is determined to track down her mother and forge some sort of relationship. Vernice struggles with her own relationships, both to her mentor, of sorts, and with two potential romantic partners, each of them offering a different future.

“Some people just will not accept your help,” Jones says, noting that much of the novel hinges on characters trying to force relationships onto people or holding ideals of what a relationship should be. Vernice and Annie are young, and they cannot fully understand

that a healthy, functioning relationship requires the renewed commitment of everyone involved.

Ghosts, both real and figurative, are a common motif in Kin, fitting as so much of the novel wrestles with concepts of loss and lineage, of what remains after an absence. To say that the specter of lost love haunts the pages of Jones’ novel is no understatement, but occasionally the ghosts in Kin are more frightening figments than incorporeal concepts. Different characters hold diverse views on what’s real, on faith and religion, and on what exactly one owes one’s family of origin. In that, the novel is uncannily authentic — and Southern as can be. A rich amalgamation of folk magic, nightmares, remorseful shades, and Sunday service make up the spiritual backdrop of the novel, making Kin as true to the rural Southern experience as any tome on any bookshelf.

“You cannot undo the past,” Jones says. “The question is, ‘How do you play the cards you were dealt? What is the best you can make of your situation?’”

THE GREAT DIVIDE

Kin is, at its core, a novel about relationships and the tension inherent in them as both parties seek to find a balance. Though much of the emotional weight of the novel is centered on the nature of familial and romantic relationships, the urban/rural, North/South divide that has so effectively characterized an as-yet-ongoing tension in United States culture is also expertly examined by the author. The subject of the Urban South is of particular interest to Jones, she admits.

“People characterize the North by its cities and the South for its rural areas, but all states have urban and rural areas,” she says. “I also like the idea of the urban centers of the South as places of migration,” Jones continues. Her father came from a small town in Louisiana and moved to Atlanta, and to Jones, Louisiana feels like the “old country,” a semi-mythic place she’s still influenced by but whose language she doesn’t quite understand.

“The country is so prejudiced against the South that they imagine the Southern person as so eager to leave the South,” Jones explains. Her novel, however, uses as a plot vehicle the quite real cultural pattern of rural-to-urban migration in the South. For Annie and Vernice, the urban centers of Memphis and Atlanta represent new beginnings and expanded opportunities.

So deft is Jones’ touch that she crafts a novel that is as compelling as a plot-driven page-turner as it is a literary examination of mothers and daughters, friendship, and the paths taken and passed by in life.

Tayari Jones, in conversation with Memphis-based novelist Avery Cunningham, will celebrate the release of Kin with a ticketed event at Novel bookstore on Wednesday, March 18, at 6 p.m.

Buying Away Our City’s Future

The boom in rental properties with absentee landlords has caused a decline in once-stable neighborhoods.

BY TOM JONES

Looking back, it’s astonishing how quickly Memphis went from a city of homeowners to a city of renters. A key driver of the change were hedge funds and mega-companies, which bought thousands of houses and got tax breaks of more than $10 million a year in the process.

Prior to 2016-2017, mega-investors had not bought any homes in Memphis, but in those years alone, half of the 24,000 houses sold here were investor sales that included behemoth institutional actors. ey targeted Memphis for one reason: low acquisition costs paired with high rent potential. Decades of disinvestment, redlining, and economic segregation created neighborhoods where homes could be bought for a fraction of what they’d cost in other cities.

According to Austin Harrison, a professor of urban studies at Rhodes College and an expert on housing, these “whale investors” created a permanent renter class in Memphis, putting the American Dream of home ownership out of reach for many Memphians and “we’re never going to get it [housing stock] back.”

City government officials and Harrison explained the origins of the problem this way in the State of Memphis Housing 2020: Rising to Respond to Crisis : 1) the rise of mortgage market deregulation leading to the “innovation” of the subprime mortgage loan product; 2) targeting of subprime loans in predominantly African-American neighborhoods; 3) the relationship between foreclosures and vacant properties; and 4) the increase in foreclosed single-family houses owned by Memphis lending institutions — a key factor that fueled the Memphis rental boom. e impact was profound. In 2010, 52 percent of houses were owned by the families living in them, but by 2022, that was down to 46 percent. Over the same time period, renter households swelled

from 47.9 percent to 54 percent. ese out-of-town companies bought houses by the thousands — 7,000 just in 2019-2020, often outbidding first-time homebuyers with above-asking-price cash offers, and then charging rents that strained

When ownership is distant — managed through call centers and layered LLCs — accountability evaporates, houses deteriorate, neighborhoods suffer, and tenants pay the price.

already-tight household budgets.

Along the way, these multi-national groups and hedge funds turned Memphis into the fastest-growing rental market in America and they were rewarded with tax breaks for doing it. e tax breaks came in the form of their homes’ assessment at the residential property tax rate of 25 percent rather than a commercial rate of 40 percent. e assessor’s office has not calculated the amount of new property tax revenues that could be produced by the change in assessment category; however, taking a conservative approach with just 7,000 single-family houses appraised at an average of $150,000 would mean about $5 million in new revenue for City of Memphis government and $5.4 million for Shelby County government. Maybe help is finally on the way. Two local Republican legislators — Senator Brent Taylor and Representative Tom Leatherwood — have filed a bill with the Tennessee Legislature to assess homes owned by these large institutional

firms at the commercial rate.

In addition to their bill, there is also the “Homes Not Hedge Funds” act proposed by two Democratic legislators in Nashville, where 21 percent of houses in some neighborhoods were bought by corporate investors between 2018-2022. eir bill failed to pass last year, but it is to be reintroduced in the current session. It would prohibit corporate entities from owning more than 100 single-family homes in counties with populations of more than 150,000.

Deep-pocketed lobbyists are generally expected to succeed in killing bills they oppose in our Republican super-majority legislature, but this time, a change is also backed by President Trump. In January, he issued an executive order limiting the purchase of homes by Wall Street investors, and the White House said these firms are offering more than asking prices in a bid to have sub-market control.

Harrison’s research confirms it with sub-markets targeted here around specific schools where they can control prices and set eviction standards.

Evictions are big profit centers. For example, Cerberus Capital Management owns more than 1,800 single-family homes in Memphis and its property manager, FirstKey Homes, has a record of filing evictions in the thousands. Roughly 20 percent of renters faced eviction in 2019, which resulted in court judgements for their overdue rent along with tacked-on penalties. Meanwhile, these properties with their absentee, out-of-town owners rack up property code violations at a higher rate than those owned by locally owned rental companies, and their poor maintenance records contribute to the decline of neighborhoods. Changes in state and federal government would yield import-

ant results although much of the damage has been done. It is likely to take many years to increase the homeownership rate in Memphis because the thousands of homes bought by these mega-investors are unlikely to be put up for sale as they wait for their profits to climb.

As a result, they remove thousands of homes from the ownership pipeline. e result is fewer first-time buyers, fewer owner-occupied neighborhoods, more rent extracted, less equity built, and more instability and less generational wealth. With homeownership strongly linked to economic stability and wealth-building, the large-scale investors have precluded much of Memphis from this path to asset-building.

In other words, they don’t just buy houses. ey buy the future options away from Memphis families, particularly Black families, already locked out of wealth-building. e pitch by these large investors is familiar. ey promise professionalism, efficiency, and better management. In reality, renters get the opposite.

When ownership is distant — managed through call centers and layered LLCs — accountability evaporates, houses deteriorate, neighborhoods suffer, and tenants pay the price.

If they are going to own thousands of homes in Memphis, then Memphis should not be seen as a market to exploit. It should also be seen as their community, and communities like ours have expectations and they should pay their fair share of taxes to support it.

Tom Jones is the principal of Smart City Consulting, which specializes in strategic communications, public policy development, and strategic planning. He tends the 20-year-old Smart City Memphis blog and is an author with experience in local government. He can be reached at tjones@ smartcityconsulting.com

WHAT’S ON YOUR PLATE THIS YEAR?

THE INTERNET IS FULL OF NUTRITIONAL ADVICE. REGISTERED DIETICIANS FROM THE MEMPHIS NUTRITION GROUP OFFER A CLEARER PERSPECTIVE.

BY SEY NEURINGER

When it comes to nutritional advice, it can be hard to sort through quantity to find quality. A quick glance at TikTok, Instagram, or Yahoo News will recommend a different nutritional approach each time you visit — a supplement to better your gut health here, a recommendation for drinking more raw milk there, a keto diet somewhere else. For those seeking trustworthy advice, all the contradictions aren’t reassuring.

Updated every five years, the newest edition of Dietary Guidelines for Americans , published by the Department for Health and Human Services (DHS), includes its own set of recommendations to bring to the table. Many people are probably familiar with the MyPlate model that has been in use since 2010 and enjoyed a 15-year run. But now, DHS has drastically changed the so-called “food pyramid.” Or so it seems.

“ e difference in the graphic of the upside-down pyramid and MyPlate is how the information is presented,” says Carol Ann Dietz, a registered dietician at Memphis Nutrition Group (memphisnutritiongroup.org).

“While an emphasis on eating whole foods has always been a focus of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the new graphic leans on specific images of foods to eat more or less of.”

The new guidelines (realfood. gov) emphasize consuming more protein, fruits, vegetables, healthy fats, and dairy. Specifically, they recommend markedly higher servings of protein (1.2–1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day) and full-fat dairy products (3 servings per day), while significantly lowering the intake of whole grains (2-4 servings per day).

ere are positives to these guidelines — particularly, their recommendation of more servings of whole milk. “Whole milk is the only milk my family has been drinking for years, and it’s the type of milk I recommend to my clients of all ages,” says Blair Mize, a registered dietician and owner of Memphis Nutrition Group. “Dairy milk provides many of the nutrients essential for early brain development, such as protein, iodine, zinc,

choline, vitamin B12, selenium, and vitamin A, and the fat in whole milk promotes the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins like vitamins A, D, E, and K.”

ese nutrients contribute to the wide variety of benefits gained overall from drinking whole milk, including improved bone health, blood sugar stabilization, and of course, inclusion of said nutrients in one’s diet. Plantbased alternatives, on the other hand, don’t contain the same amount of nutrients as dairy milk. In addition to the fact that milk alternatives offer only one or two grams of incomplete protein, Mize calls attention to their long ingredient lists, which often include added sweeteners, but are absent essential amino acids.

Regarding the rest of the adjusted guidelines, Dietz cautions that these recommendations are less clear-cut. Notably, they may lead to confusion about what to eat, resulting in an unbalanced intake of protein and fiber.

“Heavily skewing recommendations towards fats and proteins and away from carbohydrates means it may be harder for people to meet their needs and eat a balanced diet,” she explains. “Extensive research has shown that protein intake in the 1.2–1.6 g/kg body weight is

appropriate for those who are weight training, have a medical condition that requires higher protein intake, and older Americans who need more protein to maintain muscle mass. For people not in those categories, excess protein may be used inefficiently for energy.”

Similarly, decreasing consumption of whole grains may result in a lower intake of fiber in one’s diet. Furthermore, while the recommendation of 10 percent of one’s daily calories coming from saturated fats remains in the guidelines, Dietz adds that “this is now in conflict with the overall increase in suggested servings of protein and dairy. New guidelines also do not favor lean meats, unprocessed meats, or fats from plant sources.”

The new Dietary Guidelines for Americans also purport to respond to reported increases in ultra-processed food, added sugars, and other additives in our food system, as well as to the rise in chronic illness and diabetes. While excess consumption of these foods and ingredients do carry health risks, Mize, Dietz, and Julia Noel, another registered dietician with Memphis Nutrition Group, advise that, in moderation, they play important roles in the average diet. Correlation versus causation, too, is important to remember. “ e use of additives in foods is not inherently bad or unhealthy,” Noel says. “ ere are many foods that have food additives to support individuals who may be at risk for nutritional deficiencies. … For example, some cereal grains may contain vitamins, minerals, or prebiotic fibers that do not naturally occur in these foods and provide nutrients that support health and essential functions in the body.”

Likewise, Dietz and Mize agree that processed foods and foods with added sugars, too, can fit into a balanced diet. While whole foods are always recommended, Dietz points out, “ ere are many instances where processed foods of all kinds may be helpful or even necessary depending on individual circumstance.”

is can include mothers using baby formula, athletes consuming electrolyte drinks, or professionals — or journalists — grabbing protein bars for a quick snack. She says it is also important to remember that some people, depending on individual circumstances, may not always have reliable access to whole foods.

Regarding added sugars, Mize warns how “food deprivation often leads to food preoccupation and ultimately backfires; therefore, efforts to exclude sugar entirely may actually drive children to desire and consume more of it in the long-run.” She herself is a certified eating disorder specialist and cautions about the possible development of disordered eating patterns when singling out certain foods as “forbidden foods.” Instead, she encourages

helping your family learn about how to balance — not exclude — sugars with regular meals and a nutritious diet.

verall, Mize, Dietz, and Noel advise discretion before directly associating reported rises in chronic illness and diabetes with diet and lifestyle. “While research has shown that both diet and lifestyle factors do contribute to chronic disease risk to an extent, there are several other factors that also need to be considered,” Noel explains. “For example, both adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and the Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) make up a significant portion of the factors that contribute to chronic disease risk throughout the lifespan.”

Adverse childhood experiences, according to the CDC, are potentially traumatic events that occur during ages 0-17; Social Determinants of Health, according to the World Health Organization, are conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age — affecting their access to power, money, and resources. Both can have an impact on health inequities, lifestyle, and diet.

“While I do agree with the messaging that whole foods should make up the bulk of one’s nutrition, I also believe that all foods can fit into a balanced diet and individual nutrition needs vary.”

—Carol Ann Dietz

“This means, for instance,” Noel says, “that if high-quality research and systematic reviews indicate that high intake of ultra-processed foods is associated with chronic disease risk, that doesn’t necessarily mean that ultra-processed foods cause chronic disease.”

What’s the takeaway from all this? “While I do agree with the messaging that whole foods should make up the bulk of one’s nutrition,” Dietz says, “I also believe that all foods can fit into a balanced diet and individual nutrition needs vary.” These are not strict guidelines, she says, though they will eventually be rolled out across schools, government nutrition programs, and other institutional settings. For those with more specialized dietary needs, Noel emphasizes that it is best to work with their healthcare professionals rather than rely solely on the guidelines.

Mize especially highlights the importance of parents in determining what’s best for their children. “As parents and caregivers, we have an opportunity to model a healthy, flexible relationship with all foods,” she says. “And modeling variety and balance — without labeling foods as ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ ‘healthy’ or ‘unhealthy’ — creates neutrality that allows children to trust their internal cues and develop a more intuitive sense of balance based on what feels best in their busy little bodies.”

Nominations Are Open!

It’s time to pitch us on the best and brightest leaders in Memphis.

Every year, Memphis Magazine honors several CEOs who have proven to be exemplary in their fields, leading their companies to success on local, regional, national, and international stages.

We are currently accepting nominations for the 2026 CEO of the Year awards. Memphis is blessed with tremendously talented executives in charge of their companies and organizations, and we want to hear from you about the best in the business. Pitch us on why they should get the award: vision, achievements, business philosophy, employee relations, management style, and special qualities. Several candidates will be selected for the 2026 awards and will be featured in the May issue of Memphis Magazine. A breakfast will be held to honor the winners on May 7th at Memphis Botanic Gardens, Hardin Hall.

Please send nominations to nominate@memphismagazine.com by: Friday, March 13th

2026 FACES OF THE MID-SOUTH

Advanced Dental Implant and TMJ Center — 73

Advanced Dermatology & Skin Cancer Associates — 40

Agape Child & Family Services, Inc. — 89

Babcock Gifts — 133

Baltz Design — 37

The Bailey Law Firm — 79

Baltz & Sons Concrete — 37

Blair Parker Design — 94

Bob Richards Jewelers — 83

Boyle Investment Company — 55

Broadway Pizza — 116

BrownDog Lodge — 77

Clay & Land Insurance, Inc. — 92

Community Foundation of Greater Memphis — 57

Courage Thru Cancer (CTC) — 47

De La Belle Wellness & Spa — 134

Dr. Chinelo Animalu — 90

Duncan Williams Asset Management — 132

Enaiblr — 30

Fertility Associates of Memphis — 120

Fleet Feet — 123

Fogelman Properties — 33

Folk’s Folly Prime Steak House — 126

Forest Hill Dental — 29

Gant Systems — 91

You’ll fi nd on the pages listed here the talented individuals behind many of Memphis’ favorite brands. This year’s Faces of the Mid-South include doctors and lawyers, rug sellers and pizzaioli, independent schools and centers for independent living. These impressive people and organizations contribute to making Memphis great.

Paradox Catering & Consulting — 51

Germantown Performing Arts Center — 112

Glankler Brown PLLC — 96

Glo Medical Aesthetics — 97

Harding Academy — 52

Holloway Furs — 86

Huey’s — 46

Independent Bank — 56

Kirby Wines & Liquors — 135

Lakeside Behavioral Health System — 41

The Langsdon Clinic — 38

LRK — 34

Magnolia Lighting — 95

Massey McClusky Fuchs & Ballenger — 72

Mednikow & Memphis Diamond Company — 75

Memphis Center for Family & Cosmetic Dentistry — 39

Memphis Dermatology Clinic, P.A. — 74

Memphis Door & Hardware — 78

Memphis Grindhouse Coffee — 53

Memphis Orthodontic Specialists — 111

Mended Therapy LLC — 49

MidSouth OB-GYN — 99

Minesh Pathak, MD — 98

Orion Financial — 87

OrthoSouth — 36

Peel Law Firm — 50

People’s Custom Rx — 58

Presbyterian Day School — 42

Regional One Health — 130

The Rices — 76

RK Heart & Vascular Care — 48

RKA Construction — 54

Robinson Tree Service — 117

Salvaggio Group — 119

Semmes Murphey Clinic — 44, 114, 124, and 128

Southern College of Optometry — 84

Southland Casino Racing — 88

St. Mary’s Episcopal School — 28

Tactical Magic — 43

Taghavi Oriental Rugs — 110

Todd Adams, Keller Williams Realty — 121

United Way of the Mid-South — 113

Van Atkins Jewelers — 32

Vascular and Vein Institute of the South — 127

The Village at Germantown — 122

Walnut Grove Animal Clinic — 31

West Cancer Center & Research Institute — 59, 82, 93, and 136

Wilson Public Relations — 118

At St. Mary’s Episcopal School, learning starts with curiosity and grows into confidence.

Our girls are encouraged to ask questions, think critically, collaborate boldly, and solve realworld problems in our classrooms and makerspaces.

From robotics and the engineering design process to coding and experimentation, students don’t just learn STEM — they live it —

exploring science, technology and math through hands-on, inquirydriven experiences.

A St. Mary’s education goes beyond academics, empowering girls to become capable, creative problem-solvers prepared to lead with integrity, confidence, and purpose.

Come visit and see why we are ranked the #1 girls school in Tennessee.

THE FACE OF AESTHETIC DENTISTRY

FOREST HILL DENTAL >>> Ryan Vick, DDS

World Class cosmetic and comprehensive dentistry is what to expect when visiting Dr. Ryan Vick.

Dr. Vick is passionate about his patients’ smiles and helping them to achieve and maintain optimal oral health, as a beautiful smile can completely improve one’s self image and confidence, and is a pillar of having great overall health. He believes that this starts with spending the time to create a trusting, lasting relationship with his patients.

Patients can expect a preventative and comprehensive approach to oral health. Sedation dentistry allows them to achieve a beautiful, healthy smile in a relaxed environment. Dr. Vick also uses state-of-the-art technology, along with conservative techniques, to deliver lifelong lasting smiles.

Dr. Vick is a proud member of: The American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry, The American Dental Association, and The Tennessee Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry.

Dr. Vick offers a full array of general dentistry and cosmetic dental services, and is welcoming new patients.

3011 Centre Oak Way, Suite 102 Germantown, TN 38138

901.701.7500 | vickdds.com

2026 FACES OF THE

MID-SOUTH

THE FACE OF AI

ENAIBLR >>> Sridhar Sunkara, CEO

AI is changing how organizations work, but for Sridhar Sunkara, it’s never been about technology alone. As Founder and CEO of enaiblr, Sridhar helps enterprises move beyond traditional IT solutions to engineer intelligent environments where humans, AI agents, and knowledge systems work seamlessly together.

transformation and enterprise leadership. His focus is on embedding AI directly into workflows, decisionmaking, and culture, turning intelligence into a practical, everyday advantage.

Formerly eBiz Solutions, enaiblr represents the evolution of Sridhar’s two-decade journey in digital

Known for bridging strategy and execution, Sridhar works closely with leaders to ensure AI augments human judgment, not replacing it. Through enaiblr, he is helping organizations lead with clarity, confidence, and intelligence in an AI-driven future.

2026 FACES

VAN ATKINS JEWELERS >>>

THE FACE OF ANTIQUE & ESTATE JEWELRY

What began as a family-owned group of department stores is now known for all things jewelry! Van Atkins Jewelers, the South’s leader in Estate Jewelry and diamond solitaires, was opened by Chuck Cooper in 1990. Today, three of his sons are leading the way. Chuck, Van, Sam, and Ray have all graduated from the Gemological Institute of America in California. The original store is in historic downtown New Albany, Mississippi, where most days you will find Chuck. Chuck’s eldest son, Van,

Left to right: Sam Cooper, Chuck Cooper, Rhonda Cooper, Van Cooper, and Ray Cooper

is at the helm in the Oxford location on the square, along with Ray, who is responsible for all hand-engraving and customer assistance. The newest addition to the family-owned stores is the downtown Tupelo, Mississippi, location to be managed by Chuck’s second-in-line son, Sam. The youngest son, Jack, a graduate from MTSU in aviation, is a private pilot for Net Jets. Thank you, Mid-South, for featuring us, and we look forward to seeing you. You Know She’s Worth It.

THE FACE OF

APARTMENT INVESTMENT AND MANAGEMENT

FOGELMAN PROPERTIES >>> Creating community and building value. With more than six decades of experience, a team of dynamic associates and expert leaders, and a highly collaborative culture, Fogelman is recognized as a multifamily property management and investment leader. We manage welcoming apartment communities for thousands of residents and build durable value for clients and investment partners. Local Properties:

• 99 FRONT | 99frontmemphis.com

• ADDISON AT COLLIERVILLE | addisoncollierville.com

• APPLING LAKES | applinglakesapts.com

• ARBORS HARBOR TOWN | arborsharbortown.com

• CENTURY | centuryapartments.com

• CITY PLACE AT GERMANTOWN cityplaceatgermantown.com

• CONWOOD FLATS | conwoodflats.com

• GRAND ISLAND | grandislandmemphis.com

• GRAYS CREEK | grayscreekapts.com

• HALL CREEK AT ARLINGTON | hallcreekarlington.com

• HARBOR ISLAND | harborislandapartments.com

• HARBOR SIDE AT CONWOOD FLATS harborsideatconwoodflats.com

• HIGHLAND ROW | highlandrow.com

• IRIS | irismemphisapts.com

• KIWI/GOJI | kiwigojiapts.com

• LAKELAND TOWN SQUARE lakelandtownsquareapts.com

• LEGACY FARM | legacy-farm.com

• LINCOLN AT WOLFCHASE | lincolnatwolfchase.com

• MADISON SHELBY FARMS | madisonshelbyfarms.com

• MERIDIAN PARK | meridianparkapartments.com

• THE EDGE OF GERMANTOWN theedgeofgermantown.com

• THE GARDEN DISTRICT | liveatthegardendistrict.com

• THE ONE AT MILLINGTON | theoneatmillington.com

• THE PARK AT FOREST HILL | theparkatforesthill.com

• THE PARKVIEW | theparkviewmemphis.com

• THE PROVOST | the-provost.com

• THE SUMMIT | thesummitmemphis.com

• THE TENNESSEE BREWERY | atthebrewery.com

• THE WESTERLY AT UNION DEPOT thewesterlyatuniondepot.com

• VILLAS AT CORDOVA | villasatcordova.com

• VINEYARDS | vineyards-apartments.com

• THORNWOOD | theresidencesatthornwood.com Fogelman.com

THE FACE OF

ARCHITECTURE

LRK >>>

The award-winning architects, planners, and designers at LRK are dedicated to building community and creating places that make a difference in people’s lives. With more than 40 years of nationally recognized excellence across seven offices, the people of LRK continue to echo the collaborative spirit of our founding partners and an unwavering commitment to the art of listening. We design to inspire meaningful connections — in every story, place, and relationship.

2026 FACES OF

THE MID-SOUTH

THE FACE OF BACK & NECK CARE ORTHOSOUTH >>>

Front, left to right: Jonathan M. Stuart, DO; Judith R. Lee-Sigler, MD; and Jason A. Weaver, MD, FAANS

Back, left to right: Raul J. Cardenas, MD, FAANS, MBA; John J. Eager, MD; David J. Dowling, MD; and Samuel E. Murrell, MD

The OrthoSouth Spine Institute developed through the integration of neurosurgery, orthopedic spine surgery, physiatry, and physical therapy providers working collaboratively toward improving the patient experience for those seeking back and neck care. Patients visiting a Spine Institute provider can expect a personalized approach, short wait times, the most conservative treatments appropriate for their situation, and simpler navigation throughout their care journey. OrthoSouth is known throughout the Mid-South for its 5-star customer service in orthopedics and spine care.

LOCATIONS: Memphis-Poplar Ave. | Memphis-Primacy Pkwy. | Memphis-Briarcrest Ave. (+ evening hours) | Arlington | Bartlett (+ Saturday clinic) | Germantown (+ surgery center) | Atoka (PT only) | Southaven (+ surgery center + Saturday Clinic) | Hernando | ORTHOSOUTH.ORG

THE FACE OF BACKYARD

BALTZ DESIGN >>>

LIVING

Kevin Baltz, President and Owner

Kevin Baltz went to work for his grandfather’s business at the age of 11, working summers through grade school, high school, and college. He partnered with his father in 1992 and ultimately took over the business only a few years later. Initially started as a utilitarian concrete operation, under Kevin’s helm the business has evolved into an award-winning custom-design and build company, specializing in all aspects of backyard living. This multifaceted family business offers

all types of concrete hardscapes and masonry: patios, driveways, pool decks, walls, fireplaces, outdoor kitchens, and bars. Their team also offers custom-built structures, including pergolas, arbors, and screened enclosures. And they have garnered a well-earned reputation for their transformative pool renovations and reconstruction. Serving the Memphis area for over 75 years, Baltz Design remains a pioneer in their field, built on the four-generation foundation of integrity, quality, vision, and experience.

2026 FACES

OF THE MID-SOUTH

THE

FACE OF

BEAUTIFUL FACE AND BEAUTIFUL BODY

THE LANGSDON CLINIC >>>

Phillip R. Langsdon, MD; Roberto D. Lachica, MD; and Sarah E. Langsdon, MD

Dr. Phillip R. Langsdon is a board-certified facial plastic surgeon who has dedicated his career to treating one face at a time. He helps patients look and feel their best by reversing the signs of aging and enhancing facial harmony, including the nose, ears, cheeks, chin, and lips. His specialties include rhinoplasty, deep plane facelift, eyelid surgery, and comprehensive facial aesthetic procedures.

Dr. Roberto D. Lachica is a board-certified plastic surgeon providing head-to-toe cosmetic surgery. He specializes in breast and body procedures designed to restore and refine changes related to aging, pregnancy, and weight loss.

Dr. Sarah E. Langsdon is a board-eligible plastic surgeon who recently joined the practice. She focuses on facial plastic surgery, with expertise in the deep plane facelift.

The Langsdon Clinic offers a full spectrum of specialized facial, breast, and body aesthetic procedures. Services include surgery for men, mommy makeovers, body contouring, expert rhinoplasty, deep plane facelift, and eyelid surgery. The clinic also remains at the forefront of aesthetic innovation, offering Botox®, dermal fillers, skin resurfacing, and customized medicalgrade skincare.

7499 Poplar Pike, Germantown, TN 38138 | 901.755.6465 | langsdonclinic.com

THE FACE OF BEAUTIFUL

MEMPHIS CENTER FOR FAMILY & COSMETIC DENTISTRY >>> Miles C. Moore, DDS

Creating beautiful smiles is just another day in the office for Miles C. Moore, dentist at Memphis Center for Family & Cosmetic Dentistry. With a friendly staff, a soothing atmosphere, and the latest technology, Dr. Moore’s practice offers all dental services, but specializes in cosmetic

dentistry. Whether you seek a complete smile makeover, “invisible” braces, or teeth whitening, cosmetic dentistry can transform your smile in several ways. Dental veneers from Dr. Moore improve the form and function of your teeth, leaving results that you have to see to believe.

THE FACE OF BEAUTY ADVANCED DERMATOLOGY & SKIN CANCER ASSOCIATES >>>

Left to right: Misty Moore-Ivy, Saba Barlas, Jodie Holmes, Dr. Purvisha Patel, Dr. Cahn, Dr. Sohaila Joubeh, Natalie Morgan, and Jennifer Hinders

The Mid-South’s Trusted Skin Experts.

Established in 2008, Advanced Dermatology & Skin Cancer Associates provides premier dermatological and surgical care across Memphis and Mississippi. We offer Mohs surgery to effectively treat skin cancer while preserving healthy tissue and aesthetics. Our practice is defined by a legacy of excellence, including five "Best Dermatologist in Memphis" awards. Led by board-certified specialists, we prioritize optimal clinical results through individualized treatment plans and a patient-first philosophy. We specialize in both medical skin conditions and aesthetic wellness, consistently exceeding expectations through expertise, compassion, and innovation.

LAKESIDE BEHAVIORAL HEALTH SYSTEM >>>

Front row, left to right: Charo Wilson, Business Office Systems; Ed Woody, Chief Operating Officer; David Morris, Chief Executive Officer; Lenora Coleman, Director of Clinical Services; and Tonya Ginn, Director of Business Development

Back row, left to right: Jada Smith, Executive Assistant; Kristie Greer-Ellis, Hospital Administrator; Johnta Johnson, Chief Financial Officer; Tommy Corman, Program Director of The Landing Addiction Services; and Dr. Mahmood Ali, MD, Chief of Medical Services

Lakeside Behavioral Health System has been a leader in mental health and addiction treatment in West Tennessee for over 50 years. Based in Memphis, Lakeside delivers compassionate, evidence-based care rooted in compassion and clinical excellence across a full continuum of services, helping individuals and families move toward lasting recovery and wellness. In addition to providing individualized treatment for our patients, Lakeside is committed to helping our community better understand and recognize the complexities associated with behavioral health and substance use disorders.

PRESBYTERIAN DAY SCHOOL >>> THE FACE OF

At PDS, we know how to reach boys, teach them, and channel their energies in positive and productive ways. After over 75 years of teaching boys, we know they wiggle and squirm; they delight in getting their hands dirty; they are curious, thrive

when they are active, and learn best through experiential approaches. Here, boys move, inquire, and think out loud. This isn’t just a boys’ school. It’s a school built for boys — and the ways they learn, grow and do. PDS is where boys thrive.

THE FACE OF

BRANDING

TACTICAL MAGIC >>>

Trace Hallowell has been an influential force in Memphis advertising for more than 30 years. Both strategist and creative leader, he is best known for developing high-impact brand identities and marketing campaigns. Having earned top national and international creative awards, his work is also featured in books, magazines, and college textbooks as examples of branding excellence. Trace founded Tactical Magic in 2001. The firm’s diverse clientele includes Chatham Gilder Howell Pittman, Eventive, Gates Lumber, IMC Logistics, Malasri Engineering, Sound Credit, Trousseau, and ZüpMed. 1460 Madison Ave. Memphis, TN 38104

901.722.3001

TacticalMagic.com

CARE

SEMMES MURPHEY CLINIC >>> THE FACE OF BRAIN

Semmes Murphey has stood as a symbol of excellence in medicine and medical innovation for over 100 years. Home to 16 Castle Connolly Top Doctors and ranked #1 in Tennessee for neurological surgery, Semmes Murphey is trusted by hospitals throughout the region for their patients' brain surgery needs. Whether at your local hospital or at a Semmes Murphey clinic location, this team of neurosurgeons

is dedicated to providing safe and effective treatments for brain tumors, trauma, malformations, aneurysms, epilepsy, and more. Beyond clinical care, their physicians shape the future of brain surgery. They teach and train tomorrow's neurosurgeons at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and advance the field of brain care through research and clinical trials with the Semmes Murphey Foundation.

Humphreys Blvd., Memphis, TN 38120 901.522.7700 | semmes-murphey.com

2026 FACES

THE FACE OF BURGERS

HUEY'S >>>

Neil Johnson, Brenda Davis-Smith, and Ross Luciano Huey’s is a Memphis staple synonymous with great food and great service.

Voted “Best Burger in Memphis” since 1984, the locally owned burger joint features 14 burgers, handmade appetizers, sandwiches, salads, and more. What makes Huey’s so special, though, is the family-friendly atmosphere inspired in large part by the close-knit, family-led team that runs it. In addition to over 600 team

members that keep the 10 restaurant locations going smoothly, a small administrative team works to make sure the folks on the ground have everything they need to supply the Memphis community with plenty of burgers and cheese fries — people like Neil Johnson, Director of IT & Analytics; Brenda Davis-Smith, Director of Human Resources; and Ross Luciano, CFO. Visit a Huey's near you 7 days a week!

HueyBurger.com

THE FACE OF CANCER

PATIENT SUPPORT

COURAGE THRU CANCER (CTC) >>> Courage Thru Cancer (CTC) was created in 2015 from the deeply personal journeys of Harrison Neal and Gerry Finney, creating a place where anyone facing cancer could feel seen, supported, and lifted. Since then, Mid-Southerners have shared more than 100 stories on video — families opening their hearts so the next person in the fight knows they’re not alone. As a 100% volunteer organization,

CTC has donated over $1 million to places like Baptist Cancer Center, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and West Cancer Foundation through community-driven events and the powerful CTC Celebration. Now, founders Jon and Courtney Neal are expanding their mission, working to ensure every patient — regardless of circumstance — has access to life-saving information by Spring 2027.

9160 Highway 64, Suite 12, Box 312, Lakeland, TN 38002 | ctcmemphis.org

2026 FACES

THE FACE OF CARDIOLOGY IN MEMPHIS

RK HEART & VASCULAR CARE >>>

Ritin Bomb, MD, FACC, RPVI

Advanced Heart Care. Human Connection.

Lasting Trust.

For more than 20 years, Dr. Ritin Bomb has been redefining what exceptional cardiovascular care looks like in the Mid-South — combining advanced clinical expertise with a deeply personal approach that places patients at the center of every decision.

Board certified in internal medicine, cardiovascular disease, nuclear cardiology, echocardiography, and vascular interpretation, Dr. Bomb brings comprehensive insight to both heart and vascular health. His ability to integrate cutting-edge diagnostics with thoughtful, individualized treatment has earned him recognition as one of Memphis’ leading cardiologists year after year.

visit — unhurried conversations, clear guidance, and the confidence that comes from being genuinely heard. Known for his calm presence and meticulous attention to detail, he believes great cardiology is not only about technology and expertise but also about partnership, trust, and continuity of care.

Yet what truly distinguishes Dr. Bomb is the experience patients describe long after their

From prevention and early detection to complex cardiovascular management, Dr. Bomb’s philosophy is simple:

Deliver precision medicine with compassion — and care for the person, not just the diagnosis.

For many individuals and families across Memphis, he has become the cardiologist they rely on for every stage of their heart health journey.

“The best cardiologist blends innovation with compassion — because every heart has a story.” — Dr. Ritin Bomb

2026 FACES

THE FACE OF CATASTROPHIC INJURY & WRONGFUL DEATH LAW

PEEL LAW FIRM >>>

David B. Peel, Injury Attorney

Q & A with the Attorney:

Q. What kinds of cases do you handle?

A. Injury & Death matters: from multi-million-dollar settlements in truck accidents to the $30,000 car crash.

Q. Why do you keep your injury law firm small, despite all your success?

A. My clients value genuine, personal attention — they’re never just a case number.

Q. You do history videos on social media, you’ve authored books and written countless articles and often speak at churches and to community groups — but no lawyer commercials on TV?

A. I prefer educators over slick TV salesmen. I think a lot of people share that preference.

Q. Your Goldendoodle is “CrashtheLawDog?”

A. As our official therapy dog, he’s helped ease the stress of tough cases for clients, and he is with us during depositions and mediations.

Q. You just moved to the new office on the historic Arlington Depot Square. Tell me about it

A. It was a true labor of love as Oldenway Manor has a lot of my personal touches and has been said to be like a museum unto itself. Three generations of Peels once sharecropped fields nearby. It’s been a dream come true, but it wouldn’t be possible without decades of loyal clients, great staff who are really friends, and my supportive family — especially my bride.

Q. You have enjoyed the highest possible attorney ratings and professional rankings from both your peers and your clients for many years now — how do you feel about that?

A. Personal referrals are still the best compliment we are paid, and we never charged for consultations. In fact, we’re only paid if we win.

THE FACE OF CATERING

PARADOX CATERING & CONSULTING >>>

Chef Jimmy Gentry

Chef Jimmy Gentry, co-founder of Paradox Catering & Consulting and owner of The Lobbyist, was formally trained at Johnson & Wales College of Culinary Arts. An award-winning chef and James Beard Award nominee, he has earned national recognition, including features in The New York Times and participation in multiple James Beard Dinners.

Nearly 17 years ago, Gentry and his longtime partner Alia Hogan founded it with a vision to elevate catering beyond expectations. While Gentry leads culinary innovation, Hogan drives operations and client relations, ensuring seamless execution. Together, they blend artistry and precision to create highly personalized, immersive experiences that have made Paradox a premier boutique catering and consulting firm in the Mid-South.

901.619.1196

Event@ParadoxCuisine.com ParadoxCuisine.com

THE FACE OF

HARDING ACADEMY >>>

At Harding Academy, we teach students that everything they learn is connected to God. In art, we talk about how we create because we are made in the image of a Creator God. In engineering, we explore the nature of God by discovering and creating order. In history, we challenge students to be justice seekers like Ida B. Wells. Once students make those connections, learning becomes meaningful because it’s personal. Schedule a tour to see firsthand how we move students from information to transformation.

THE

FACE OF COFFEE MEMPHIS GRINDHOUSE COFFEE >>> Dwayne Chaffen and Rick Askew, owners What is more Memphis than Memphis Grindhouse Coffee — The Official Coffee of Memphis! It is roasted with soul, packaged, and distributed right here in the Bluff City and available to ship to all 50 states. Our coffee is 100% Arabica beans imported from some of the most desirable coffee regions on the planet. Our mission supports literacy, and we believe that every child deserves to have the fundamental building blocks of reading and writing.

Our coffee can be purchased at your local Superlo Foods, Cash Saver, Cordelia’s Market, Novel Memphis, High Point Grocery, South Point Grocery, Oh GRATE, Cooper-Young Gallery and Gift Shop, Primos A Cut Above, Kitchen Laurel, Butteriffic Bakery and Café, Old Dominick Distillery, Peoples on Beale, and Memphis International Airport! You can also have it shipped straight to your door from Amazon or MemphisGrindhouse.com .

At Boyle, office leasing is more than space; it’s about relationships. Since 1933, Boyle has refined office leasing with a forward-thinking approach to meet the evolving requirements of our tenants. As owners and operators of our buildings, we deliver flexibility for businesses of every size and need.

“With Boyle, we found more than office space; we found a long-term partner invested in our growth.” — Chad Lindsay, VP/General Manager, Alston Construction at Schilling Farms

THE FACE OF COMMUNITY

INDEPENDENT BANK >>>

Strong. Safe. Customer-Focused. Local. Proudly Independent. Since our founding in 1998, Independent Bank has been committed to supporting our customers and communities by helping you achieve your dreams and financial success. We are a full-service bank with personal and business loans, a variety of deposit and cash management options, mortgage loans, and wealth management. We offer innovative solutions, tailored products, and heroic service. We invite you to experience the i-bank difference — it's a better way to bank. Proud to be the face of community banking. Member FDIC | Equal Housing Lender

THE FACE OF

COMMUNITY GIVING

COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF GREATER MEMPHIS >>>

At the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis, we connect generosity with solutions to do more good. Through charitable funds, grants, and partnerships, our trusted team helps donors give with purpose and nonprofits grow their impact across Memphis and the Mid-South. Together, we invest in our community and work alongside our neighbors to support everything from rapid relief

Left to right: Director of Community Impact Aerial Ozuzu, President Bob Fockler, and Vice President of Philanthropic Services Veronica Jamison

efforts to sustaining community assets to addressing our most entrenched challenges. As the region’s largest charitable grantmaker, we awarded $144 million last year to nearly 2,000 nonprofits — mobilizing both donor-directed giving and responsive, community-informed investments. This critical support strengthens neighborhoods, expands opportunity, and creates lasting change. 1350 Concourse Avenue, Ste. 458 | 901.728.4600 | CFGM.org

THE FACE OF

WEST CANCER CENTER & RESEARCH INSTITUTE >>> West Cancer Center & Research Institute stands at the forefront of comprehensive cancer care, powered by nationally recognized specialists and a multidisciplinary model that integrates medical, surgical, and radiation oncology with advanced diagnostics and research. Our experts leverage genomic profiling, precision therapeutics, and evidence-based

protocols to tailor treatment for every patient. Through clinical trials, molecular tumor boards, and collaborations with leading scientific partners, West drives innovation that directly improves outcomes. The people of West embody deep expertise, rigorous science, and an unwavering commitment to delivering world-class cancer care close to home.

Support@WestClinic.com | WestCancerCenter.com

Cover Me

A REFLECTION ON IMAGERY IN MEMPHIS MAGAZINE , 1976-2026

BY ANNA TRAVERSE

Amagazine is a container: of stories and interviews, of advertisements and calendars, of announcements and opinions. In French, un magasin is a shop. at the word — magazine — is used to talk about both periodicals (like this one) and ammunition is no accident. A firearm’s magazine is a container for numerous cartridges that can be fired in succession. A publication like Memphis Magazine is a container for work that can be leafed through quickly — rapid-fire.

“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” people say — but the truth is, you can understand plenty by glancing at a dust jacket. Is this a work of sci-fi (ringed planets, alien technology) or of romance (bright colors, a beach, or even … Fabio)? Is it prestige literary fiction? A mass-market paperback thriller, or a dense historical chronology? e cover likely gives ample clues. Not only that, the look of a cover lodges in the memory; I can call up, in my mind’s eye, dust jacket images of books whose titles might have vanished from my mental card catalog.

Early covers offer a mix of heavy and light, deeply reported and groundbreaking — and plenty of ‘70s flair.

No one pretends not to judge magazines by their covers. Since the nineteenth century, periodical publishers have chosen illustrations, and now, more often, photographs, to grace their front shells. For many magazines, the cover image represents or teases the theme of, or a dominant story within, a particular issue. And for many magazine consumers, a passing glance at the cover determines whether they’ll pick up a copy or leave it sitting forlornly on a newsstand or dentist’s waiting-room table. ere’s not a brick-and-mortar Memphis Magazine store, but our cover is our shop window: Do you see anything through the glass that compels you to venture inside?

Behind the scenes each month, before we publish an issue of this magazine — this container of organized chaos — we evaluate plans for the cover. Often, a small group of editors, and our art director, consider several vastly different directions for the cover: We may weigh two or even three feature stories to showcase, and often, the final decision has more to do with aesthetics than some notion of “importance.” If the art (meaning either photography or illustration) is stronger for one story, we’ll likely select that for the cover, even if another story in the same month’s issue is longer or denser. at’s because we really, really want casual passersby to become readers. We don’t just want you to see us on

Artists created original pieces to be photographed and used for magazine covers. These examples show illustrations by John Robinette.

your dentist’s waiting-room table. We want to be on your table.

For writers and editors — word people, people like me, who make houses out of sentences and dream in paragraphs — becoming aware of how visually our work is construed and consumed can be strange. We spend so much time crafting our sentences, structuring our stories, weaving in quotations, smoothing transitions. en the story’s published, and most of the commentary has to do with how it looks.

We can fight against this truth — imploring readers to look beyond the pictures and to focus on the words — or we can embrace the power of a good cover, a strong lead image. I’ve come to believe that the best way to persuade people to read what you have to say is to compel them to want to look at the pages in the first place. And that’s best done through visual impressions.

Memphis Magazine has been printing monthly for 49 years and 11 months. In preparation for the magazine’s … quinquagenary? golden jubilee? semi-centennial? … we have been poring over shelves upon shelves of archival issues. What has stood out to me, in this process, is how broadly we’ve ranged. e story of this magazine isn’t a straight line, but an accumulation of layers upon layers, a concatenation of ideas joined together with paper and thread, glue and ink. Within the first

The magazine’s logo has evolved over the years to mirror the style of the times. A look through the collection of covers offers glimpses at many of the most memorable faces and places in Memphis.

12 months of publication, we had run a cover showing esteemed photographer William Eggleston — and then, two months later, a portrait of a woman in a redwhite-and-blue Afro wig, for the nation’s bicentennial — followed a few months later by a deep dive into the Memphis wrestling scene — and, sure, why not, also a cover story about the “psychic boom” featuring a very cartoonish image of a fortune teller.

In those early years, the style felt very, well, ’70s — no surprise there, as it was the ’70s. Our logo at the time was bubbly and round, looking almost like something that could be made out of neon and hung on the side of a building. I adore that old, retro logo, designed by then-art director Fred Woodward.

Some of the covers from those years are works of art. Before the days of digital everything, the editors sometimes commissioned artists to paint canvases that would then be photographed and made into covers. Elvis Presley, Fred Smith, Sam Phillips, and many more were made into portraits that became classic Memphis Magazine covers. Packed away in storage are the originals of many covers, reminders of how tactile and messy this process was, not so long ago.

By the 1980s, many of our covers featured either politicians or entertainers, and the style had grown up into the try-hard, big-hair, aesthetic of the era. We spotlighted Cybill Shepherd, Al Gore, Dick Hackett, Willie Herenton, Jerry Lee Lewis. e bubbly logo was dropped in favor of an italic script (hand-designed by Bill Gregg, a staff designer at the time), and even the color palettes went a little ’80s chintz. ere’s a lot of hair spray and shoulder pads. But there was also some very ambitious journalism, including stories on race and poverty in Memphis.

In subsequent decades, the magazine continued to accumulate and shed. To a great extent, our covers, taken collectively, are a flipbook through the history of the city’s hopes and disappointments. We did a

THE MIND’S EYE

These covers for our “Mind’s Eye” series showcase the best work of local photographers, including Bob Williams, Brandon Dill, Jamie Harmon, Huger Foote, Andrea Morales, and many more.

series of stories on the Wonders exhibits, now gone by the wayside. For a time, in the festival’s heyday, our writers traveled to Memphis in May’s honored countries and to countries included in Wonders exhibitions for articles that we published. It’s hard to imagine, now, a local, small-market journalist being flown to China or Peru on a press trip, but it happened for our writers.

In more recent years, many of our most memorable visual stories have been part of the Mind’s Eye series: close readings of Memphis photographers’ bodies of work. Tommy Kha, Jamie Harmon, Andrea Morales,

Louis Tucker, Houston Cofield, Huger Foote, among others have been featured in Mind’s Eye, granting us not only insight into their creative practices but also access to share their work in print. Richard Alley gets credit for beginning the series with a 2016 profile of Bob Williams. And, apart from the Mind’s Eye series but another example of this magazine’s photographic legacy, Eggleston’s photos were printed on full pages within the May 1976 issue that 1976 magazine — all primary colors and lonely tableaux. The famed photographer’s work was revisited in a March 1994 cover story, and most recently shown again in a lush

November 2022 retrospective. e covers have grown into the contemporary era stylistically, too. e logo we use now is a version of one designed by Hudd Byard around 2008. I asked our art director now, Brian Groppe, to pick a favorite of our several logos. Ever diplomatic, Brian wrote, “Each logo is appropriate for its era,” but allowed that the current logo is his favorite. (For any typeface nerds, Brian went on: “ e unique sans serif font Monarch Bold works well in U&lc [upper and lowercase] due to its short ascenders and descenders, i.e. tall lowercase x-height relative to a short uppercase.” Got that?)

There’s something immediately nostalgic about print media. Not because it’s so oldschool; reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated. No, magazines are nostalgic because of the temporality of their production. By the time an issue of this magazine finds its way into your hands, the people who worked on it have moved on to the next issue, and the one after that. e people we interviewed are thinking about tomorrow, not yesterday. But when we get it really right, the assembled pages feel like a moment in time, crystallized. As we reflect on the past

WHO’S WHO & WHAT’S WHAT IN THE BLUFF CITY!

49 years and 11 months of this magazine, we’re engaged in an activity that’s rather the opposite of our normal process. I often get mixed up about what month it is right now, because so much of my mind is devoted to what’s next. e archives are a permanent(-ish) record, but we’re urging forever forwards.

I’ve come to love the relative impermanence of it all. Whether our current issue is beautiful or moving, humdrum or even embarrassing — there’s another one coming soon. It’s a deeply mortal-feeling medium. By the time you realize where and who you are, you’re somewhere else, growing into someone else, or else you’re nowhere, and that’s that. We don’t get to be overly precious about any particular thing. ere’s simply not time. It’s a good enough way to approach more than just magazine publishing: Do your best, but no matter what, keep moving.

in memoriam:

LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

No photographer shot more covers for Memphis Magazine than the late, great Larry Kuzniewski. From business suites to beaches, Kuzniewski captured the colors and personalities that make Memphis so distinctive. He also happened to be a neighbor, living downstairs from the magazine’s offices on Tennessee Street for two decades. Kuzniewski died in December 2025. We miss him, but will celebrate his craft for years to come.

2026 FACES

THE FACE OF CRIMINAL LAW

MASSEY MCCLUSKY FUCHS & BALLENGER >>>

Standing, left to right: Dana Massey (Office Mgr), Katie Massey Wening (Paralegal), William Massey, Lorrie Webb (Calendar/File Mgr), and Mariah McCallister

Sitting, left to right: Joseph A. McClusky, Lauren Massey Fuchs, and Jason D. Ballenger

We are proud of the strength our defense team brings to the table. When people come to us, not only is someone’s freedom being threatened, but their good name as well. No one wants to be a victim of the criminal justice system. Our firm practices only criminal defense law. We protect and guide people when the government is investigating. We defend people when the government is prosecuting. We work as a team and present a team defense. It’s just stronger that way. If you are in need of protection and a strong defense, call us. We bring the experience, knowledge and skilled advocacy you will need. We also bring the heart for the fight. Our clients expect that from us, and so do we.

THE FACE OF

DENTAL IMPLANTS

ADVANCED DENTAL IMPLANT AND TMJ CENTER >>>

Pradeep Adatrow, DDS, MSD and Jay Patel, DDS Board Certified, Periodontal and Implant Surgeons

Advanced Dental, the award-winning dental practice, has been chosen as Desoto’s Best Specialty Clinic since 2018 and Memphis’s Best Dental Clinic during the 2023 Memphis Most awards. Advanced Dental’s founder is the only practicing board-certified periodontist and prosthodontist in the southern United States and has been chosen as the Top Dentist since 2020. Their patients leave the office informed and confident in their treatment options due to their vast expertise in placing more than 25,000 Dental Implants. In addition, Advanced Dental’s friendly, familial environment, coupled with state-of-the-art technology, welcomes patients back to every appointment with a smile at a price they can afford.

THE FACE OF DERMATOLOGY

MEMPHIS DERMATOLOGY CLINIC, P.A. >>> Memphis Dermatology Clinic has served the Mid-South since 1972. We provide complete dermatologic care ranging from diagnosis and treatment of skin cancer, to Mohs Micrographic surgery to cosmetic procedures. MDC offers two convenient locations for our patients; in Midtown on Union Avenue, and in East Memphis at 795 Ridge

Lake Blvd. Healthy skin improves your overall health and mindset. Over the last 54 years, our legacy and our goal has been to provide exceptional care to all patients. For state-of-the-art skin care, cosmetic and skin cancer treatments, please call 901.726.6655 for an appointment or visit MemphisDermatology.com for more information.

MIDTOWN: 1451 & 1455 Union Ave., Memphis, TN 38104 EAST MEMPHIS: 795 Ridge Lake Blvd., Suite 200, Memphis, TN 38120 901.726.6655 | MemphisDermatology.com

THE FACE OF DIAMONDS

MEDNIKOW & MEMPHIS DIAMOND COMPANY >>>

Arriving in the Bluff City by riverboat in 1891, Mednikow enjoys an illustrious history and a reputation for superlative diamonds — earning this local, familyowned store the title “The Face of Diamonds."

Five generations of Memphis brides have cherished and worn beautiful Mednikow diamonds with pride. And for thirteen decades brilliant Mednikow diamonds have added sparkle to

countless significant celebrations.

Recently, Jay Mednikow, who calls diamonds “the perfect gemstone,” was inspired to create The Memphis Diamond Company. This exciting new facet of the Mednikow story presents an affordable collection of fine lab-grown diamonds and jewelry reflecting a passion for diamonds that is indisputably an immutable part of the Mednikow family DNA.

474 Perkins Extended, Memphis, TN 38117 | MemphisDiamond.com | Mednikow.com

THE FACE OF DIVORCE LAW

THE RICES >>> Your family’s needs are our family’s business. Larry and Nick Rice lead Rice Law. Both are certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy as Family Law Trial Advocates. Certification is earned by actual trial experience, judicial recommendation, the endorsement of other lawyers, and a rigorous examination. As authors of The Complete Guide to Divorce Practice, published by the American Bar Association, the Rices are the authority on divorce that other lawyers turn to. Rice Law has handled divorce and family law for 75 years over three generations. Jessica Ferrante and the firm’s other associates are poised to continue these high standards for decades to come. For information about divorce, visit AboutDivorce.com. To talk to a lawyer about divorce, call 901.526.6701.

THE FACE OF DOGGY HOTEL, DAYCARE & SPA

BROWNDOG LODGE >>>

Since 2007, BrownDog Lodge has set the standard for luxury dog boarding, daycare, and grooming in the Mid-South. With two premier pet centers in East Memphis and Germantown, we provide the highest level of care, safety, and love. Our team is trained and certified in canine body language, safe group play, and recognizing medical emergencies, and all managers maintain Pet CPR certification. We are more than a pet care facility — we are family. Our close-knit team treats every dog as our own, and our award-winning commitment to excellence makes us the preferred choice for pet parents. We look forward to welcoming your furry family members to become part of our PACK! “WE ARE HERE TO PET ALL OF THE DOGS.”

THE FACE OF DOORS

MEMPHIS DOOR & HARDWARE > > >

Tami and Tony Salvaggio

Since 1972, Memphis Door & Hardware has been opening doors across the MidSouth with unmatched craftsmanship for both residential and commercial spaces. Family-owned and built on one simple belief: You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

Owner Tony Salvaggio respected builder and Germantown Alderman personally meets with every homeowner and business, bringing a trained eye for architecture, design, and security. From door selection to professional installation and final finish work, every detail is handled with precision.

Because a door isn’t just an entryway; it’s a statement.

And a Memphis Door & Hardware door makes an unforgettable impression.

THE

FACE OF

ELDER LAW

THE BAILEY LAW FIRM >>> Olen M. "Mac" Bailey, Jr.

A “Barrister,” like Mac, is an experienced Counselor At Law. “The Barrister” is a oneof-a-kind, custom motorcar designed and built by celebrity car customizer George Barris. Pictured here together, these two “barristers” are ready to counsel clients and create custom road maps for their legal journeys during their “Golden Years.”

As an Elder Law Attorney, Mac assists clients with legal issues affecting older Americans in such areas as estate planning, wills, trusts, powers of attorney, long-term

care planning, Medicaid eligibility, Veterans benefits, and probate.

A member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys since 1996, Mac has been recognized as a Super Lawyer, a Five Star Professional, and one of the Mid-South’s Top 40 Under 40. Proving that education is not reserved only for the young, Mac earned his Master of Laws in Elder Law in 2015 at the age of fifty-one. Learn more about Mac and Elder Law at TheBaileyLawFirm.com .

THE FACE OF EXECUTIVE

LIFESIGNS: THE WELLNESS DIVISION OF WEST CANCER CENTER >>> Lifesigns Executive Wellness program delivers a unique, comprehensive approach to safeguard the long-term health and performance of today’s leaders. The program features advanced imaging, including a Full Body MRI, Low-Dose Chest CT with Calcium Score, offering unparalleled early detection of silent or emerging conditions. Paired with precision

diagnostics, personalized risk assessment, and one-on-one provider consultations, executives receive clear, actionable strategies for prevention and longevity. Supported by a multidisciplinary team and concierge coordination, Lifesigns empowers leaders to stay sharp, resilient, and fully engaged in every aspect of life.

support@Lifesigns.com | LifeSigns.com

THE FACE OF

FINE JEWELRY

BOB RICHARDS JEWELERS >>> Bob, Polly, and Anthony Richards, owners

Turning precious moments into lifetime memories.

The Richards family has been in the jewelry and watch business since 1927. Bob Richards followed in his father’s footsteps, repairing watches and his two brothers repairing jewelry. Bob Richards opened his store in 1984. He attributes his business success to operating on the same principles as his father did: value for your dollar, customer satisfaction, and personalized attention.

Our sales staff has over 350 combined years selling fine jewelry and is happy to

assist with your selection. Bob Richards Jewelers is the only jeweler in the entire Mid-South area that can offer you three graduate gemologists, three factorytrained watchmakers, and two bench jewelers. All on premises and trained to care for your appraisal, watch service, and repair or custom jewelry needs.

In these ever-changing times, it is very important to stay educated and up-to-date on the latest trends in the jewelry world.

Come browse our beautiful jewelry collection when you want the memory to last a lifetime.

1696 S. Germantown Road, Germantown TN 38138 | 901.751.8052 | BobRichardsJewelers.com

At Southern College of Optometry, our purpose is clear: to educate the finest doctors of optometry while advancing eye and vision care for the Mid-South and beyond. For more than 90 years, SCO has combined rigorous academic preparation with hands-on clinical experience, serving thousands of patients each year through The Eye Center on the SCO campus on Madison Avenue in the Medical District, at our FocalPoint location

inside Crosstown Concourse, and throughout Memphis at community and school vision screenings. Under the leadership of our president, Dr. Lewis Reich, our vice president for clinical programs, Dr. Scott Ensor, and our chiefs of service, we remain focused on innovation, compassionate care, and community partnership. Together, we are shaping the future of vision health — one student, one patient, and one family at a time.

2026 FACES

OF THE MID-SOUTH

THE FACE OF FURS

HOLLOWAY FURS >>> Jim Holloway Owner and Master Furrier Holloway Furs, located at 404 Perkins Ext'd., was established in 1992 by Jim Holloway, master furrier, after eight years of apprenticeship with four different master furriers. Outside of sales, we specialize in custom-made garments, fur coat enlargements, reductions, and remodeling; all types of repairs, monograms, and appraisals; and cold storage and cleaning/glazing. We have a newly remodeled cold storage and cleaning facility located in East Memphis. Holloway Furs has a large inventory with the best prices in the Memphis area. We accept trade-ins and offer a 12-month layaway program. All work is done in-house by Jim Holloway and his staff. Jim also specializes in the manufacturing of beaver and mink blankets/throws.

Open Tues - Fri 10 til 5:30 pm and Saturday 10 am to 4 pm (closed Sunday & Monday). Come meet Jim and the friendly staff at Holloway Furs. We appreciate your business. Come see us at Holloway Furs!

404 Perkins Extended Memphis, TN 38117 901.685.3877

THE FACE OF THE FUTURE OF BANKING

ORION FINANCIAL >>>

Ashley McDurmon, President and CEO, is leading the nearly 70-year-old credit union into a bold new era as Orion Financial. With vision and empathy, she is redefining modern banking — offering traditional services with the personal touch of a communitycentered institution. She has championed digital transformation, enhanced the member experience, and strengthened Orion’s commitment to financial education and local impact. A former banking consultant and community advocate, Ashley believes communitybased institutions drive economic growth and Memphis’ financial future. ORIONFCU.COM

2026 FACES

Southland Casino Hotel proudly celebrates 70 years as the Mid-South’s premier gaming destination, delivering a dynamic fusion of entertainment and excitement. Just seven minutes from downtown Memphis, Southland offers an unparalleled lineup of ways to play, stay, and dine — 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The expansive casino floor features 2,300 slots, 50 live table games, live sports betting, eight restaurants and bars, and weekly live entertainment. The stunning 20-story high-rise hotel — recognized with the prestigious AAA Four Diamond designation — caters exclusively to adults and offers luxurious, contemporary accommodations.

Southland’s team members elevate every visit, providing top-tier service and unmatched hospitality that make the experience truly exceptional.

For seven decades, Southland has been a cornerstone of the West Memphis community — driving local employment, supporting economic stability, and contributing millions to neighborhood charities and educational institutions. Delaware North, a global leader in hospitality and entertainment, proudly owns and operates Southland as part of its portfolio of gaming destinations across the United States and Australia.

THE FACE OF HOPE

Agape operates under the conviction that every individual deserves love, hope, and encouragement, not merely as abstract ideals but as lived realities. The organization's name reflects its mission; Agape signifies unconditional love in action. Through this love, Agape intentionally cultivates hope by empowering children and families to set meaningful goals, create clear pathways toward stability and success, and strengthen their agency, enabling them to overcome adversity. Serving nearly 8,000 individuals annually, Agape meets families where they are: in schools, neighborhoods, and moments of crisis. The organization provides

AGAPE CHILD & FAMILY SERVICES, INC. >>> Jim Harbin, Ceaira Brunson, Mea May, Michael Scruggs, Angela Garland, and NL Transou

comprehensive support, including schoolbased programs, counseling, community services, homeless assistance, and adoption and foster care solutions.

Agape's work aligns with a holistic vision of flourishing, which encompasses multidimensional well-being, including mental and emotional health, strong relationships, character development, financial stability, purpose, and spiritual depth. Thus, Agape not only ensures that children remain safe and achieve academic success but also fosters environments where families can heal, rebuild connections, reconnect with their faith, and ultimately flourish.

2026 FACES OF THE MID-SOUTH

THE

FACE OF

INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST

DR. CHINELO ANIMALU MD, MPH, FACP, FIDSA >>>

Dr. Animalu is an infectious disease specialist well known for her compassionate care of people living with HIV in the mid-south area. She has been very vocal about the recent alarming rise in new cases of HIV diagnosis among teenagers and young adults in Memphis and surrounding areas and, as such, has volunteered her time to speak at schools, churches, and other organizations to raise awareness among young folks about this HIV epidemic and enlighten them on ways to stay safe. Dr. Animalu realized that lack of knowledge and understanding of the natural history of HIV and other communicable diseases and the stigma associated with these diseases are major factors in their spread.

Dr. Animalu is double board-certified in Infectious Diseases and internal medicine. She is currently an Associate Professor at the College of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) Memphis, and she also serves as the Medical Director of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine for Methodist LeBonheur Healthcare, Memphis. 1325

THE FACE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

GANT SYSTEMS >>> Christine Gant, Managing Partner Gant Systems helps growing businesses and non-profits succeed by delivering proactive service and support, transparent pricing, and customized IT solutions. We reduce downtime, increase productivity, and take the worry out of IT so you can focus on what matters most.

MEMPHIS: 901.881.5087

NASHVILLE: 615.647.9145

ATLANTA: 404.912.4101

GantSystems.com

WEST CANCER CENTER & RESEARCH INSTITUTE >>> West Cancer Center & Research Institute’s Interventional Radiology team plays a vital role in easing pain and managing complex disease for patients. Using advanced, image-guided procedures, these specialists deliver targeted therapies that go beyond cancer treatments. Minimally invasive options are available to treat enlarged prostate, plantar fasciitis, uterine fibroids, knee and spine pain to restore comfort and function. Support@WestClinic.com | WestCancerCenter.com

BLAIR PARKER DESIGN >>> THE FACE OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

Blair Parker Design, LLC. (BPD) is a Memphis-based Landscape Architecture firm that combines more than 60 years of knowledge and experience with new and creative ideas. They specialize in creating places for people and building relationships with clients and their peers.

BPD is a respected firm with a wide range of skills and expertise in design, site planning, stakeholder involvement, construction documentation, and the public approval process. BPD has been involved in multiple projects in the community’s recent revitalization efforts, including the

Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium and the greater Liberty Park project, Memphis Union Mission, and Memphis Botanic Garden, as well as new construction including St. Jude ARC II, Memphis Sports and Events Center, Greenbelt Landing, Hutchison School, and Le Bonheur Rehab Garden, to name just a few.

“The Mid-South is our home, and we take pride in finding creative solutions to complex design constraints that are aesthetically pleasing, efficient, and functional. We strive to create innovative, buildable spaces and places where people live, work, congregate, and play.”

THE FACE OF LIGHTING

MAGNOLIA LIGHTING >>>

Since 1984, Magnolia Lighting has been more than a business — it’s been our family’s passion. What began as a commitment to quality and service has grown into a trusted lighting destination for homes across the Mid-South. Our flagship Hernando showroom spans over 8,000 square feet and proudly serves the Memphis Metropolitan Area, conveniently located just minutes from the Tennessee state line. You will also find Magnolia Lighting shining bright in Oxford and Ridgeland, Mississippi. At every location, we pour our heart into offering an exceptional selection of lighting, ceiling fans, door hardware, and home accessories. When you step inside, you will be welcomed by a knowledgeable, friendly team and inspired by thoughtfully curated designs that help transform your house into a home.

2026 FACES

OF THE MID-SOUTH

THE FACE OF LITIGATION

GLANKLER BROWN PLLC >>>

Josh Kahane

Josh Kahane of Glankler Brown PLLC is a leading trial lawyer who has successfully litigated public and private companies’ highest stakes and most consequential matters. As a lawyer, Josh’s commitment and skill have garnered him too many accolades to list — among them, Best of the Bar, Best Lawyer in America, Super Lawyer, Top 100 Trial Lawyer, Top 100 High Stakes Litigator and Tennessee Attorney for Justice Awardee. He has been featured in Forbes, Fortune, Money, and Bloomberg Business Week, was recently the cover and featured attorney in the Top 100 Attorneys in America, and named one of Inside Memphis Business “Power Players.” In 2021, Josh succeeded in striking down unlawful government action in the landmark case of Tiger Lily, LLC vs. United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. As an advocate for both plaintiffs and

defendants in the courtroom, boardroom, and before government agencies, Josh couples a unique brand of creative thinking with a command of the facts and law that allows him to drive exceptional results. He is a key asset for his clients — someone to whom they regularly turn for guidance and strategic thinking beyond the scope of a legal dispute.

While Josh focuses a great deal of his energy representing Memphis companies and others who have invested in the Memphis market (and serving in the executive leadership of numerous philanthropic organizations around town), his record of victory in litigating cases in 15 states — involving more than two billion dollars — has garnered Josh the reputation as a go-to litigator for businessrelated litigation in Memphis and across the country.

6000 Poplar Avenue, Suite 400, Memphis, TN 38119 901.576.1701 | JKahane@Glankler.com | Glankler.com

Lisa Street, Nurse Practitioner, is the owner of Glo Medical Aesthetics & Lifestyle Medicine in Midtown Memphis. With over 20 years in Medical Aesthetics, she bases her practice on knowledge gained from 30+ years of Nursing experience in ER, ICU, and Education. In addition to her clinical practice, Lisa is a Clinical Educator and Speaker for Aesthetic Management Partners, where she mentors providers across the country. She is committed to continuing education, patient safety, and advancing industry standards through responsible, evidence-based practice.

Lisa’s approach to patient care is integrative, blending Medical Aesthetics with Lifestyle Medicine to address not only outer appearance, but also mindset, movement, nutrient-dense food, hormone balance, and regenerative therapies. Her philosophy on beauty has remained the same throughout her career:

“The glow that makes people beautiful starts from within… if you are kind to yourself and others and strive to be the best person you can be, that beauty will show on the outside.”

At Glo Medical Aesthetics, patients receive Gold Standard care with Top Medical Grade Skin Care, Injectables, Lasers, Body Contouring Devices and Functional Medicine Services. Known for their authentic, approachable vibe, the Glo team strives to make each patient feel uniquely beautiful.

2026 FACES

OF THE MID-SOUTH

THE FACE OF NEPHROLOGY

MINESH PATHAK, MD >>>

Kidney disease is an often unrecognized, silent disease caused by uncontrolled high blood pressure and diabetes. The diagnosis and treatment of kidney-related diseases requires an in-depth evaluation of various risk factors. Obesity, vascular abnormalities, autoimmune diseases, and kidney stones have been linked to renal failure.

Dr. Pathak is a board-certified Nephrologist and member of The American Society of Nephrology and The National Kidney Foundation. He provides compassionate care with the highest-quality treatment of kidney disease. His goal is to provide early, preventive education along with diagnosis and relevant treatments of specific conditions to lessen the risk of progression to kidney failure and to improve a patient’s quality of life.

Dr. Pathak takes great interest in understanding the needs of his patients and providing them with quality care with the least invasive treatment.

6401 Poplar Avenue, Suite 520 Memphis, TN 38119 901.382.5256

THE FACE OF OB-GYN

MIDSOUTH OB-GYN >>>

Front row: Dominique Butawan-Ali, MD and Faith C. Price, MD

Middle row: Judi L. Carney, MD, Robin M. Taylor, MD, Rob Heusner, MD, and Mary Katherine Johnson, MD

Back row: Paul D. Neblett, MD and Candace D. Hinote, MD, Medical Director

MidSouth OB/GYN provides comprehensive gynecological and obstetrical care for women of all ages. Some of our services include yearly wellness exams, fertility management, weight loss solutions, contraceptive counseling, management of uterine fibroids, office procedures, and a myriad of options for managing the symptoms of menopause. Our physicians also perform minimally invasive procedures, including laparoscopy, hysteroscopy, and robotic surgery. We deliver our obstetrical patients at Baptist Women’s Hospital and Methodist

Germantown Hospital.

The physicians of MidSouth OB/GYN have received award recognition from Baptist Memorial Hospital for Women for their leadership roles. They have also been recognized for excellence in clinical teaching from the University of Tennessee and are certified by the American Board of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

At MidSouth we do not believe in a onesize-fits-all approach to women’s health; we treat each patient with personalized plans, courtesy, and compassion. We look forward to helping you maximize your health.

Y e a r s on the

FRINGES

left: Turnstyles at Bar DKDC. opposite top: Staynless, 1996. opposite bottom: Punk girls (unknown), 1996.

BY AARON BRAME

For 30 years now, I’ve been hanging out on the fringes of the Memphis music scene. Rock shows, punk shows, burlesques, festivals, house parties — I’ve seen them all. As a fan, I’ve paid the cover at Memphis’ many venerated venues, and as a musician I’ve played all-ages gigs in empty buildings one step ahead of the bulldozer. And during these past 30 years, I’ve been taking my film camera along with me. I started shooting pictures in 1995, the year of my first visits to the Antenna Club, where dark and dangerous characters took my cover charge and drew black Xs on my hands. My freshman year at Rhodes College, I learned the process of photography — how to take pictures using the entire frame, develop my black-and-white film into negatives, find my favorite negatives, and then print them on 8”x10” sheets of photo paper.

of the Memphis Music Scene

Soon I was bursting with images. Some nights I’d work so late in the Clough Hall darkroom that when I left the sun was out and I had a parking ticket on my car.

irty years on, I’m using negative scanners and Photoshop instead of pulling all-nighters in the darkroom, but I’m still doing what I learned in Photo 101 at Rhodes. I’m still out there with my camera, chasing my inspiration in the clubs and dives of our city.

So I offer these images from the fringes of the Memphis music scene. Behold the prodigies and the weirdos, the legends and the contenders, all the daring artists who keep the flame burning in the most important city American music ever had. First, some black-and-white favorites: Nico Jordan during the climax of a Staynless show at Barrister’s.

above: Marcella and her Lovers in the empty lot behind DKDC, 2021. below: Jimbo Mathus and His Knock-Down Society at the Center for Southern Folklore, 1997. opposite: Alex Chilton at Earnestine & Hazel’s, 2003.

A tableaux of Gen X lounging at a Houseflys performance. Punk girls that appear in pairs, leaning up against the wall after a show at the Void or selling their merch on the Lamplighter pool table.

I shoot in color, too. Witness Lucero at the Overton Park Shell, a band riding the high of their first album in the punishing Memphis heat. Here is the fisheye pic that I shot from behind the piano at a late-night gig at the Buccaneer, my favorite place to play until an arsonist burned it down in 2017.

I happened to have a color roll in my camera the night Alex Chilton played an unannounced show in the building behind Earnestine & Hazel’s in 2003. Hours earlier, he had fronted Big Star at the crowded Beale Street Music Fest; when I saw him he was tearing through rock-and-roll standards and even blowing off steam behind the drums. I never had the chance to see him again.

I’ve been taking photos of Memphis musicians for 30 years now, developing my own black-andwhites at home and sending color rolls off to the lab. And why would I stop? ere’s another late show I want to go to tonight, and a fresh roll of color film for my camera. I’ll be in the room for something that might never happen again, and I’ll get another shot from my place on the fringes of the Memphis scene.

about the author: Aaron Brame is a writer, photographer, and educator living in East Memphis with his family. See more of his work at aaronbrame.org.

2026 Inductees

AND THE WALKER S. UHLHORN JR. LEGACY OF LEADERSHIP AWARD

■ BY JON W. SPARKS ■

Since 1991, the Society of Entrepreneurs has sought to put the spotlight on individuals who have that particular drive to take risks and make things happen in a way that is profitable for both their businesses as well as the community.

Whether they started from scratch or got involved in a family business, SEO members have gone above and beyond the usual metrics of success.

This year, the Society will induct six new members representing four dynamic businesses. They are Kellan Bartosch and Davin Bartosch of Wiseacre Brewing Co.; Pace Cooper of Cooper Hotels; J. Kenneth “Chip” Marston of The Marston Group; and Barry Yoakum and Todd Walker of archimania.

The new members will be inducted at the 33rd Annual Dinner and Awards Banquet on SATURDAY, APRIL 18, 2026, AT 6 P.M. AT THE FEDEX EVENT CENTER AT SHELBY FARMS.

This is the first year that the SOE is honoring a member with the Walker S. Uhlhorn Jr. Legacy of Leadership Award. Uhlhorn, who died last year, was the visionary who founded the Society in 1991. He defined an entrepreneur as someone “not easily deterred and creative enough to see solutions to problems and the willingness to take the risk necessary to bring a vision to reality.”

The SOE member who will receive the Legacy of Leadership Award this year is Jack Soden , CEO of Graceland. He embodies not only the entrepreneurial spirit, but has made a priority of giving back to the community, exemplifying how a vision can transform a city and leave a lasting legacy.

Jack Soden

FIRST RECIPIENT OF THE WALKER S. UHLHORN JR. LEGACY OF LEADERSHIP AWARD

Jack Soden’s years at the helm of Graceland have been marked by overcoming obstacles, while creating the top tourist attraction in Memphis, having drawn millions of visitors since opening in 1982.

How did he do it? From the beginning, there was doubt he’d get the job, and even if he did, plenty of naysayers were convinced it would never last. After all, he was just a nice guy who had no background in tourism or music.

One of the key things to appreciate, however, is that he didn’t land the job by agreeing with most everyone else that it should be sold off while the world gradually forgot about Elvis. He didn’t buy into that concept for a minute.

In fact, Priscilla Presley, the trustee and manager of Elvis’ estate after Vernon Presley died, was impressed by Soden’s thoughtful approach. In spite of the doubters, she felt that cash-poor Graceland could be turned around and that he was just the one to do it.

“The tipping point was simply that I was from Kansas City, Missouri,” Soden says. “In other words, the Midwest. Since she’d been separated from Elvis, she lived on the West Coast, and didn’t trust anybody.”

Everyone was pitching her one idea or trying to sell her on another. But Soden, an investment banker, had some ideas that Priscilla felt were worth following up on.

In truth, Soden was intrigued by the idea of taking this property in Whitehaven and seeing if the Elvis brand could continue to sustain it. It was going to be difficult, he knew, but he was ready, in part because he wasn’t much challenged by his current job.

“I always said I wasn’t a very good stockbroker,” he admits. “I would take ‘no’ for an answer. I was really open for something that I could be excited about.”

He flew to Memphis to meet with the estate’s other co-executors. “They planned to have a polite lunch and then put me on a plane and say thanks and get back to looking for a solution for Graceland,” Soden says. “But they were surprised, I guess. I was enthusiastic, but not pounding the table enthusiastic, and told them this is a unique opportunity and whoever you go with, you ought to stay focused.”

It shifted the conversation enough that they allowed him to make a business plan to open Graceland. “And that’s when the stress and the fun started happening,” he says. “Because I loved the idea and it was so easy.”

What followed were the first steps in Soden’s plan that would make Graceland a continuing success, skeptics notwithstanding. He visited the top-five historic homes in America to see how they did it and he took careful notes: Monticello, Mount Vernon, the Biltmore Mansion, the Thomas Edison House, and Hearst Castle. He figured he could make it work.

On June 7, 1982, Graceland opened to the public. The dissenters were still there, but there were plenty more eager visitors. Plus, he realized that it was easier to please people that have no expectations.

Soden uses a technique that he calls “creative worry.” He’ll tell you, “I worried about details, the basic elements and moving parts. So, if one of these things goes off the track, you’ve already thought it through. It made sense to me to pre-worry things. There was something about the Elvis legacy you could just tell was going to be different.”

That opening day in 1982 was a big question mark right up until

the gates opened. e sell-out number that day was 3,024, but there was no way to know ahead of time if that would happen. “You announced a party to the world and invited everybody and sat back and waited to see who showed up,” he says. But it sold out that day, and the next, and for pretty much the rest of the summer.

But he was still employing his creative worry practice. After a few days, he was cautioning the staff about celebrating. He was thinking, “What if there are 30,000 fans in the world that want to see Graceland and we just saw them? Where’s the next 30,000? And how’s it going to be different?” Worry, worry, worry.

e question that the media and many others were asking was, “How long will it last?” And Soden says, “I’ve been fielding that question since the morning we opened Graceland, standing on the driveway with a microphone. ey’d say, ‘Jack, the Elvis fans are getting older, and at some point they’ll be too old to travel, and Graceland won’t have visitors anymore. What will you do?’ And I can remember saying, ‘Well, if we do it right, we’ll be giving tours to their grandchildren.’”

e fans came and continue to come — including those grandchildren. Over the years, there have been changes made that have secured the position of Graceland and Elvis Presley Enterprises. In the early years there were rights of publicity and securing the property across the street that would become the visitor complex.

“We got bigger and more profitable and frankly did more things that were simply good quality, such as films, documentaries, and li-

censes,” he says. “We did a series with Hallmark and were raising our standards as much as we could.”

It’s notable that not only has Graceland kept up the pace of success, it’s also made it a point of pride to be in Whitehaven. “It’s our neighborhood,” Soden says. “I’ve always thought we needed to wear our Memphian hat. ere’s been a migration of the car dealerships and the restaurants from Elvis Presley Boulevard to the south and to the east. But I’ve always said that Graceland is not going to be one of them.”

e proof of that is the development efforts made in recent years. e cheesy souvenir shops across the street years ago have been replaced by the Elvis Presley’s Memphis complex with exhibits, restaurants, shops, and performance spaces. Close by is the Guest House at Graceland, a 450-room hotel built ten years ago. ere are ongoing improvements to a three-mile stretch of Elvis Presley Boulevard. Elvis Presley Enterprises has committed to invest in local community projects and hire from the surrounding community.

“We’re raising the bar continually,” Soden says. “Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 film Elvis was just so excellent.” And Luhrmann’s new documentary, EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, was set for release in late February with heretofore unreleased footage.

Jack Soden ignored the naysayers and runs the enterprise to this day. And it brings about $200 million economic impact annually.

“When I look back,” he says, “I think I’ve had the time of my life.”

2026 Honorees

Todd Walker

Pace Cooper

COOPER HOTELS PRESIDENT / CEO

President and CEO of Cooper Hotels, Pace Cooper joined the company as a third-generation family member in 1985. The hospitality company is a multi-state enterprise of Hilton-affiliated properties generating more than $120 million in annual revenue.

His father was Irby Cooper, who founded Cooper Hotels in 1959 and ran it with his own father, Louis Cooper. Pace enjoyed watching his father go over profit and loss statements in the evening, which also allowed him to stay up late. The influence caught on and even at a very young age he knew business was his calling.

Today, he and his siblings, David Cooper and Laurie Cooper, run the business, which he says is one of the few multi-unit hoteliers with 19 hotels where all of them are part of the Hilton family of brands. “We’ve developed expertise,” he says, “where my sister handles legal matters, my brother handles the physical plant, and I operate as the chief executive officer running supervision of finance operations.”

As for his staff, he says, “We get good people and we stick with them.” He says Cooper’s executive leadership keeps on working to the point where “my kids make fun of me that no one ever retires at Cooper Hotels.”

Cooper is thrilled to work on civic projects, including being chairman of the Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority as it embarked on a long-term modernization project. He serves or has served with numerous Jewish organizations, and is presently chair of the Jewish Foundation of Memphis board of directors. He is also a minority owner of the Memphis Grizzlies. His love for the city is unbounded.

As Cooper puts it, “Part of entrepreneurship is running all the way down the road with goals in mind that you can make your mark. And Memphis is probably one of the greatest communities in terms of entrepreneurship modeling that I know about.”

TARCHIMANIA FOUNDING PARTNER

Barry Alan Yoakum

ARCHIMANIA

PRESIDENT / CEO

odd Walker, the founding partner of archimania, got his start drawing plans in the dirt with a stick. It’s how he and his childhood friends made things in the farming community in Arkansas where he grew up. His time in college at Mississippi State University and the University of London shaped his thinking on what he wanted in an architecture firm.

“What I loved about college was sitting in design rooms and studios and talking to classmates about how to make a design better,” he says. “Carrying that through in archimania is what has been important to the sustainability and longevity of doing really good design work.”

Walker’s partner, Barry Alan Yoakum, has been CEO since 2003 and has overseen groundbreaking projects worldwide as well as spurring a host of national and international awards. His achievements and reputation all started when his third-grade teacher told him, “Barry, you’d be a good architect.” That not only got him out of nap time, it energized his zealous love for building things, from cardboard to polished concrete.

Walker and Yoakum make archimania succeed because they’re both different and alike. “I tell everybody we have similar pursuits and we have different pursuits and yet together that’s what makes very strong business,” Yoakum says. He says they initially ask clients why they want to make a change and what they really want to do. Once they’ve done the digging into the client’s vision, then they can talk about scale and scope.

“We’ve been fortunate to work on so many projects that are for the public,” Walker says. There’s the Ballet Memphis building and archimania’s role as architect of record for the new Memphis Art Museum downtown, among others. “We think we’re artists on one hand, but we have to be scientists or engineers on the other,” he says. “That’s the intersection that makes really good architecture.”

Kellan Bartosch

WISEACRE BREWING COMPANY PRESIDENT/BREWER Davin Bartosch

WISEACRE BREWING COMPANY

CEO

Tennessee’s largest craft brewery and a nationally recognized brand, Wiseacre Brewing Company has grown to produce nearly 35,000 barrels annually and distribute in 22 states. Brothers Kellan and Davin Bartosch started their brewing enterprise in 2013, but in truth, it got its start from the time they were kids. Davin is 19 months older, so they grew up doing a lot together. Around the third grade, though, Davin showed a true talent for cooking, a gift that would grow to include a high-level understanding of the art and science of brewing.

Kellan, meanwhile, had a talent for business, and the combination of the brothers’ talents has proven to be a success. As Davin puts it, “Making things that taste good has always been an interest to me. e brewery as a business was always much more Kellan’s idea.”

Kellan says, “Growing a business is very different than starting a business. We were really prepared to make great beer and sell great beer and have a good brand. But then hiring and managing people becomes one of the most important things you do. And when we’ve been able to find amazing people for key positions, it really changes your life as a business owner.” at leads to a corporate culture that reflects the brothers’ sense of fun and purpose. It has a name: BEEFY. It stands for Bliss, Education, Excellence, Folks, and Yourself. “It’s silly,” Kellan says, “but when your staff makes fun of it in a fun way, that’s when I feel that it’s worked.”

And that attention to devotion in the workplace translates into care for the community. He adds, “We’ve developed a system here of trying to navigate that and try to support people where we can.”

J. Kenneth “Chip” Marston

THE MARSTON GROUP FOUNDER & MANAGING PARTNER

Chip Marston’s father was a general manager of a multi-market radio and TV network in West Tennessee. e youngster was fascinated by how it all operated and what his father did to keep the business vital, and that influenced young Chip to study accounting at Memphis State University. He was always good at handling numbers, but his true love has been learning about people and their stories. He enjoyed being in a position to help. “What I loved most was solving problems on a person-to-person level,” he says, “and being able to explain it in everyday terms.”

at was the impetus for him to start e Marston Group, an accounting and advisory firm that is one of the region’s most respected enterprises. e accounting part is important, but it’s the advisory aspect that touches Marston’s soul. “I felt like the tax returns and financial statements should be the starting point,” he says. “ ey unpack the story and I could make sure the client understood what was going on. And that developed into long-term advisory relationships, which is what I’ve treasured most.”

One of his firm’s taglines is “giving insight beyond the numbers,” and he feels that’s why clients have stayed with him for decades.

While his father inspired his love of business, Marston says his mother was instrumental in nurturing his sense of responsibility to the community. He’s had leadership roles with Dixon Gallery & Gardens, the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis, and Make-AWish Mid-South, among others. at sense of giving back extends throughout the company as well.

“We encourage our people to find their passion externally, and we give them time to volunteer,” Marston says. “Sometimes it’s as simple as a firm-wide project, but more importantly, we have people who serve on boards. And if any employees want us to become major donors to an organization, we ask them to make their business case, and most times we do it. It keeps everyone really involved.”

2026 FACES

THE FACE OF ORIENTAL

TAGHAVI ORIENTAL RUGS >>> At Taghavi's Oriental Rugs, we take great pride in our 70+ years in business and the type of services we offer, including sales, hand cleaning, reweaving, color-run restoration, moth-damage repair, stain and odor removal, disinfecting all viruses, and much more! With every customer, we are guided by our core values: integrity, experience, excellence, and professionalism. We have not only the largest stock in new and antique rugs, but also the best cleaning and restoration method in the country. We have built our reputation for more than 70 years, not on false promises, but integrity and excellence. 3554 Park Avenue Memphis, TN 38111

901.327.5033

TaghaviRugs.com

THE FACE OF

ORTHODONTICS

MEMPHIS ORTHODONTIC SPECIALISTS >>> Dr. Scott Werner

Led by Dr. Scott Werner, Memphis Orthodontic Specialists continues a trusted legacy that began more than 60 years ago with the founding of the practice by his father, Dr. Stanley Werner. Dr. Scott is proud to carry forward the standards of excellence and patient-centered care that have defined the practice for generations.

Serving families from offices in Memphis, Munford, and Collierville, Dr. Scott Werner provides comprehensive orthodontic and dentofacial orthopedic care for children and

adults, offering both traditional orthodontic appliances and Invisalign. He understands how a confident smile can be life-changing — improving both oral health and self-esteem.

Dr. Scott Werner has been recognized as a Memphis Top Dentist every year since the award’s inception, achieved Diplomate status with the American Board of Orthodontics, and is a member of the American Association of Orthodontists – an honor that continues to reflect the practice’s enduring commitment to excellence.

mossmiles.com

THE FACE OF PERFORMING ARTS

GERMANTOWN PERFORMING ARTS CENTER >>>

Parke Kennedy, Executive Director

Since opening in 1994, Germantown Performing Arts Center has evolved into one of the premier arts organizations in the Mid-South. With its assortment of artists, wide-ranging performances and art forms, and innovative arts education programming, GPAC is fervently committed to providing the community with the highest quality arts and arts education.

Today, GPAC thrives under the artful

leadership of Executive Director Parke Kennedy. Kennedy’s leadership has been key to GPAC's growth and long-term success since she joined the team as Development Director in 2017, leading the capital campaign to bring The Grove, GPAC's state-of-the-art outdoor venue, to life. As Executive Director, she has led the organization through a successful 31st season with energy, excellence, and a passion for the arts.

THE FACE OF PHILANTHROPY

UNITED WAY OF THE MID-SOUTH > > >

Tomeka Hart Wigginton, President & CEO

United Way of the Mid-South serves as a backbone organization, driving funding, nonprofit capacity building, community response, and cross-sector solutions that help families thrive.

In Memphis and the Mid-South, people are working hard, yet still can’t afford the basic necessities. Costs are rising, and families are struggling. United Way of the Mid-South is responding by investing deeply in cross-sector community solutions. Investing in solutions means investing in people and multiplying our efforts through collective impact. United Way and its network of independent agencies are securing a brighter future for families through help with job training, combatting food insecurity, affordable childcare, housing, and more.

of partners and agencies, helped over 300,000 Mid-Southerners, creating an impact in the lives of children, youth, and adults. Free Tax Prep services offered by United Way help people achieve financial stability, reduce debt, and increase savings. In 2025, United Way helped nearly 10,000 households complete and file returns, resulting in over $11 million in refunds.

Last year, United Way, through a network

Solutions to our community’s greatest challenges are only possible through collaboration and innovation. United Way is working with the region’s leaders in business, philanthropy, and the nonprofit sector to drive the dreams of individuals and transform communities across the Mid-South.

Thriving families create thriving communities. Join us!

More than half of Semmes Murphey’s back pain patients improve without surgery, and the expertise of our physical therapists plays a critical role in that success. Physical therapy is essential during any healing and rehabilitation phase. Early intervention and education about pain and movement can speed up the return to an active lifestyle. With

physicians on-site, their physical therapists confidently guide patients recovering from spine and neurological conditions back to optimal health using modern pain and rehabilitation concepts. As an essential part of the Whole Spine Care™ team, they provide exceptional conservative treatment for back, neck, and nerve conditions.

2026 FACES

THE FACE OF PIZZA

BROADWAY PIZZA >>>

Legendary Broadway Pizza, one of Memphis’ favorite family-ownedand operated restaurants, was opened by Lana Jeanette Cox in 1977 at 2581 Broad. Thirdgeneration family members now offer Broadway East at 629 S. Mendenhall. Elder family members raised in extreme poverty find it

important that faithful friends get their money’s worth and don't leave hungry. Not just a pizzeria, Broadway offers salads, whole wings, fish, spaghetti, chicken parmesan, burgers, and homestyle plate-lunch specials. Cakes made in-house daily. We deliver large orders and call-in orders welcomed. 2581 Broad Avenue, Memphis, TN 38112 | 901.454.7930 629 S. Mendenhall, Memphis, TN 38117 | 901.207.1546

BroadwayPizzaMemphis.com

THE FACE OF PROFESSIONAL TREE SERVICE

ROBINSON TREE SERVICE >>>

Once again, Robinson Tree is honored to be featured as the Face of Professional Tree Service in Memphis Magazine.

As a 100% family-owned local business proudly serving the Memphis area, Robinson Tree combines decades of expertise with genuine care. Jason, a Texas A&M Urban Forestry graduate, relocated to Memphis in 1996 and acquired the company from family in 2001. Alongside Cynthia — a lifelong Memphian, University of Memphis alum, and customer service expert — they've built one of the region's most

trusted names in tree care.

Our well-trained crews and ISAcertified arborist deliver professional, reliable service — whether it's trimming, removal, preventative health checks, or storm prep. We truly value Memphis trees as vital assets for beauty, shade, property value, lower energy costs, and lasting enjoyment.

Have you looked at your trees lately? Contact us today for a free estimate to make sure your trees are healthy and safe to weather the storms ahead. Call 901.363.3539 or visit

RobinsonTree.net . 2807 Farrisview Rd., Memphis, TN 38118

2026 FACES OF THE MID-SOUTH

Beth Wilson, MBA, APR, is the founder and CEO of Wilson Public Relations.

For more than two decades, she has led award-winning integrated communications campaigns in fields ranging from economic development, manufacturing, professional services, and tech to education, healthcare, hospitality, and nonprofit. As an industry leader, Wilson is a regular contributor to various local and national publications, as well as a frequent speaker throughout the community. She also serves on the Department of Journalism and Strategic Media Alumni

Board and the Executive Committee of 901Women with the University of Memphis, the Workforce Advisory Council at University High School, and the Executive Leadership Team with the American Heart Association's Go Red for Women campaign and actively supports organizations such as Junior Achievement of Memphis and the Mid-South, Sow Project, and Volunteer Odyssey. Wilson received her Bachelor of Arts in PR and Executive MBA from the University of Memphis and her Accreditation in Public Relations from the Universal Accreditation Board.

THE FACE

OF

REMODELING

SALVAGGIO GROUP > > >

Tami and Tony Salvaggio

For over 80 years, the Salvaggio family has built more than structures — they’ve built four generations of trust. What began in the 1940s with demolition and excavation has evolved into The Salvaggio Group, a premier name in custom homes, renovations, and commercial construction throughout the Mid-South.

craftsmanship, and uncompromising attention to detail in every project. From luxury custom homes and historic restorations to boutique medical facilities, remodels, additions, kitchens, baths, and outdoor living spaces, every build receives the same level of care, precision, and uncompromising standards.

Led by Tony and Tami Salvaggio, alongside son Gehrig and brother Jerome, this family team brings decades of experience, hands-on

A Salvaggio Group project represents a responsibility — to protect your investment, honor your vision, and deliver lasting quality.

2026 FACES

THE FACE OF REPRODUCTIVE

MEDICINE

FERTILITY ASSOCIATES OF MEMPHIS >>>

Left to right: Todd Chappell, MD, Paul R. Brezina, MD, Amelia P. Bailey, MD, Raymond W. Ke, MD, and William H. Kutteh, MD, PhD

Fertility Associates of Memphis is the only state-of-the-art practice providing comprehensive reproductive health care to couples of the Mid-South and beyond, treating patients struggling with infertility, recurrent pregnancy loss, and reproductive disorders. Our highly specialized team utilizes cutting-edge techniques, including in vitro fertilization with laser blastocyst biopsy, preimplantation genetic testing, fertility preservation, and minimally invasive robotic surgery. Our Center was named one of the top 10% of fertility clinics in America by Newsweek magazine and has been designated a Center of Excellence. Our compassionate physicians, board-certified in reproductive endocrinology and infertility, have been bringing dreams to life for over 30 years.

80 Humphreys Center, Suite 307, Memphis, TN 38120 | 901.747.2229 | FertilityMemphis.com

“The Art of Exceptional Service.”

Meet Todd “Too Tall” Adams — a Memphis native who brings calm confidence and genuine care to every home buy or sell. What sets him apart isn't just closing deals; it's how he handles them: with steady guidance, sharp market knowledge, and a real focus on what matters most to you.

Memphis area — proof of the trust clients place in him year after year. Whether you're navigating trends, values, or investment plays, he uses the latest tools and insights to keep things strategic, straightforward, and stress-free.

Last year, Todd's production ranked him in the top 2% of all local Realtors in the

Integrity. Professionalism. Results with heart. That's Todd — your trusted advisor for life's biggest moves in the Mid-South: Memphis (Midtown / East Memphis), Germantown, and Collierville.

THE FACE OF SPINE CARE

SEMMES MURPHEY CLINIC >>>

Semmes Murphey Clinic has been a leader in spine care for more than 100 years. Their comprehensive approach to back pain, neck pain, nerve conditions, and injuries is called Whole Spine Care™, which offers the widest range of diagnostic and treatment options in the Mid-South. Their team of neurosurgeons, physiatrists, and interventional pain specialists provides both conservative therapies and

advanced procedures, including minimally invasive spine surgery (MISS), which was pioneered at Semmes Murphey. Through research, clinical trials, and leadership in medical societies, they develop techniques and standards used by spine specialists worldwide. That work supports the compassionate, patient-centered care they provide every day to people across the Mid-South.

6325 Humphreys Blvd., Memphis, TN 38120 901.522.7700 | semmes-murphey.com

2026 FACES OF THE MID-SOUTH

THE FACE OF STEAK

FOLK'S FOLLY PRIME STEAK HOUSE >>> Tom Hughes Executive Chef

When real estate developer Humphrey Folk opened his namesake restaurant in 1977, friends scoffed at his endeavor, so he dubbed his fledgling steak house Folk’s Folly. Nearly 49 years later, this Memphis original restaurant means serious business. Executive Chef Tom Hughes is the face behind this fine dining experience, consistently voted the best steak house in the city, serving prime cuts, fresh seafood, and a variety of traditional favorites and innovative specials.

551 S. Mendenhall Memphis, TN 38117

901.762.8200

FolksFolly.com

THE FACE OF VASCULAR CARE

VASCULAR AND VEIN INSTITUTE OF THE SOUTH > > >

Left to right: Dr. Gabor A. Winkler, Dr. Daniel M. Alterman, Dr. Anton Dias Perera, Dr. Prateek K. Gupta, and Dr. Michael Corey

Vascular & Vein Institute of the South (VVIS) is the Mid-South’s largest group of board-certified vascular surgeons, providing advanced vascular care at 14 clinic locations, two ambulatory surgery centers, and multiple outpatient interventional suites across the region.

The group specializes in minimally invasive outpatient endovascular procedures and advanced open surgical techniques to treat complex vascular pathology.

Our areas of expertise include peripheral arterial disease (PAD) and limb preservation, varicose vein and venous disease, carotid artery disease, aortic aneurysm repair, dialysis access creation and maintenance, innovative interventions to treat uterine fibroids, and genicular artery embolization for knee pain.

Convenient locations in: Germantown, TN | Memphis, TN | Millington, TN | Jackson, TN | Southaven, MS | Senatobia, MS | Batesville, MS | Oxford, MS | Tupelo, MS | Grenada, MS | Clarksdale, MS | Greenwood, MS | West Memphis, AR | Forrest City, AR | Blytheville, AR 901.390.2930 | VascularAndVeinInstitute.com

Every year, more than 795,000 Americans have a stroke. Semmes Murphey Clinic’s neurovascular team, one of the largest and most experienced in the nation, is here to fight stroke and its devastating effects in the Mid-South and beyond. The physicians are devoted to delivering and researching life-saving interventions for acute stroke and improving care for stroke survivors. Locally and globally, they dedicate themselves to spreading awareness about stroke prevention. Semmes Murphey Clinic’s team also diagnoses and treats various conditions, including aneurysms, arteriovenous malformations, carotid artery stenosis, moyamoya disease, and more.

At Regional One Health, exceptional Vascular Surgery care is based on advanced expertise and technology — but it also can’t happen without compassion and relationship building.

Our board-certified academic vascular surgeons work in Memphis’ only hybrid operating room, giving them access to the most precise imaging and surgical tools. This means more patients can have minimally invasive procedures that get them back to normal quickly, in many cases with no overnight hospital stay. At the same time, our surgeons stay with their patients for life to provide ongoing treatment and monitoring. This lets us build genuine relationships that can have a real impact on improving patients’ health and quality of life.

A vascular disorder is never something to ignore. Without proper treatment, patients can struggle with limb pain and numbness and even face the risk of life-threatening conditions like a heart attack or stroke. We are proud to provide the care patients in our community need to make lasting improvements to their health and well-being.

DE LA BELLE BODY & WELLNESS >>>

Renee Pinlac, MSN, FNP, founder of De La Belle Body & Wellness, nestled in the Shops of Chickasaw Oaks Village. With 30 years of expertise, Renee has dedicated her career to comprehensive weight management, regenerative medicine, and advanced facial aesthetic rejuvenation. A Master Cosmetic Injector, Renee is certified in Botox, dermal fillers, laser facial aesthetics, and noninvasive body contouring. She is passionate about cutting-edge regenerative therapies, offering pan-facial rejuvenation, Derma PRP, plantbased exosomes for hair restoration, PDO thread lifts for non-surgical face and body contouring, BHRT for men and women, and IV vitamin hydration. Her 17+ years at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital shaped her precision, compassion, and commitment to excellence — qualities she now brings to aesthetic medicine.

Renee is proud to elevate the standard of wellness and beauty in Memphis.

KIRBY WINES & LIQUORS >>>

Left to right: Jeremy Vasser, Stephen Newport, Brian Herrera, Philip Forman, and Zack Scott

For forty-one years, the staff and ownership team here at Kirby Wines and Liquors have served the Mid-South with gratitude. The dedication to customer service is our mission, with the goal to provide the best and most knowledgeable service, the best selection, and the best pricing for our customers every day. We offer a broad international selection of wines, liquors, and ever-changing seasonal beer choices, as well as party supplies and gifts. If planning for the most intimate evening for 2 or a shindig for 1,000, our staff will assist with the details: from proposal to delivery, we will do it all! We are very proud and grateful to serve the Mid-South for the next 40+ years!

We are very proud and grateful to serve the Mid-South for the next 40+ years!

2865 Kirby Rd., Memphis, TN 38119 | 901.756.1993 | KirbyWines.com

THE FACE OF WOMEN'S HEALTH

WEST CANCER CENTER & RESEARCH INSTITUTE >>> West Cancer Center & Research Institute’s Gynecologic Oncologists and Breast Surgeons are dedicated to advancing women’s health through expert, compassionate care. This multidisciplinary team brings together surgical excellence, leading-edge diagnostics, and personalized treatment strategies for women facing complex breast and gynecologic cancers. Their collaborative approach ensures every patient receives thoughtful guidance, innovative therapies, and unwavering support throughout their journey. With a commitment to early detection, precision medicine, and whole-person care, these specialists embody West’s mission to deliver exceptional outcomes and empower women with knowledge, strength, and hope.

Support@WestClinic.com | WestCancerCenter.com

A DAY AT THE RACES

THE OAKLAWN RACING CASINO RESORT IS A CELEBRATED HORSE TRACK WITH NOSTALGIC FAMILY

BY ALEX GREENE

APPEAL.

“You have nothing to worry about. The last patient I gave one of those to won the Kentucky Derby!”

— GROUCHO

AMARX AS DR. HUGO Z. HACKENBUSH IN A DAY AT THE RACES

h, the particular magic of a visit to a crowded racetrack — the jumble of faces and outfits, the air of urgent expectation, the wafting aromas, and especially the sounds, from blustering winds spinning dust devils on the track to the metallic patter of the announcer’s voice in loudspeakers on high.

At this February’s Martha Washington Stakes, for example, held at the Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort in Hot Springs, Arkansas, you could hear the announcer echo the race’s progress with his practiced eye and modulated voice, an art in its own right. From the first “And — we’re off !” he unleashed a surreal pastiche of the horses’ names and movements that sounded like madcap poetry.

above background: Bygone days at Oaklawn.

above left: Smarty Jones, 2004 winner of the Arkansas Derby and the Kentucky Derby.

above right: Hats are a popular fashion accessory at Oaklawn.

“Last year, the Arkansas Derby alone had over 70,000 guests on the property that day. And to give you perspective, the town of Hot Springs has a population just shy of 38,000. So we’re almost doubling the whole town of Hot Springs with a single event.”

— CHRIS HO OAKLAWN’S VICE PRESIDENT OF MARKETING

“Knickelandime is prominent,” the announcer reported drily at fi rst. “Maximum Offer alongside of her. Counting Stars right behind with her stablemate Search Party, who gets to the rail and hits the first turn scraping paint.”

With the horses galloping on, his voice grew more urgent by degrees until he was channeling pure adrenaline in the fi nal stretch: “Newtown Pike trying to rally on down the center! Wide open Maximum Offer inside. Knickelandime, Newtown Pike, Search Party moving together. Four-way driving finish! It’s a battle! Here comes Search Party ... Search Party head in front! Search Party wins the Martha Washington!!”

Double exclamation points were doubtless deemed appropriate by Search Party’s owners, who earned a tidy $167,400 off her win that day. And that’s to say nothing of those bettors who put their money on her fortunes. Meanwhile, neophytes like me could simply relish having seen such a fine animal — with jockey Cristian A. Torres — hold her own among others, rally, come up from behind, and sweep across the finish line at 1:45:56. “God bless Martha Washington!” I shouted.

Not that the Martha Washington Stakes have much to do with our nation’s original First Lady. Rather, it’s just one of many stakes competitions with colorful names, including the “General MacArthur Overnight Stakes” and the “Smarty Jones Stakes.” e latter, named for the 2004 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner, is a critical stepping stone on the Road to the Kentucky Derby. at’s the proper name for a series of races at celebrated tracks that grant winners points toward qualifying for the most fabled race in the country, held at Churchill Downs in Louisville on the first Saturday of May. ere’s also the Road to Kentucky

Oaks, on which the Martha Washington is one station. Winners on that circuit vie for enough points to participate in the race held the day before the Derby every year, also at Churchill Downs. As it turns out, Oaklawn is a station stop for many such pilgrimages on the path to the Triple Crown or less storied titles.

Founded in 1904, Oaklawn is not among the oldest American tracks (many having sprung up in the nineteenth century), but it’s one of the most respected. And the list of its races, throughout a season typically running from December to the first weekend in May, is peppered with major stakes competitions, both in terms of each race’s purse and its prestige as a step toward major titles.

Chris Ho, Oaklawn’s vice president of marketing, says this month is especially loaded with significant races. “March starts out on the first Sunday of the month with our Rebel Stakes. at’s a great Grade Two, and a graded race is basically a race with higher competition, where the horses have earned their spot in a graded stakes race. So they go through a series of races, from their first entry race to an allowance race. As the horse wins and accumulates a good record, that record can then carry over into eligibility for a graded stakes race.” ose in turn can help qualify a horse for the Kentucky Derby. “Horses that come in first, second, third, and fourth will get points towards eligibility for the Kentucky Derby,” he explains. “So with the Rebel Stakes, we’ll start March off with the Kentucky Derby qualifier, and we’ll end the month with another Kentucky Derby qualifier, the Arkansas Derby on March 28th. at’s our biggest race of the season, the Arkansas Derby. It’s a $1.5 million purse.”

Purses, split between a race’s winner and the top runners-up, are one measure of a race’s importance, with the Rebel Stakes sporting a $1 million purse, and the Honey Bee Stakes (on the same day) boasting a $750,000 purse. ese have grown with Oaklawn’s rising profile. Back in 1972, for example, it was big news that the Arkansas Derby, which launched in 1936 with a $5,000 purse, became the track’s first race with a purse of $100,000. Also that year, the track began handling over $1 million a day in bets.

But prestige also comes from hosting champions. Before winning the 2004 Kentucky Derby, the aforementioned Smarty Jones won both the Rebel Stakes and the Arkansas Derby, snagging not only a chunk of those purses, but a $5 million bonus that Oaklawn offered that year in honor of its centenary. And 11 years after, the legendary American Pharoah won the same two races on his way to claiming the Triple Crown.

All of which explains that expectant buzz in the air as the countdown to start time begins. A few million here, a few hundred thousand there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money. Aside from its worldclass resort, spa, and casino, that’s part of Oaklawn’s draw, which has also grown over the years.

“Last year,” says Ho, “the Arkansas Derby alone had over 70,000 guests on the property that day. And to give you perspective, the town of Hot Springs has a population just shy of 38,000. So we’re almost doubling the whole town of Hot Springs with a single event.” Such staggering numbers make sense if you consider the vast space a world-class track involves.

“You have people in the stands and the infield, but

arriving in stages, like for different races,” says Ho. “ ey flow in all day long. Some people crowd around the apron, the concrete flat area between the grandstand and the track. en we have the Jockey Club restaurant, the Carousel restaurant, the Post Parade restaurant, and the Mainline Sports Bar.” All of those have screens on which to watch the races, but many visitors opt for the open-air experience.

“ e Arkansas Derby is one of the later races in the day, and by then it’s just like a big party in the infield,” Ho says. “We have tents set up out there. We’ll have the Arkansas Razorback Marching Band back again for the second year, and they play in the infield and get the crowd hyped. en they’ll play the fight song right before the Arkansas Derby, and even march on to the track.”

Things have changed considerably since Oaklawn was once viewed as a haven for vice and the mob, just as Las Vegas itself has changed. “We invite the families now,” says Ho. “In fact, we have a kids’ day on March 7th, where we give out free ice cream to the first 500 kids in the door.”

at’s not all. “ ere will actually be four days in March where we have bouncy houses, a rock wall, magicians, face painters, and food trucks on the infield,” he continues. “People around here have grown up at Oaklawn. ey remember playing in the infield, and the petting zoo they used to have years ago. A lot of people from around the central Arkansas area pretty much grew up coming here as kids.”

And so, beyond the high stakes and the prestige, the racing and restaurants, Oaklawn offers something priceless: family memories.

A GRAND FAREWELL

A new exhibition at the Brooks considers the robust life and enduring legacy of the Memphis College of Art.

BY JON W. SPARKS

There was no way that “Memphis College of Art, 1936-2020: An Enduring Legacy” could be a simple goodbye. The exhibition that opened February 25th at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art is a proper sendoff to MCA, which closed in 2020 as the Covid pandemic enveloped the world. The school with its vibrant 84-year history just stopped, rather quietly, as the last of its students graduated. While the exhibition puts an overdue spotlight on the end of one era, it also marks an important moment for another institution on the cusp of major change. It marks the end of the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in Overton Park, the cultural institution’s home for more than a century. The museum — for so long a neighbor to MCA — will relocate later this year to a sleek new facility on a riverfront block downtown, leaving behind the building that has been its home since 1916 and changing its name to the Memphis Art Museum.

art. There is significance on multiple levels, from the array of artists to the selection of individual artworks and their interconnections, to its location, to its timing, and to the relationship between the Brooks and the Memphis College of Art.

In 2022, Zoe Kahr accepted the job of executive director at the Brooks. In preparing for that position, she dove deeply into the art scene in Memphis. Her previous positions, in Philadelphia and Los Angeles, had her working closely with the local art communities, and she was eager to learn more about who and what defined the art scene in the Bluff City.

The Memphis College of Art was an institution that hadn’t caught her attention earlier, but when she dug in, she says, “I was shocked by how many artists I had already come into contact with during my career, and that there was this college in Memphis that clearly had this national and international importance in addition to its huge impact on the community.”

But the MCA Legacy exhibit goes beyond acknowledging the end of one institution and the new direction of another. The exhibition itself is a work of

It was, she realized, an exhibition gold mine — a local story about an institution of global importance that closed in the middle of the pandemic. “There wasn’t time

to celebrate its legacy in a way that I’m sure they would have done had the circumstances been different,” Kahr says.

MCA had gone away, and the Metal Museum is expanding into MCA’s former Overton Park campus. Not only that, the college’s longtime neighbor — the Brooks — had decided to leave the park for a new downtown location.

left: Vitus Shell, All the Way, 2019. Acrylic, paper, and foamcut on canvas, 84 x 60 in. Collection of the artist. above: Tom Lee, Stork, 1996. Cedar and other woods, seed gourd, 22 x 11 x 12 in. Collection of Remy and Susan Miller. opposite page: Autumn Gathering, 2022, Watercolor © Kong Wee Pang.

“So there is the symbolism of the college’s rebirth as it’s turning into the Metal Museum,” Kahr says, “and the Metal Museum taking the torch of being the provider of art in the park, which is something the Brooks has done since 1916.” It all came together in a way that made the idea of a major exhibition a natural choice.

DEFINING THE LEGACY

The challenge of putting together this important exhibition of Memphis art, culture, and history fell to Marina Pacini. She’s the former curator at the Brooks, and she’s who Kahr called on in 2023 to create the exhibition. It involved contacting a host of sources, including former faculty and students, galleries, and collections.

Pacini also put together the catalog, which not only documents the artworks, but details the rich history of MCA, the Brooks, and how they were intertwined from the beginning.

“I started with the history,” she says, “because you need to

above: Peter Sohngen, Icon, ca. 1980. Stoneware, iron oxide, and wax. 15 x 11 ½ x 5 ¾ in. Collection of Stephen and Beth Crump. top right: Mario Bacchelli, Panama Club, Beale Street, Memphis, 1950. Oil on canvas, 23 x 39 in. Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas B. Davis, 65.50. bottom right: Jay Crum, Bodock Garden, 2020. Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 72 in. Collection of Kristen and Jay Keegan. oppoSite page: Lurlynn Franklin, Po’ Baby Lost in the 60’s, 2007. Cloth, wallpaper, and acrylic oil pastels, 78 x 44 in. Collection of the artist.

understand how the institution came about.” The complexity of the story and how the civic ambition of the city figured in to it meant that, despite the exhibition title, the tale began well before 1936. In fact, the pre-history alone is a worthy portrait of a growing city intent on establishing its culture.

Pacini says that the Memphis Art Association was founded in 1914 by members of the Nineteenth Century Club. Florence McIntyre was the dynamo behind the effort

to improve access to arts and education in the city. The association was involved with the founding of the Brooks Memorial Art Gallery in 1916 and McIntyre served as its first director from 1916 to 1922.

“When she leaves, she decides that her next endeavor is going to be founding an art school, so she starts the Academy of Arts Free Art School in 1923, and it was housed in the Nineteenth Century Club at 1433 Union.”

That school was such a success,

it ran out of room after two years. Rosa Lee offered her home at 690 Adams Avenue — now known as the James Lee House — and McIntyre acquired the property next door at 680 Adams. The new home was deeded to the city in 1929 and the municipal government, which was all in on boosting the city’s image, provided funding for maintenance and operations. The school became the James Lee Memorial Academy of the Arts. McIntyre was busy studying

how to make sure the school would succeed as a professional institution, not merely a place for hobbyists. In 1934, she hired George Oberteuffer, an American Impressionist who had spent 20 years studying and teaching in Paris.

“Everything goes along swimmingly until 1936,” Pacini says. “And there is a huge rupture. Oberteuffer and several of the faculty are very unhappy that McIntyre is really very controlling about how they manage the classes. And they end up walking out.”

Most of the students followed and Oberteuffer, the faculty, and students formed the Memphis Academy of Arts that opened at the Board of Education Building downtown. The city chose to fund the new organization and McIntyre continued with her own school, doing things her way. She was no longer with the new institution, but it wouldn’t have existed without her.

What would become the Memphis College of Art got its institutional start then, and in 1937 hired, among others, Burton Callicott and Dorothy Sturm as the faculty. Their careers were long, influential, and forever associated with the college. Ted Rust came along in 1949 and transformed the academy during his tenure through 1975.

In the 1950s, the buildings the school was using were in terrible shape, so architect Roy Harrover was brought in to design Rust Hall, the building that was completed in 1959 just steps away from the Brooks. There would be expansions and the institution would change its name to the Memphis College of Art in 1985, with the Overton Park campus as the center of art education in the city.

But in 2017, it became clear that the school was not financially sustainable. There were a host of reasons, some specific to the school and some a function of a changing economy. Officials decided it had to close, but made a point of seeing that the college graduated everyone who wanted to finish or helped them find another school to continue.

The final classes and the final graduation were held in 2020 during the height of the Covid pandemic. The ending was quiet. Yet the influence of the school’s faculty members and the contributions of its graduates continue worldwide.

above: Murray Riss, Wolf River Bridge, from the book A Bridge to Peter, 2014. Inkjet print, pigment-based. 27 3/8 × 44 in. Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Gift of the artist in memory of Peter Formanek, 2020.2. bottom right: Jill Wissmiller, The Gilding of Lily, 2011. Video projected on glitter screen, 48 x 72 in., Duration: 2:50 min. Collection of the artist.

oPPoSite Page: Jeanne Seagle, Reflections on a Field Road, 2020, charcoal pencil on paper, 36 3/4 x 36 3/4 in. © Jeanne Seagle

PRESENTING THE LEGACY

For Pacini, the question was how to present the legacy of MCA in a way that showed the depth of its influence.

While there was no longer an institution to visit, she had access to materials from the college that were given to the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library as well as other digital resources. But key to her research were questionnaires she developed for former faculty and students.

“The MCA community remains deeply connected despite the school’s closing,” she says. “So when word got out, people shared it and we got somewhere close to 300 people to fill out the questionnaire.”

The responses were crucial, but Pacini was looking for a definitive way to present the legacy exhibition. She encountered two former MCA students who took part in an exhibition at Rhodes College, and they were discussing their influences.

“They were Tommy Kha and Angelo Williams,” she says, “and they kept bringing up how important Haley Morris-Cafiero was to both of them.” She was an associate professor of photography at MCA now living in the United Kingdom, who describes herself as a performer, artist, and provocateur. Pacini realized then what the exhibition

work in all sorts of different media and styles and different subject matter. Ebet Roberts was a painter and started taking photographs to document her paintings, and then ends up becoming a premier musical photo journalist.” Roberts has documented rock’s stars and superstars for nearly 50 years (and was featured in a Memphis Magazine cover story in March 2024)

Dorothy Sturm, one of the early, influential faculty members, was an inspiration to Karen Carrier. Carrier earned her degree in painting but then went to culinary school in New York and today is one of the top restaurateurs in Memphis as well as an artist of note.

would focus on. “It would be about mentorship and how important the faculty-student relationships were. So once that was in place, and working with the questionnaire, I was able to pull together groupings with a faculty member and one to four of their students.”

These were the faculty members who had a tremendous impact on their students’ artistic development.

“It’s fabulous documentation of how significant the teaching was there,” Pacini says. “[The faculty] didn’t produce little clones of themselves. The graduates went on to

As Pacini says, “The range of areas that the graduates went off into is very impressive. They’re not all just painters and sculptors — there are graphic designers, musicians, museum preparators, chefs. They have done very creative things. And it’s not just in Memphis and Shelby County, but around the world. By the early Seventies, [MCA] stops being just students coming from Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and Western Tennessee. It starts growing internationally, a testament to the excellence of the teaching that happened there.”

Another example is Carol DeForest, who told Pacini of Peter Sohngen, her ceramics teacher at the school. Sohngen realized that DeForest wasn’t going to be the kind of traditional ceramicist that he was, so he sent her to another more like-minded professor at the

University of Memphis. It was another example of the impact of the professors who would guide but not dictate how students should learn.

That sensibility was described by Dolph Smith, a longtime faculty member and much admired artist whose whimsical world of “Tennarkippi” is populated by mixed-media works, paintings, handmade books, and sculptures. At age 92, he still works in his studio in Ripley, Tennessee.

“It was a joy, a blessing,” he says of MCA. “The college was a precious, unique happening. We each had our own devices that we explored and we welcomed each other. Every time I walked through the door I got lifted up. There were no rules. You’d go into your studio and you’d make something. And we’d put the work up in a show. I can’t imagine it being gone — I get choked up about it now.”

Smith even managed to get David Bowie to visit the school in 1973 when the performer was in town for his Aladdin Sane tour. “I had done something about him and he came by the college. We had a good visit and although I had to leave, the kids said he kept looking around the school and visiting. Can you imagine a student looking up and there’s David Bowie?”

That’s just one of the reasons why Smith feels that MCA was an amazing place. “You just fall in love with your students and hope for the best for them,” he says.” It’s so easy to be an art teacher because the students are so receptive.”

While the exhibition is centered on the MCA, it is very much about the school’s legacy. Its influence radiates within and well as beyond Memphis, not just from the artwork that has been shown globally by faculty and students, but in contributions from others outside of the arts and by people who didn’t even attend as students. As Pacini puts it, “I consider this exhibition co-curated between me and the people who filled out that questionnaire.”

The catalog goes into detail on various aspects of the school and its impact. Pacini commissioned four people to write short essays. One was filmmaker and poet Lynne Sachs, who didn’t attend MCA but went to the popular Saturday school for young people for years. For many of those youngsters, the Saturday

experience at the college sparked interest in a variety of disciplines that manifested later in life.

Other essayists are James Little, who wrote about his time as a student, Adrian Duran on being a faculty member, and Adam Hawk on Horn Island, an annual pilgrimage of creatives organized by Robert Riseling who gladly roughed it in primitive conditions off the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, and made art from the experience.

THE ROLE OF THE BROOKS

For the Brooks, hosting an exhibition that was already bursting with history, art, and culture also meant assigning it a special role in the timeline of the museum itself. It would mark endings as well as a beginning.

“It felt like the perfect way to close one chapter and open a new one,” Kahr says. “We could celebrate the specificity of place in the park and what that place has done for Memphis, for its artists, for the art scene, for its audiences as the museum is about to enter this new chapter.”

There was a practical aspect as well. As Kahr put it, “It’s a large exhibition and a complicated story. It needed a lot of space and we needed a large project that would allow us to pack our collection discreetly without anyone noticing.”

The Brooks is presenting the MCA exhibition in the galleries on the museum’s main level that have long been the home of works from, as Kahr says, Canaletto to contemporary. (The Grand Canal From the Campo San Via is a 1728 painting by Venetian artist Canaletto that’s in the museum’s permanent collection.)

This will allow the museum to pack for the move as well as plan for plenty of programming around the MCA exhibition through the final days.

There was something of a challenge as the Brooks was envisioning how to present works connected to the Memphis College of Art. Patricia Lee Daigle, chief curator at the Brooks, says that several MCA-related works already in the museum’s collection were being considered both for the MCA show as well as the inaugural exhibition downtown.

The decision was made to borrow some artwork from private collectors. It was, she says, “the idea of a closing of one chapter, but it’s not the closing of these artists’ works or our interest in them. It’s something that continues and that we’re excited to showcase when we move downtown as well in a different context outside of the context of the college.”

The 90 artists featured in the exhibition include: Mario Bacchelli, Brin Baucum, Dale Baucum, Kim Beck, Tootsie Bell, Peter Bowman, Cynthia Bringle, Bunny Burson, Fred Burton, Burton Callicott, Karen Carrier, Nancy Cheairs, Martha Christian, Funlola Coker, Michael Coppage, Jay Crum, Beth Dary, Maritza Dávila Irizarry, Alonzo Davis, Patrick DeGuira, Carol DeForest, Don DuMont, Henry Easterwood, Thorne Edwards, Biff Elrod, Ted Faiers, Annette Fournet, Lurlynn Franklin, Moko Fukuyama, Ahmad George, Betty Gilow, Luther Hampton, Rob Hart, Adam Hawk, Michael Hayes, Randy Hayes, Pinkney Herbert, Sharon Havelka, Kyle Holland, Amy Hutcheson, Gere Kavanaugh, J.D. Kelly, Tommy Kha, Tom Lee, Phillip Lewis, James Little, Susan Maakestad, Kate Madison, John McIntire, Emily Miller, Remy Miller, Carl E. Moore, Haley MorrisCafiero, Joe Morzuch, Floyd Newsum, Michele Noiset, Laurie Nye, George Oberteuffer, Kong Wee Pang, Fidencio Fifield Perez, Ed Perry, Melinda Eckley Posey, Richard Prillaman, Ed Rainey, Veda Reed, Sheri Fleck Rieth, Robert Riseling, Murray Riss, Ebet Roberts, Marc Rouillard, Ted Rust, Jennifer Sargent, Jeanne Seagle, Elizabeth Sheehan, Vitus Shell, Martina Shenal, Allison Read Smith, Dolph Smith, Peter Sohngen, Dorothy Sturm, Cynthia Thompson, Carroll Todd, Martha Turner, Leandra Urrutia, George Wardlaw, D’Angelo Lovell Williams, Sean Winfrey, Jill Wissmiller, Bill Womack, and Tad Lauritzen Wright. “Memphis College of Art, 1936-2020: An Enduring Legacy,” Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Overton Park, through September 2026.

The Apple of Her Eye

Maggie McLendon brings a natural spirit to Erling Jensen, the Restaurant.

BY BRUCE VANWYNGARDEN

Ifeel fortunate that I grew up in the last analog generation. No one was keeping track of where we were all the time,” says Maggie McLendon. “There was no GPS on everything. My family lived in Louisiana, and as kids, we could be outside in nature every day. We did a lot of camping and hiking together, and even now, the majority of my travel is for hiking trips. I’m a nature geek.”

at love of the natural world eventually led McLendon to a job at the Memphis Zoo after graduating with a fine-arts degree from the University of Memphis.

“I was a bird-keeper and it was really my dream job,” she says. “Or, I thought it would be.”

After a time, McLendon says, the work began to wear on her. “It was hot, manual labor, and it

didn’t pay well, so I got a parttime job at night as the ‘bread girl’ at Erling Jensen. I soon realized I could make three times the money there, working half as many hours. So I quit my dream job and started taking bread to people,” she says with a laugh.

It didn’t take McLendon long to move up the food chain at Erling’s.

“When they [installed] the bar, they asked me if I wanted to be the bartender. I told them I didn’t know anything about mixing drinks, but they said, ‘You’ll figure it out.’ Fortunately, this was long before the craft cocktail era. en, it was really just about making a martini or a Manhattan or a Dewar’s on the rocks. ere wasn’t all the stuff there is now, where we’re always infusing or ‘washing’ something, where it’s like you’re an alchemist.”

McLendon has now been at Erling Jensen for 16 years, and she’s something of an institution herself. Acknowledging that her job is part mad scientist and part entertainer, she calls herself the “ringmaster of this show,” adding, “It’s a cliché, but this really is like a ‘Cheers’ bar. We have so many regulars and everyone knows each other. I’ve made so many friends here.”

Some of those friends have helped McLendon land various day jobs through the years, including her current one as librarian for the Margolin Hebrew Academy. “It’s quite an interesting dynamic to go from reading to little kids all day to coming here,” she says. “But I love it.”

And she loves her twin 14-year-old daughters. “ ey attend White Station Middle School,” she says, “and I feel really blessed to have two spectacular girls. ey’re so artistically talented, and such great kids. e reason I’m only working two nights a week now is so I can be with them more.”

Erling Jensen, the Restaurant has long had the reputation of being a great “special occasion” venue with an elegant and eclectic menu created by one of the city’s most renowned chefs, but McLendon says the bar has allowed the restaurant

to offer more casual fare.

“Some people aren’t aware of the bar menu,” she says. “It’s a more accessible option, with $30 entrees — and a $35 filet — and happy-hour specials.”

She turns and gives me a quizzical look, knowing she is going to craft a cocktail for me, and asks, “Do you care what I make you?”

“I do not,” I say. “Your choice. And thank you!”

“I have a drink that you’re probably not familiar with,” she says. “We call it a ‘Borderline Sour.’ It’s a variation on a ‘New York Sour,’ with the red wine float, only instead of whiskey, we use Cazadores Reposado tequila. And the wine is a mixture that I infuse with allspice dram, cloves and cinnamon, and Granny Smith apples. e apples start out green and become a deep red. I add a slice as a garnish. … You’ll see. I can’t stop eating them.”

As she sets the cocktail on the bar, I’m struck by its deep color — and the apple slice poking above the rim of the glass. It almost looks … healthy. It’s a fruity, spicy, complex cocktail, and quite good.

“I’d order one of these again,” I say. “Did you come up with this?”

“I did,” she says. “I make drinks like I want them to be. Would you like another slice of marinated apple?”

“Yes, please.”

ere’s probably an “apple a day” joke there somewhere, but I refrain, choosing instead to quietly savor my delicious ‘Borderline Sour’ as Maggie McLendon goes about prepping her workplace for the evening show. You should join her one of these days. She’s a natural.

Erling Jensen, 1044 S. Yates Rd.

PHOTOGRAPH

Kelcie Zepatos, owner of The Arcade Restaurant.

Memphis Magazine offers this curated restaurant listing as a service to our readers. Broken down alphabetically by neighborhoods, this directory does not list every restaurant in town. It does, however, include the magazine’s “Top 50” choices of must-try restaurants in Memphis, a group that is updated yearly. Establishments open less than a year are not eligible for “Top 50” but are noted as “New.” is guide also includes a representative sampling of other Bluff City eating establishments. No fast-food facilities or cafeterias are listed. Restaurants are included regardless of whether they advertise in Memphis Magazine; those that operate in multiple locations are listed under the neighborhood of their original location. is guide is updated regularly, but we recommend that you call ahead to check on hours, prices, or other details. Suggestions from readers are welcome: dining@memphismagazine.com.

DOWNTOWN

ALDO’S PIZZA PIES—Serving gourmet pizzas — including Mr. T Rex — salads, and more. Also 30 beers, bottled or on tap. 100 S. Main, 577-7743; 752 S. Cooper, 725-7437. L, D, $-$$

AMELIA GENE’S—Globally inspired fine-dining cuisine at the One Beale project, including Rohan duck, Wagyu filet, and an extensive cheese cart. 255 S. Front, 730-7650. D, $$-$$$ THE ARCADE—Memphis’ oldest cafe. Specialties include sweet potato pancakes, a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich, and breakfast served all day. 540 S. Main, 526-5757. B, L, MRA, $ ARNOLD’S SMOKEHOUSE—A classic smokehouse with vegan and nonvegan options seasoned to perfection. Closed Mon. 2019 E. Person, 922-5950. L, D, SB, $-$$$

AUTOMATIC SLIM’S—Longtime downtown favorite specializes in contemporary American cuisine emphasizing local ingredients; also extensive martini list. 83 S. Second, 525-7948. L, D, WB, MRA, $-$$$ BARDOG TAVERN—Classic American grill with Italian influence, Bardog offers pasta specialties such as Grandma’s NJ Meatballs, as well as salads, sliders, sandwiches, and daily specials. 73 Monroe, 275-8752. B (Mon.-Fri.), L, D, WB, MRA, $-$$

BELLE TAVERN—Serving elevated bar food, including a butcher board with a variety of meats and cheeses, as well as daily specials. 117 Barboro Alley, 249-6580. L (Sun.), D, MRA, $ BEN YAY’S GUMBO SHOP—Spiritual successor to DejaVu, offering fresh and authentic Creole staples. 150 Peabody Place, Suite 111, 779-4125. L, D, $-$$

BISCUITS & JAMS—Offering sweet and savory brunch with a Cajun flare. Specialties include smoked sausage or spicy fried chicken on biscuits, lemon blueberry waffles, and rum custard French toast. No walk-ins on weekends. 24 N. B.B. King Blvd., 672-7905. B, L, WB, $-$$

BRASS DOOR IRISH PUB—Irish and New-American cuisine includes such entrees as fish and chips, burgers, shepherd’s pie, all-day Irish breakfast, and more. 152 Madison, 572-1813. L, D, SB, $-$$ BY THE BREWERY—Breakfast and lunch café, with a focus on Southern-style biscuits, salads, and soups. 496 Tennessee, 310-4341. B, L, $

CAPRICCIO GRILL ITALIAN STEAKHOUSE—Offers prime steaks, fresh seafood (lobster tails, grouper, mahi mahi), pasta, and several Northern Italian specialties. 149 Union, The Peabody, 529-4199. B, L, D, SB, MRA, $-$$$$

CAROLINA WATERSHED—This indoor/outdoor eatery, set around silos, features reimagined down-home classics, including fried green tomatoes with smoked catfish, a buttermilk fried chicken sandwich, burgers, and more. Closed Mon.-Thurs. 141 E. Carolina, 321-5553. L, D, WB, $-$$

CATHERINE & MARY’S—A variety of pastas, grilled quail, pâté, razor clams, and monkfish are among the dishes served at this Italian restaurant in the Chisca. 272 S. Main, 254-8600. D, SB, MRA, $-$$$

CHEZ PHILIPPE—Classical/contemporary French cuisine with Asian and Nordic influences, presented in a luxurious atmosphere with seasonal tasting menus from chef Keith Clinton. Afternoon tea served Thu.-Sun., noon-3:30 p.m. (reservations required). Closed Sun.-Tues. The Peabody, 149 Union, 529-4188. D, MRA, $$$$

CIMAS—It’s breakfast tacos, shrimp and grits, chilaquiles verdes, and plenty of other Southern and Latin-American twists at the Hyatt Centric. 33 Beale, 444-3232. B, L, D, $-$$$

COCOZZA AMERICAN ITALIAN—”The red sauce joint of your dreams” serves up classic Italian-American fare from the owners of Majestic Grille. Closed Sun. 110 Harbor Town Sq., 609-1111. D, $-$$

COZY CORNER—Serving up ribs, pork sandwiches, chicken, spaghetti, and more; also homemade banana pudding. Closed Mon. 735 N. Parkway, 527-9158. L, D, $

CURFEW—An elevated sports bar/American tavern concept by Top Chef contestant Fabio Viviani at the Canopy Memphis Downtown hotel. 164 Union, 467-0308. B, L, D, $-$$

DOCKS OFF FIFTH—Fine dining and special plates, including mango habanero-glazed salmon, seafood linguini, glazed lamb “lollipops,“ lobster rolls, plus wings and sliders. 310 Beale, 423-3765264. D, $$$

ESCO RESTAURANT AND TAPAS—Shareable dishes, turkey ribs, and seafood mac’n’cheese at this 2 Chainz franchise. 156 Lt. George W. Lee, 808-3726. L, D, $$-$$$

FELICIA SUZANNE’S—Elevated down-home farmhouse food, using locally sourced ingredients, served in an atmoshere of classic Southern charm. 383 S. Main, 623-7883. L, D, $$$-$$$$.

FERRARO’S CHEESY CORNER & PIZZERIA—Plenty of pizzas, along with a whole new cheese-inspired menu (fancy grilled cheeses and build-your-own mac and cheese bowls). 111 Jackson, 522-2033. L, D, $

FISHBOWL AT THE PYRAMID—Burgers, fish dishes, sandwiches, and more served in a unique “underwater” setting. Bass Pro, 1 Bass Pro Drive, 291-8000. B, L, D, $-$$

FLAME RAMEN—Traditional Japanese ramen restaurant serving up bowls of noodles. 61 S. Second, 441-6686. L, D, wheelchair accessible, $-$$

FLIGHT RESTAURANT & WINE BAR—Steaks and seafood, with such specialties as bison ribeye and Muscovy duck, all matched with appropriate wines. 39 S. Main, 521-8005. D, SB, MRA, $-$$$

GARDEN BRUNCH CAFÉ—Fish and grits, steak and eggs, and other upscale takes on Southern brunch classics. 492 S. Main, 249-7450. B, L, $$

THE GENRE—Burgers, tenders, catfish, and plenty of vegan options made to order at this music-themed restaurant/lounge. 200 Poplar, Suite 105, 410-8169. B, L, D, $-$$

GOOD FORTUNE CO.—Authentic handcrafted noodles, ramen, and dumplings. 361 S. Main, 561-306-4711. L, D, $-$$

THE GOURMET GALLERY—A variety of elevated comfort dishes, like fried ribs and waffles, shrimp and grits, grilled salmon, and more. Closed Mon. 412 S. Main, 848-4691. L, D, $-$$$

GROOVY GRATITUDE—Offers a vibrant selection of cold-pressed juices, handcrafted smoothies, and healthy eats like paninis and acai bowls. Closed Sun. 605 N. Second, 417-8007. B, L, WB, $

GUS’S WORLD FAMOUS FRIED CHICKEN—Serves chicken with signature spicy batter, along with homemade beans, slaw, and pies. 310 S. Front, 527-4877; 3100 Forest Hill Irene (Germantown), 853-6005; 2965 N. Germantown Pkwy. (Cordova), 373-9111; 730 S. Mendenhall, 767-2323; 505 Highway 70 W., Mason, TN, 901-294-2028. L, D, MRA, $

DINING SYMBOLS

B — breakfast

L — lunch

D — dinner

SB —Sunday brunch

HIVE BAGEL & DELI Bagels, bagels, and more bagels at this new downtown deli offering baked goods, sandwiches, and salads. Closed Mon./Tue. 276 S. Front, 509-2946. B, L, $ HU. ROOF—Rooftop cocktail bar serves toasts with a variety of toppings including beef tartare with cured egg, cognac, and capers or riced cauliflower with yellow curry, currants, and almonds. Also salads, fish tacos, and boiled peanut hummus. 79 Madison, 333-1229. D, $ HUSTLE & DOUGH BAKERY & CAFE Flaky, baked breakfast goodness every day with fresh pastries, sandwiches, and more at Arrive Hotel. 477 S. Main, 701-7577. B, L, $

WB —weekend brunch

MRA — member, Memphis Restaurant Association

$ — under $15 per person without drinks or desserts

$$ — under $25

$$$ — $26-$50

$$$$ — over $50

ITTA BENA—Southern and Cajun-American cuisine served here, located above B.B. King’s Blues Club on Beale St.; specialties are duck and waffles and shrimp and grits, along with steaks, chops, seafood, and pasta. 145 Beale, 578-3031. D, MRA, $$-$$$

JEM DINING—Chef Josh Mutchnick offers a dining experience that’s memorable, refined, unpretentious, and welcoming with dishes from around the world. Closed Sun./Mon./Tue. 644 Madison, 2861635. D, $$-$$$

(This guide, compiled by our editors, includes editorial picks and advertisers.)

KING & UNION BAR GROCERY—Classic Southern favorites including catfish plate, pimento cheese, po-boys, chicken & waffles. Open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with cocktails served with flair and favorite Memphis beers. Locally made confections available in the grocery. 185 Union, 523-8500. B, L, D, $-$$

KOOKY CANUCK—Home of the four-pound Kookamonga Burger (no charge to anyone who can eat it in less than 60 minutes), plus other (smaller) burgers, sandwiches, wings, soups, and salads. 57 S. Second, 901-578-9800. L,D, MRA, $-$$

LITTLE BETTIE—New Haven-style pizzas and snacks from the Andrew-Michael team at Wiseacre’s Downtown location. 398 S. B.B. King Blvd, 334-9411. L, D, $-$$

THE LOBBYIST AT THE CHISCA—Chef Jimmy Gentry brings his farm-to-table ideas downtown, with seasonal, and sometimes weekly, new menus, and an emphasis on creative vegetable dishes. Closed Sun. 272 S. Main St., Suite 101, 249-2170. D, $$-$$$$

LOFLIN YARD—Beer garden and restaurant serves vegetarian fare and smoked-meat dishes, including beef brisket and pork tenderloin, cooked on a custom-made grill. Closed Mon.-Tues. 7 W. Carolina, 249-3046. L (Sat. and Sun.), D, MRA, $-$$

THE LOOKOUT AT THE PYRAMID—Serves seafood and Southern fare, including cornmeal-fried oysters, sweet tea brined chicken, and elk chops. 1 Bass Pro Dr, 620-4600/291-8200. L, D, $-$$$

LUNA RESTAURANT & LOUNGE—Serving a limited menu of breakfast and lunch items. Dinner entrees include citrus glaze salmon and Cajun stuffed chicken. 179 Madison (Hotel Napoleon), 526-0002. B, D (Mon.-Sat.), $-$$$

MACIEL’S—Entrees include tortas, fried taco plates, quesadillas, chorizo and pastor soft tacos, salads, and more. Closed Sun. 45 S. Main, 526-0037; 820 S. Cooper, 443-4356. MRA, $

MAHOGANY RIVER TERRACE—Upscale Southern restaurant offers such dishes as coffee-rubbed lamb chops and baked Cajun Cornish hen. Closed for dinner Sun. and all day Mon.-Tues. 280 Island Drive, 249-9774. L, D, SB, $-$$$

THE MAJESTIC GRILLE—Features aged steaks, fresh seafood, and such specialties as roasted chicken and grilled pork tenderloin; offers a pre-theater menu and classic cocktails. Well-stocked bar. 145 S. Main, 522-8555. L, D, WB, MRA, $-$$$

McEWEN’S—Southern/American cuisine with international flavors; specialties include steak and seafood, sweet potato-crusted catfish with macaroni and cheese, and more. Closed Sun., Monroe location. 120 Monroe, 527-7085; 1110 Van Buren (Oxford), 662-234-7003. L, D, SB (Oxford only), MRA, $$-$$$ MESQUITE CHOP HOUSE—The focus here is on steaks, including prime fillet, rib-eyes, and prime-aged New York strip; also, some seafood options. 88 Union, 527-5337; 5960 Getwell (Southaven), 662-8902467. D, SB, $$-$$$

MOLLIE FONTAINE LOUNGE—Specializes in tapas (small plates) featuring global cuisine. Closed Sun.-Tues. 679 Adams, 524-1886. D, MRA, $

MOMMA’S ROADHOUSE—This diner and dive at Highway 55 serves up smoked wings, burgers, and beer, among other solid bar-food options 855 Kentucky, 207-5111. L, D, MRA, $

PAULETTE’S—Presents fine dining with a Continental flair, including such entrees as filet Paulette with butter cream sauce and crabmeat and spinach crepes; also changing daily specials and great views. River Inn, 50 Harbor Town Square, 260-3300. B, L, D, WB, MRA, $-$$$

RENDEZVOUS, CHARLES VERGOS’—Menu items include barbecued ribs, cheese plates, skillet shrimp, red beans and rice, and Greek salads. Closed Sun.-Mon. 52 S. Second, 523-2746. L (Fri.Sat.), D, $-$$

ROCK’N DOUGH—A blend of Italian and American foods like artisan pizza, salads, pasta, burgers, and house-brewed beers. 704 Madison, 587-6256. L, D, $-$$

SABOR CARIBE—Serving up “Caribbean flavors” with dishes from Colombia, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. Closed Sunday. 662 Madison, 949-8100. L, D, $

SAGE—Restaurant and lounge features daily lunch specials and tapas with such dishes as braised short ribs, teriyaki pulled pork, and the Sage burger made with Angus beef, avocado mash, fried egg, and flash-fried sage. 94 S. Main, 672-7902. L, D, WB, $-$$

SILLY GOOSE LOUNGE—Gourmet, wood-fired pizzas and handcrafted cocktails at this downtown restaurant and lounge. 150 Peabody Place, Suite 111, 435-6915. L, D, $

SOUTH MAIN SUSHI & GRILL—Serving sushi, nigiri, and more. 520 S. Main, 249-2194. L, D, $

SOB—Elevated gastropub that serves favorites like general Tso’s cauliflower or duck fried rice. 345 S. Main, 526-0388; 5040 Sanderlin (East Memphis), 818-0821; 1329 W. Poplar, 286-1360. L, D, WB, $-$$

SOUTH POINT GROCERY—Fresh and delicious sandwiches made to order at Downtown’s new grocery market. 136 Webster. B, L, D, $

SUGAR GRITS—Who said breakfast has to be in the morning? The Westmorelands offer grits and other breakfast goodness all day long, in addition to other Southern-style lunch and dinner options. 150 Peabody Place, Suite 111, 249-5206. B, L, D, $-$$

SUNRISE MEMPHIS—Serves breakfast all day, including house-made biscuits, frittatas, kielbasa or boudin plates, and breakfast platters. 670 Jefferson, 552-3144; 5469 Poplar Ave. (East Memphis), 844-6117. B, L, MRA, $

TERRACE—Creative American and Continental cuisine includes such dishes as filet mignon, beef or lamb sliders, chicken satay, and mushroom pizzetta. Rooftop, River Inn of Harbor Town, 50 Harbor Town Square, 260-3366. D, MRA, $$

TEXAS DE BRAZIL—Serves beef, pork, lamb, and chicken dishes, and Brazilian sausage; also a salad bar with extensive toppings. 150 Peabody Place, Suite 103, 526-7600. L (Wed.-Fri.), D, WB, $$-$$$

TUG’S—Famous for New Orleans gumbo, fabulous burgers, fried thin catfish, and specialty pancakes. Now serving Grisanti Crafted Pizza. 51 Harbor Town Square, 260-3344. B, L, D, WB, $$-$$$

WAHLBURGERS WILD—Wahlburgers brings its classic menu, but with a few gamey twists at the Bass Pro Pyramid. 1 Bass Pro Drive, 291-8000. B, L, D, $-$$

WESTY’S—Extensive menu includes a variety of wild rice dishes, sandwiches, plate lunches, and hot fudge pie. 346 N. Main, 543-3278. L, D, $ WINGMAN—Downtown lounge and hookah bar offering wings galore with ten signature sauces, and plenty of other goodies. 143 Madison, 907-0586. D, WB, $-$$

MIDTOWN (INCLUDES THE MEDICAL CENTER)

ABNER’S FAMOUS CHICKEN—Fried chicken tenders and dipping sauces galore at this Mid-South staple. 1350 Concourse Ave., Suite 137, 425-2597; 1100 N. Germantown Pkwy., 754-5355 (Cordova). L, D, $-$$

ABYSSINIA RESTAURANT—Ethiopian/Mediterranean menu includes beef, chicken, lamb, fish entrees, and vegetarian dishes; also a lunch buffet. 2600 Poplar, 321-0082. L, D, $-$$

ART BAR—Inventive cocktails feature locally foraged ingredients; snacks include house-cured salt & vinegar potato chips and herb-roasted olives. Closed Mon. 1350 Concourse Ave., Suite 280, 507-8030. D, $ ASHTAR GARDEN—Southern twists on classic brunch dishes, and plenty of cocktails. Closed Mon.-Wed. 898 S. Cooper, 4431514. L, D, $-$$

BABALU TACOS & TAPAS—Spanish-style tapas with Southern flair; also taco and enchilada of the day; specials change daily. 2115 Madison, 274-0100; 6450 Poplar, 410-8909. L, D, SB, MRA, $-$$

BAIN BARBECUE & BAKERY—Brian Bain’s popular Texas-style barbecue is back, alongside an assortment of baked goods. 993 S. Cooper, 310-4141. B, L, $-$$

BAO TOAN—Traditional Vietnamese restaurant offering small bites and home-style plates, plus creative versions of street-food favorites. 1350 Concourse Avenue. 695-1265. L, D, WB. Closed Tues. $-$$

BAR DKDC—Features an ever-changing menu of international “street food,” from Thai to Mexican, Israeli to Indian, along with specialty cocktails. 964 S. Cooper, 272-0830. D, MRA, $

BAR KEOUGH—It’s old-school eats and cocktails at the new Cooper-Young neighborhood corner bar by Kevin Keough. 247 S. Cooper, 654-3851. D, $

BAR-B-Q SHOP—Dishes up barbecued ribs, spaghetti, bologna, other classics. Closed Sun. 1782 Madison, 272-1277. L, D, MRA, $-$$

BARI RISTORANTE ENOTECA—Authentic Southeastern Italian cuisine (Puglia) emphasizes lighter entrees. Serves fresh fish and beef dishes and a homemade soup of the day. 524 S. Cooper, 722-2244. D, SB, MRA, $-$$$

BARKSDALE RESTAURANT—Old-school diner serving breakfast and Southern plate lunches. 237 S. Cooper, 722-2193. B, L, D, $

BAYOU BAR & GRILL—New Orleans fare at this Overton Square eatery includes jambalaya, gumbo, catfish Acadian, shrimp dishes, red beans and rice, and muffalettas. 2094 Madison, 278-8626. L, D, WB, MRA, $-$$

BEAUTY SHOP—Modern American cuisine with international flair served in a former beauty shop. Serves steaks, salads, pasta, and seafood, including pecan-crusted golden sea bass. Perennial “Best Brunch” winner. Closed for dinner Sunday. 966 S. Cooper, 272-7111. L, D, SB, MRA, $-$$$

BOSCOS—Tennessee’s first craft brewery serves a variety of freshly brewed beers as well as wood-fired oven pizzas, pasta, seafood, steaks, and sandwiches. 2120 Madison, 432-2222. L, D, SB (with live jazz), MRA, $-$$

BROADWAY PIZZA—Serving a variety of pizzas, including the Broadway Special, as well as sandwiches, salads, wings, and soul-food specials. 2581 Broad, 454-7930; 627 S. Mendenhall, 207-1546. L, D, $-$$

BRIZA—Featuring specialties from the chef Moisés Hernandez’s native El Salvador, around the theme “Land–Sushi–Sea.” 1350 Concourse Avenue, Suite 181, 585-0553. L, D, $$-$$$

CAFE 1912—French/American bistro owned by culinary pioneer Glenn Hays serving such seafood entrees as seared sea scallops with charred cauliflower purée and chorizo cumin sauce; also crepes, salads, and onion soup gratinée. 243 S. Cooper, 722-2700. D, SB, MRA, $-$$$

CAFE ECLECTIC—Omelets and chicken and waffles are among menu items, along with quesadillas, sandwiches, wraps, and burgers. Menu varies by location. 603 N. McLean, 725-1718; 111 Harbor Town Square, 590-4645. B, L, D, SB, MRA, $

CAMEO—Three longtime Memphis bartenders join forces for creative cocktails, cheese boards, snacks, and Sunday brunch. 1835 Union, Suite 3. 305-6511. D, SB, $-$$

CELTIC CROSSING—Specializes in Irish and American pub fare. Entrees include shepherd’s pie, shrimp and sausage coddle, and fish and chips. 903 S. Cooper, 274-5151. L, D, WB, MRA, $-$$

CENTRAL BBQ—Serves ribs, smoked hot wings, pulled pork sandwiches, chicken, turkey, nachos, and portobello sandwiches. Offers both pork and beef barbecue. 2249 Central, 272-9377; 4375 Summer, 767-4672; 147 E. Butler, 672-7760 ; 6201 Poplar, 417-7962. L, D, MRA, $-$$

COMPLICATED PILGRIM—Quick-serve coffee shop, bar, and restaurant all in one at The Memphian hotel. 21 S. Cooper, 538-7309. B, L, D, $-$$

COOPER’S—“A charming experience for all ages,“ with po-boys, wraps, wings, fettucini. 959 S. Cooper, 343-0103. L, D, $-$$

THE COVE—Nautical-themed restaurant and bar serving oysters, pizzas, and more. The Stoner Pie, with tamales and fritos, is a popular dish. 2559 Broad, 730-0719. L, D, $ THE CRAZY NOODLE—Korean noodle dishes range from bibam beef noodle with cabbage, carrots, and other vegetables, to curry chicken noodle; also rice cakes served in a flavorful sauce. Closed for lunch Sat.-Sun. 2015 Madison, 272-0928. L, D, $ ECCO—Mediterranean-inspired specialties range from rib-eye steak to seared scallops to housemade pastas and a grilled vegetable plate; also a Saturday brunch. Closed Sun.-Mon. 1585 Overton Park, 410-8200. B, L, D, $-$$

EVERGREEN GRILL—Serving classic American cuisine like patty melts, burgers, phillies, and more to bring you the comforting taste of home. Closed Mon./Tue. 212 N. Evergreen, 779-7065. L, D, X,$$-$$$ FARM BURGER—Serves grass-fed, freshly ground, locally sourced burgers; also available with chicken, pork, or veggie quinoa patties, with such toppings as aged white cheddar, kale coleslaw, and roasted beets. 1350 Concourse Avenue, Suite 175, 800-1851. L, D, $

FAWN—Seasonal, tapas-style dishes (don’t miss the sourdough bread and butter) in a chic setting. Closed Mon. 937 S. Cooper, 310-4890. D, SB, $$

FEAST & GRAZE—Whipped goat toast, open-faced grilled cheese, and other local pantry snacks and charcuterie boards. Closed Sun./Mon. Inside Brooks Museum of Art, 1934 Poplar, 654-5926. L, $

FINO’S FROM THE HILL—Italian deli offers old favorites such as the Acquisto as well as a new breakfast menu. Germantown location paired with Happy Glaze Donuts. 1853 Madison, 272-FINO; 7781 Farmington (Germantown), B, L, D, $

FLAME RAMEN—Traditional Japanese ramen restaurant serving up bowls of noodles in Midtown. 1838 Union Ave. 779-8666, 61 S. Second St., Suite 160 (downtown). D, $-$$

FLIP SIDE—Pinball meets pub in the Crosstown neighborhood, with plenty of games alongside a Caribbean- and Latin-inspired menu. Closed Mon. 1349 Autumn, 207-6193. L, D, $-$$

FRIDA’S—Mexican cuisine and Tex-Mex standards, including chimichangas, enchiladas, and fajitas; seafood includes shrimp and tilapia. 1718 Madison, 244-6196. L, D, $-$$

GLOBAL CAFÉ—This international food hall hosts three immigrant/refugee food entrepreneurs serving Venezuelan, Sudanese, and Syrian cuisines. Samosas, shawarma, and kabobs are among the menu items. Closed Mon. 1350 Concourse Avenue, Suite 157. L, D, MRA, $ GOLDEN INDIA—Northern Indian specialties include tandoori chicken as well as lamb, beef, shrimp, and vegetarian dishes. 2097 Madison, 728-5111. L, D, $-$$

GOOD GROCERIES MARKET & CAFÉ—Providing fresh, healthy, cruelty-free meals, Good Groceries offers a classic American menu with a twist: instead of pork, they use duck for their BBQ. They also sell quesadillas, mac-and-cheese, sandwiches, and more. Closed Sun. 585 S. Cooper, 325-1269. B, L, D, $

GROWLERS—Sports bar and eatery serves standard bar fare in addition to pasta, tacos, chicken and waffles, and light options. 1911 Poplar, 244-7904. L, D, $-$$

GUAC FRESH MEX—Authentic Mexican cuisine and four types of guacamole. Closed Sun. 782 Washington, 587-4100. L, D, $ HATTIE B’S—Fried chicken spot features “hot chicken” with a variety of heat levels; from no heat to “shut the cluck up” sauce. Sides include greens, pimento mac-and-cheese, and black-eyed pea salad. 596 S. Cooper, 424-5900. L, D, $

HUEY’S—This family-friendly restaurant offers 13 different burgers, a variety of sandwiches, and delicious soups and salads. 1927 Madison, 726-4372; 1771 N. Germantown Pkwy. (Cordova), 754-3885; 77 S. Second (downtown), 527-2700; 2130 W. Poplar (Collierville), 8544455; 7090 Malco Blvd. (Southaven), 662-349-7097; 7825 Winchester, 624-8911; 4872 Poplar, 682-7729; 7677 Farmington Blvd. (Germantown), 318-3030; 8570 Highway 51 N. (Millington), 873-5025. L, D, MRA, $ IMAGINE VEGAN CAFE—Dishes at this fully vegan restaurant range from salads and sandwiches to full dinners, including eggplant parmesan and “beef” tips and rice; breakfast all day Sat. and Sun. 2158 Young, 654-3455. L, D, WB, $

INDIA PALACE—Tandoori chicken, lamb shish kabobs, and chicken tikka masala are among the entrees; also, vegetarian options and a daily all-you-can-eat lunch buffet. 1720 Poplar. 278-1199. L, D, $-$$

INSPIRE COMMUNITY CAFE—Serving breakfast all day, in addition to quesadillas, rice bowls, and more for lunch and dinner. 510 Tillman, Suite 110, 509-8640. B, L, D, $

JACK BROWN’S BEER AND BURGER JOINT—Another spot to satisfy your burger craving, this time with 100% American Wagyu beef. 2197 Central, 512-6957. L, D, $-$$$

THE JUICE JOINT—Locally owned purveyor of cold-pressed juices, smoothies, açai bowls, and snacks. 1350 Concourse Ave., 572-1127; 3139 Poplar Ave. (East Memphis), 207-2535. B, L, $-$$

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM—Serves such Southern cuisine as po’boys, shrimp and grits, and wood-fired pizzas. 2119 Madison, 2075097. L, D, WB, MRA, $-$$

LOS COMALES—Authentic Mexican cuisine, daily specials, and strong margaritas. 1322 Madison, 440-8393; 345 Madison Ave. (downtown), 590-4524; 2860 S. Perkins (East Memphis), 369-0528. L, D, $-$$

LOUIS CONNELLY’S BAR FOR FUN TIMES & FRIENDSHIP—An upgraded dive bar with a neighborhood feel and a rockin’ SMASH burger. Closed Sun. and Mon. 322 S. Cleveland, 4339582. L, D, $-$$

MADISON TAVERN—Indoor and outdoor seating available, plus a full menu with a range of comfort foods and drinks on tap. 2126 Madison, 417-8029. L, D, $-$$$

MARY’S B.O.T.E.—This bar of tropical escapism offers over 30 specialty drinks, pizzas, bar snacks, and a cozy interior that transports customers to the beach. 21+ only. Closed Mon. 588 S. Cooper. D, $

MEMPHIS JAMAICAN KITCHEN—Authentic Jamaican specialties, including jerk chicken and oxtails. 1354 Madison, L, D, $$

MEMPHIS PIZZA CAFE—Homemade pizzas are specialties; also serves sandwiches, calzones, and salads. 2087 Madison, 726-5343; 5061 Park, 684-1306; 7604 W. Farmington (Germantown), 753-2218; 797 W. Poplar (Collierville), 861-7800; 5627 Getwell (Southaven), 662-5361364. L, D, $-$$

MEMPHIS TOAST—Provides authentic Memphian breakfast cuisine and features themed rooms to honor iconic Memphis figures. Specialties include French toast, shrimp and grits, and their little Lucille breakfast burrito. 954 Jackson, 417-7817. B, L, WB, $-$$

MEMPHIS WHISTLE—Cocktails, cocktails, and even more delicious cocktails alongside burgers, sandwiches, and other tasty snacks. 2299 Young, 236-7136. Closed Mon.-Tue. D, $-$$

MOLLY’S LA CASITA—Homemade tamales, fish tacos, a vegetarian combo, and bacon-wrapped shrimp are a few of the specialties. 2006 Madison, 726-1873. L, D, MRA, $-$$

PAYNE’S BAR-B-QUE—Opened in 1972, this family-owned barbecue joint serves ribs, smoked sausage, and chopped pork sandwiches with a standout mustard slaw and homemade sauce. About as down-to-earth as it gets. 1762 Lamar, 272-1523. L, D, $-$$

PETALS OF A PEONY—Authentic Chinese restaurant serving chicken, fish, tofu, and more, smothered in spicy sauces. 2110 Madison, 207-6680. L, D, $-$$$

SALTWATER CRAB—Offers an array of seafood dishes including boils with blue crab, crab legs, lobster tails, and more, and specialty sushi like the Dynamite or Royal King rolls, in addition to signature sangrias and cocktails. 2059 Madison, 922-5202. L, D, $$

THE SECOND LINE—Kelly English brings “relaxed Creole cuisine” to his newest eatery; serves a variety of po’boys and such specialties as barbecue shrimp, andouille shrimp, and pimento cheese fries. 2144 Monroe, 590-2829. L, D, WB, $-$$

SEKISUI—Japanese fusion cuisine, fresh sushi bar, grilled meats and seafood, California rolls, and vegetarian entrees. Poplar/Perkins location’s emphasis is on Pacific Rim cuisine. Menu and hours vary at each location. 25 Belvedere, 725-0005; 1884 N. Germantown Pkwy. (Cordova), 309-8800; 4724 Poplar, 767-7770; 2130 W. Poplar (Collierville), 854-0622; 2990 Kirby-Whitten (Bartlett), 377-2727; 6696 Poplar, 747-0001. L, D, $-$$$

SEN TRANG—Serving a wide variety of Chinese and Vietnamese soups, stir-fries, and noodles. 1615 Madison, 276-0006. L, D, $-$$

SLICE MIDTOWN—Serving New York-style pizza as well as subs and pasta dishes (formerly known as Little Italy). 1495 Union 7250280; L, D, $-$$

SMOKY CITY BBQ—Serving authentic Memphis barbeque, including burgers, ribs, wings, and daily specials. Closed Sun. 1023 Jackson, 4253115. L, D, $-$$$

SOUL FISH CAFE—Serving Southern-style soul food, tacos, and po’boys, including catfish, crawfish, oyster, shrimp, chicken, and smoked pork tenderloin. 862 S. Cooper, 725-0722; 3160 Village Shops Dr. (Germantown), 755-6988; 4720 Poplar, 590-0323. L, D, MRA, $-$$

STICKEM—Brick-and-mortar location for the popular food truck, which offers grilled meat on a stick. 1788 Madison, 474-7214. Closed Sunday. L, D, $

TEKILA MEXICAN CUISINE—Mexican cuisine with a modern twist. Specialties include chicken mole, enchiladas verde, and the trio special. 1433 Union, 510-5734. L, D, WB, $-$$$

TAMBOLI’S PASTA & PIZZA—Pasta-maker Miles Tamboli whips up Italian soul food with seasonal menus featuring dishes like crispy fried chicken or creamy bucatini with pecorino cheese. Serves dinner Tues.-Sat. 1761 Madison, 410-8866. D, $-$$

TAKASHI BISTRO—Fusion restaurant with an open kitchen that lets customers watch chefs prepare a variety of Japanese and Thai cuisine. 1680 Union, Suite 109, 800-2936. L, D, $-$$

TONICA—Paella and other Spanish-inspired dishes with an Italian touch, alongside an extensive list of gin and tonics. 1545 Overton Park, 474-7693; 265 S. Front, 949-7693. Closed Mon.-Wed. D, $-$$

TUYEN’S ASIAN BISTRO—A variety of Asian dishes from the minds and chefs behind Saigon Le. Closed Sun. 288 N. Cleveland, L, D, $-$$

ZINNIE’S—Dive bar classic reopens with a makeover and signature Zinnaloni sandwich. 1688 Madison, 726-5004. L, D, $

SOUTH MEMPHIS (INCLUDES PARKWAY VILLAGE, FOX MEADOWS, SOUTH MEMPHIS, WINCHESTER, AND WHITEHAVEN)

BALA’S BISTRO—Authentic West African cuisine available to order or by the pound, alongside traditional American dishes and an extensive vegan menu. 4571 Elvis Presley, 509-3024. L, D, $-$$

CACHE 42 KITCHEN & COCKTAILS—Elevated fine dining (think golden rack of lamb or lobster queso) and cocktail lounge at MoneyBagg Yo’s restaurant; menu by chef Daris Leatherwood. Brunch and lunch options. 4202 Hacks Cross, Suite 121. 494-5458. D, $-$$

COLETTA’S—Longtime eatery serves such specialties as homemade ravioli, lasagna, and pizza with barbecue or traditional toppings. 1063 S. Parkway E., 948-7652; 2850 Appling Rd. (Bartlett), 383-1122. L, D, $-$$

CURRY BOWL—Specializes in Southern Indian cuisine, serving Tandoori chicken, biryani, tikka masala, and more. Weekend buffet. 4141 Hacks Cross, 207-6051. L, D, $

DELTA’S KITCHEN—The premier restaurant at The Guest House at Graceland serves Elvis-inspired dishes — like Nutella and Peanut Butter Crepes for breakfast — and upscale Southern cuisine — including lamb chops and shrimp and grits — for dinner. 3600 Elvis Presley, 443-3000. B, D, $-$$$

DWJ KOREAN BARBECUE—This authentic Korean eatery serves kimbap, barbecued beef short ribs, rice and noodles dishes, and hot pots and stews. 3750 Hacks Cross, Suite 101. 746-8057; 2156 Young. 207-6204. L, D, $-$$

FABULOUS FLAVORS & FRIENDS

”The Candy Lady” Precious Thompson Jones comes up with a little bit of everything: omelettes, quesadillas, t-bones and waffles, and plenty of soul food. 2063 E. Brooks, 314-0735. L, D, $

THE FOUR WAY—Legendary soul-food establishment dishing up such entrees as fried and baked catfish, chicken, and turkey and dressing, along with a host of vegetables and desserts. Around the corner from the legendary Stax Studio. Closed Mon. 998 Mississippi, 507-1519. L, D, $

HERNANDO’S HIDEAWAY No one cares how late it gets; not at Hernando’s Hideaway. Live music, killer happy hour, and plenty of bar fare at this South Memphis hang. 3210 Old Hernando, 917-982-1829. L, D, $

INTERSTATE BAR-B-Q—Specialties include chopped pork-shoulder sandwiches, ribs, hot wings, spaghetti, chicken, and turkey. 2265 S. Third, 775-2304; 150 W. Stateline (Southaven), 662-393-5699. L, D, $-$$

JIM & SAMELLA’S—It’s a revolving menu of soul food delight from Chef Talbert Fleming, with anything from Southern ribs to fried tamales. 841 Bullington, 265-8761. L, D, $

LEONARD’S—Serves wet and dry ribs, barbecue sandwiches, spaghetti, catfish, homemade onion rings, and lemon icebox pie; also a lunch buffet. 5465 Fox Plaza, 360-1963. L, $-$$

MARLOWE’S—In addition to its signature barbecue and ribs, Marlowe’s serves Southern-style steaks, chops, lasagna, and more. 4381 Elvis Presley, 332-4159. D, MRA, $-$$

UNCLE LOU’S FRIED CHICKEN—Featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives for good reason: fried chicken (mild, hot, or home-style); jumbo burgers four patties high; strawberry shortcake, and assorted fruit pies. 3633 Millbranch, 332-2367. L, D, MRA, $ SUMMER / BERCLAIR / RALEIGH / BARTLETT

901 HOT POT & KOREAN BBQ—All-you-can-eat hot pot and Korean BBQ, from short ribs to garlic shrimp. 2965 N. Germantown Pkwy., 512-4963. L, D, $$-$$$

BISCUITS & JAMS—Biscuits, waffles, French toast, and plenty of sharables at this Bartlett breakfast spot. Closed Mon./Tue. 5806 Stage, 672-7905. B, L, $

BRYANT’S BREAKFAST—Three-egg omelets, pancakes, and The Sampler Platter are among the popular entrees here. Possibly the best biscuits in town. Closed Mon. and Tues. 3965 Summer, 324-7494. B, L, $ CEVICHERIA AND GRILL CHILEMON—Ceviche, of course, but also plenty of other postres, aperitivos, and mixed grilled meat and seafood feasts. Closed Sun. 4509 Summer, 672-7905. L, D, $

CHEF FLAVAS AND BARTLETT BREAKFAST FACTORY ”Flavaful” sandwiches, soups, pastas, and more from the makers of the popular local spinach artichoke dip. Traditional breakfast options served by Bartlett Breakfast Factory. Closed Sun./Mon. 6301 Stage, 779-2200. B, L, D, $-$$

DIM SUM KING—All the best from a selection of authentic Chinese dishes: roasted duck, sizzling hot plate, Cantonese BBQ, and plenty more. 5266 Summer, Suite 65, 766-0831. L, D, $-$$

ELWOOD’S SHACK—Casual comfort food includes tacos, pizza, and sandwiches. Specialties include meats smoked in-house (chicken, turkey, brisket, pork), barbecue pizza, and steelhead trout tacos. 4523 Summer, 761-9898. B, L, D, $

EXLINES’ BEST PIZZA—Serves pizza, Italian dinners, sandwiches, and salads. 6250 Stage, 382-3433; 2935 Austin Peay, 388-4711; 2801 Kirby Parkway, 754-0202; 7730 Wolf River Blvd. (Germantown), 753-4545; 531 W. Stateline, 662-342-4544. L, D, MRA, $

HABANA CLUB RESTAURANT, BAR & GRILLE—Offering authentic Cuban fare. 6110 Macon, 480-8173. L, D, $-$$

LA TAQUERIA GUADALUPANA—Fajitas and quesadillas are just a few of the authentic Mexican entrees offered here. A bonafide Memphis institution. 4818 Summer, 685-6857; 5848 Winchester, 365-4992. L, D, $

LOTUS—Authentic Vietnamese-Asian fare, including lemon-grass chicken and shrimp, egg rolls, Pho soup, and spicy Vietnamese vermicelli. 4970 Summer, 682-1151. D, $

MORTIMER’S—Contemporary American entrees include trout almondine, chicken dishes, and hand-cut steaks; also sandwiches, salads, and daily/nightly specials. A Memphis landmark since the Knickerbocker closed. Closed for lunch Sat.-Sun. 590 N. Perkins, 7619321. L, D, $-$$

NAGASAKI INN—Chicken, steak, and lobster are among the main courses; meal is cooked at your table. 3951 Summer, 454-0320. D, $$

NAM KING—General Tso’s chicken, hot and sour soup, and homemade chicken wings are back at the longtime Raleigh Chinese eatery. 3624 Austin Peay, Suite 3, 373-4411. L, D, $-$$

PANCAKE SHOP—Classic breakfast items plus meat-and-three lunches, sandwiches, soups, salads. Open 6 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. every day except Wednesday. 4838 Summer, 767-0206. B, L, $

ÓRALE TACOS & BAKERY—Tacos, enchiladas, and other traditional Southern Mexican dishes alongside baked pan dulces. 2204 Whitten, 571-1786. B, L, D, $-$$

PANDA GARDEN—Sesame chicken and broccoli beef are among the Mandarin and Cantonese entrees; also seafood specials and fried rice. Closed for lunch Saturday. 3735 Summer, 323-4819. L, D, $-$$

QUEEN OF SHEBA—Featuring Middle Eastern favorites and Yemeni dishes such as lamb haneeth and saltah. 4792 Summer, 207-4174. L, D, $

SIDE PORCH STEAK HOUSE—In addition to steak, the menu includes chicken, pork chops, and fish entrees; homemade rolls are a specialty. Closed Sun./Mon. 5689 Stage, 377-2484. D, $-$$

TACO PRIME—Modern taqueria where bold Mexican dishes meet Southern hospitality. 8222 U.S. 64, 585-0858. Closed Sunday. L,D, $-$$

TORTILLERIA LA UNICA—Individual helping of Mexican street food, including hefty tamales, burritos, tortas, and sopes. 5015 Summer, 685-0097. B, L, D, $

UNIVERSITY NEIGHBORHOOD DISTRICT (INCLUDES CHICKASAW GARDENS AND HIGHLAND STRIP)

A-TAN—Serves Chinese and Japanese hibachi cuisine, complete with sushi bar. A specialty is Four Treasures with garlic sauce. 3445 Poplar, Suite 17, University Center, 452-4477. L, D, $-$$$

BROTHER JUNIPER’S—This little cottage is a breakfast mecca, offering specialty omelets, including the open-faced San Diegan omelet; also daily specials, and homemade breads and pastries. Closed Mon. 3519 Walker, 324-0144. B, $

CHAR RESTAURANT—Specializing in modern Southern cuisine, this eatery offers homestyle sides, charbroiled steaks, and fresh seafood. 431 S. Highland, Suite 120, 249-3533. L, D, WB, MRA, $-$$$

EL PORTON—Fajitas, quesadillas, and steak ranchero are just a few of the menu items. 2095 Merchants Row (Germantown), 754-4268; 8361 Highway 64, 380-7877; 3448 Poplar (Poplar Plaza), 452-7330; 1805 N. Germantown Parkway (Cordova), 624-9358; 1016 W. Poplar (Collierville), 854-5770. L, D, MRA, $-$$

PLANT BASED HEAT All of your favorite Southern-style recipes, but deliciously transformed into a vegan format. Specialties include the spicy fye junt burger, or the chopped ‘n’ smoked BBQ jackfruit sandwich. Closed Sun. 669 S. Highland St.; 363 S. Front St. (downtown). L, D, $

EAST MEMPHIS (INCLUDES POPLAR / I-240)

ACRE—Features seasonal modern American cuisine in an avantegarde setting using locally sourced products; also small plates and enclosed garden patio. Closed for lunch Sat. and all day Sun. 690 S. Perkins, 818-2273. L, D, $$-$$$

AGAVOS COCINA & TEQUILA—Camaron de Tequila, tamales, kabobs, and burgers made with a blend of beef and chorizo are among the offerings at this tequila-centric restaurant and bar. 2924 Walnut Grove, 433-9345. L, D, $-$$

AMERIGO—Traditional and contemporary Italian cuisine includes pasta, wood-fired pizza, steaks, and cedarwood-roasted fish. 1239 Ridgeway, Park Place Mall, 761-4000. L, D, SB, MRA, $-$$$

ANDALUSIA— Authentic Moroccan cuisine, including tagines, brochettes, and briouates. 5101 Sanderlin Ave., Suite 103, 236-7784. L, D, $-$$

ANDREW MICHAEL ITALIAN KITCHEN—Traditional Italian cuisine with a menu from two of the city’s top chefs that changes seasonally with such entrees as Maw Maw’s ravioli. Closed Sun.-Mon. 712 W. Brookhaven Circle, 347-3569. D, MRA, $$-$$$

ANOTHER BROKEN EGG CAFE—Offering several varieties of eggs Benedict, waffles, omelets, pancakes, beignets, and other breakfast fare; also burgers, sandwiches, and salads. 6063 Park, 729-7020; 65 S. Highland, 623-7122. B, L, WB, $

BANGKOK ALLEY—Thai fusion cuisine includes noodle and curry dishes, chef-specialty sushi rolls, coconut soup, and duck and seafood entrees. Closed for lunch Sat. and all day Sun. at Brookhaven location; call for hours. 715 W. Brookhaven Circle, 590-2585; 2150 W. Poplar at Houston Levee (Collierville), 854-8748. L, D, $-$$

BELLE MEADE SOCIAL—Upscale Americana cuisine including lamb lollipops, spicy tuna stack, and steak & noodle salad. 518 Perkins Extd., 480-7054. L, D, $-$$$

BELMONT GRILL—Burgers, steak sandwiches, and other classic American fare at one of Memphis’ longstanding bars. 4970 Poplar, 767-0305. L, D, $-$$

BENIHANA—This Japanese steakhouse serves beef, chicken, and seafood grilled at the table; some menu items change monthly; sushi bar also featured. 912 Ridge Lake Blvd., 767-8980. L, D, $$-$$$

BIG BAD BREAKFAST—Fresh biscuits, house-made cured meats, jams, jellies, and more for the most important meal of the day. 6450 Poplar, 881-3346. B, L, $-$$

BOG & BARLEY—An all-Irish fine dining experience by the owners of Celtic Crossing, and a full bar with plenty of beer and 25-year-old Macallan. 6150 Poplar, Suite 124, 805-2262. L, D, WB, $-$$

BROOKLYN BRIDGE ITALIAN RESTAURANT—Specializing in such homemade entrees as spinach lasagna and lobster ravioli; a seafood specialty is horseradish-crusted salmon. Closed Sun. 1779 Kirby Pkwy., 755-7413. D, $-$$$

CAPITAL GRILLE—Known for its dry-aged, hand-carved steaks; among the specialties are bone-in sirloin and porcini-rubbed Delmonico; also seafood entrees and seasonal lunch plates. Closed for lunch Sat.Sun. Crescent Center, 6065 Poplar, 683-9291. L, D, $$$-$$$$

CASABLANCA—Lamb shawarma is one of the fresh, homemade specialties served at this Mediterranean/Moroccan restaurant; fish entrees and vegetarian options also available. 5030 Poplar, 725-8557; 1707 Madison, 421-6949. L, D, $-$$

CHIPOTLE MEXICAN GRILL—Burritos, quesadillas, tacos, salads, and bowls made to order while customers watch. 5865 Poplar, 416-1944; 2046 Union, 729-2640; 4726 Summer, 590-1839; 2110 West St., 2566202; 695 N. Germantown Parkway (Germantown), 416-1944. L, D, $-$$

CHUKIS TACOS 2—Traditional homestyle Mexican recipes. 3445 Poplar Ave., Suite 1, 888-4139. B, L, D, $-$$

CIAO BELLA—Among the Italian and Greek specialties are lasagna, seafood pasta, gourmet pizzas, and vegetarian options. 5101 Sanderlin, 205-2500. D, MRA, $-$$$

CITY SILO TABLE + PANTRY—With a focus on clean eating, this establishment offers fresh juices, as well as comfort foods re-imagined with wholesome ingredients. 5101 Sanderlin, 729-7687; 7605 W. Farmington, Suite 2, 236-7223 (Germantown). B, L, D, $

COASTAL FISH COMPANY—Upscale offerings of international fish varieties utilizing styles ranging from the Carribbean, East Coast, West Coast, China, Philippines, and more. 415 Great View Dr. E., Suite 101, 266-9000 (Shelby Farms Park). D, $$-$$$

CORKY’S—Popular barbecue emporium offers both wet and dry ribs, plus a full menu of other barbecue entrees. Wed. lunch buffets, Cordova and Collierville. 5259 Poplar, 685-9744; 1740 N. Germantown Pkwy. (Cordova), 737-1911; 743 W. Poplar (Collierville), 405-4999; 6434 Goodman Rd., (Olive Branch), 662-893-3663. L, D, MRA, $-$$ THE CRAZY COOP—Plenty of hot wings and sauces, plus sandwiches and other dinner plates. 1315 Ridgeway, 748-5325; 7199 Stage (Bartlett), 433-9212. L, D, $-$$

DAN MCGUINNESS PUB—Serves fish and chips, shepherd’s pie, burgers, and other Irish and American fare; also lunch and dinner specials. 4694 Spottswood, 761-3711; 3964 Goodman (Southaven), 662-890-7611. L, D, $

ERLING JENSEN—For decades, Chef Erling has presented “globally inspired” cuisine to die for. Specialties are rack of lamb, big-game entrees, and fresh fish dishes. 1044 S. Yates, 763-3700. D, MRA, $$-$$$

ERLING JENSEN SMALL BITES—Enjoy Erling Jensen’s specialty dishes in a sharable, small-plate format alongside TopGolf Swing suites. 5069 Sanderlin, 587-9464. L, D, $-$$$

FLEMING’S PRIME STEAKHOUSE—Serves wet-aged and dry-aged steaks, prime beef, chops, and seafood, including salmon, Australian lobster tails, and a catch of the day. 6245 Poplar, 761-6200. D, MRA, $$$-$$$$

FOLK’S FOLLY ORIGINAL PRIME STEAK HOUSE

Specializes in prime steaks, as well as lobster, grilled Scottish salmon, Alaskan king crab legs, rack of lamb, and weekly specials. 551 S. Mendenhall, 762-8200. D, MRA, $$$-$$$$

FORMOSA—Offers Mandarin cuisine, including broccoli beef, hotand-sour soup, and spring rolls. Closed Mon. 6685 Quince, 753-9898. L, D, $-$$

FOX RIDGE PIZZA & GRILL—Pizzas, calzones, sub sandwiches, burgers, and meat-and-two plate lunches are among the dishes served at this eatery, which opened in 1979. 711 W. Brookhaven Circle, 758-6500. L, D, $

FRATELLI’S—Serves hot and cold sandwiches, salads, soups, and desserts, all with an Italian/Mediterranean flair. Closed Sun. 750 Cherry Rd., Memphis Botanic Garden, 766-9900. L, $

HALF SHELL—Specializes in seafood, such as king crab legs; also serves steaks, chicken, pastas, salads, sandwiches, and a ”voodoo menu.” 688 S. Mendenhall, 682-3966; 9091 Poplar (Germantown), 590-4304. L, D, WB, MRA, $-$$$

HEN HOUSE—Hybrid wine/cocktail bar and tasting room with plenty of cosmopolitan eats. 679 S. Mendenhall, 499-5436. D, SB, $-$$$

HIGH POINT PIZZA—Serves a variety of pizzas, subs, salads, and sides. Closed Mon. A neighborhood fixture. 477 High Point Terrace, 452-3339. L, D, $-$$

HOG & HOMINY—The casual sister to Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen serves brick-oven-baked pizzas, including the Red-Eye with pork belly, and small plates with everything from meatballs to beef and cheddar hot dogs; and local veggies. Closed for lunch Mon. 707 W. Brookhaven Circle, 207-7396. L, D, SB, MRA. $-$$$

LA BAGUETTE—An almond croissant and chicken salad are among specialties at this French-style bistro. Closed for dinner Sun. 3088 Poplar, 458-0900. B, L, D (closes at 7), MRA, $

LAS DELICIAS—Popular for its guacamole, house-made tortilla chips, and margaritas, this restaurant draws diners with its chicken enchiladas, meat-stuffed flautas, and Cuban torta with spicy pork. Closed Sun. 4002 Park, 458-9264; 5689 Quince, 800-2873. L, D, $

LIBRO AT LAURELWOOD—Bookstore eatery features a variety of sandwiches, salads, and homemade pasta dishes, with Italian-inspired options such as carbonara and potato gnocchi. Closed for dinner Sun. 387 Perkins Ext. (inside Novel), 800-2656. B, L, D, SB, $-$$

THE LIQUOR STORE—All-day breakfast, sandwiches, and entrees such as Salisbury steak and smothered pork chops. 669 S. Mendenhall, B, L, D, $-$$

LITTLE ITALY EAST—New York-style pizzas galore and homemade pasta. Closed Sun. 6300 Poplar, Suite 113. 729-7432. L, $-$$

MAGNOLIA & MAY—Southern-inspired, family-owned, casual dining restaurant serving up a variety of sandwiches, chef-inspired dishes, and craft cocktails. Popular items include shrimp and grits and the double cheeseburger. Closed Mon. 718 Mt. Moriah, 676-8100. L, D, WB, MRA. $$-$$$

MANDE DIBI WEST AFRICAN BBQ GRILL—Pairs traditional West African BBQ with Memphis BBQ for a menu that offers a wide variety of flavors, including daily specials and vegan-friendly options. 6825 Winchester, 672-8995. L, D, $-$$$

MARCIANO MEDITERRANEAN AND ITALIAN CUISINE—Veal Saltimbocca with angel-hair pasta and white wine sauce is among the entrees; also steaks, seafood, and gourmet pizza. 780 E. Brookhaven Circle, 682-1660. D, $-$$

MAYURI INDIAN CUISINE—Serves tandoori chicken, masala dosa, tikka masala, as well as lamb and shrimp entrees; also a daily lunch buffet, and dinner buffet on Fri.-Sat. 6524 Quince, 753-8755. L, D, $-$$

MOSA ASIAN BISTRO—Specialties include sesame chicken, Thai calamari, rainbow panang curry with grouper fish, and other Pan Asian/ fusion entrees. Closed Mon. 850 S. White Station, 683-8889. L, D, MRA, $

MULAN ASIAN BISTRO—Pan-Asian fare includes sushi and Sichuan dishes. 4598 Spottwood, 347-3965. L, D, $-$$

NAM KING—Offers luncheon and dinner buffets, dim sum, and such specialties as fried dumplings, pepper steak, and orange chicken. 4594 Yale, 373-4411. L, D, $

NAPA CAFE—Among the specialties are miso-marinated salmon over black rice with garlic spinach and shiitake mushrooms. Closed Sun. 5101 Sanderlin, Suite 122, 683-0441. L, D, MRA, $$-$$$

ONE & ONLY BBQ—On the menu are pork barbecue sandwiches, platters, wet and dry ribs, smoked chicken and turkey platters, a smoked meat salad, barbecue quesadillas, Brunswick Stew, and Millie’s homemade desserts. 1779 Kirby Pkwy., 751-3615; 567 Perkins Extd., 249-4227. L, D, $

ONO POKÉ—This eatery specializes in poké — a Hawaiian dish of fresh fish salad served over rice. Menu includes a variety of poké bowls, like the Kimchi Tuna bowl, or customers can build their own by choosing a base, protein, veggies, and toppings. 3145 Poplar, 618-2955. L, D, $

OWEN BRENNAN’S—New Orleans-style menu of beef, chicken, pasta, and seafood; jambalaya, shrimp and grits, and crawfish etouffee are specialties. Closed for dinner Sun. The Regalia, 6150 Poplar, 761-0990. L, D, SB, MRA, $-$$$

PARK + CHERRY—The Dixon offers casual dining within the museum. Seasonal menu features sandwiches, like rustic chicken salad on croissant, as well as salads, snacks, and sweets. Closed for breakfast Sun. and all day Mon. 4339 Park (Dixon Gallery and Gardens), 761-5250. L, $

PATRICK’S—Serves barbecue nachos, burgers, and entrees such as fish and chips; also plate lunches and daily specials. 4972 Park, 682-2852. L, D, MRA, $

PETE & SAM’S—Serving Memphis for 60-plus years; offers steaks, seafood, and traditional Italian dishes, including homemade ravioli, lasagna, and chicken marsala. 3886 Park, 458-0694. D, $-$$$

PF CHANG’S CHINA BISTRO—Specialties are orange peel shrimp, Mongolian beef, and chicken in lettuce wraps; also vegetarian dishes, including spicy eggplant. 1181 Ridgeway, Park Place Mall, 818-3889. L, D, $-$$

PHO SAIGON—Vietnamese fare includes beef teriyaki, roasted quail, curry ginger chicken, vegetarian options, and a variety of soups. 2946 Poplar, 458-1644. L, D, $

PYRO’S FIRE-FRESH PIZZA—Serving gourmet pizzas cooked in an open-fire oven, wide choice of toppings, and large local and craft beer selection. 1199 Ridgeway, 379-8294; 2035 Union, 208-8857; 2286 N. Germantown Pkwy. (Cordova), 207-1198; 3592 S. Houston Levee (Collierville), 221-8109. L, D, MRA, $

RED HOOK CAJUN SEAFOOD & BAR—Cajun-style array of seafood including shrimp, mussels, clams, crawfish, and oysters. 3295 Poplar, 207-1960. L, D, $-$$

RED KOI—Classic Japanese cuisine offered at this family-run restaurant; hibachi steaks, sushi, seafood, chicken, and vegetables. 5847 Poplar, 767-3456. L, D, $-$$

RED PIER CAJUN SEAFOOD & BAR—Owners of Red Hook bring more Cajun-style seafood dishes. 5901 Poplar, 512-5923. L, D, $-$$$ RESTAURANT IRIS—French Creole-inspired classics, such as Gulf shrimp and rice grits congee served with lap chong sausage and boiled peanuts, are served at this newly remodeled restaurant owned by Chef Kelly English, a Food and Wine “Top Ten.” 4550 Poplar, 590-2828. L, D, $$-$$$

RIVER OAKS—Chef Jose Gutierrez’s French-style bistro serves seafood and steaks, with an emphasis on fresh local ingredients. Closed for lunch Sat. and all day Sun. 5871 Poplar, 6839305. L, D, $$$

RONNIE GRISANTI’S ITALIAN RESTAURANT—This Memphis institution serves family classics such as Elfo’s Special and handmade ravioli, along with house-made pizza and fresh oysters. Closed Sun. 6150 Poplar, Suite 122, 850-0191. D, $-$$$

ROTOLO’S CRAFT & CRUST—Louisiana-based pizza company’s first Memphis location, whipping up pizza pies with homemade sauces and fresh ingredients, pasta, wings, and other shareables. 681 S. White Station, 454-3352. L, D, $-$$

RUTH’S CHRIS STEAK HOUSE—Offers prime steaks cut and aged in-house, as well as lamb, chicken, and fresh seafood, including lobster. 6120 Poplar, 761-0055. D, $$$-$$$$

SALSA COCINA MEXICANA—Mexican-Southern California specialties include carnitas, enchiladas verde, and fajitas; also Southwestern seafood dishes such as snapper verde. Closed Sun. Regalia Shopping Center, 6150 Poplar, Suite 129, 683-6325. L, D, $-$$

SEASONS 52—This elegant fresh grill and wine bar offers a seasonally changing menu using fresh ingredients, wood-fire grilling, and brick-oven cooking; also a large international wine list and nightly piano bar. Crescent Center, 6085 Poplar, 682-9952. L, D, $$-$$$

STAKS—Offering pancakes, including birthday cake and lemon ricotta. Menu includes other breakfast items such as beignets and French toast, as well as soups and sandwiches for lunch. 4615 Poplar, 509-2367; 3660 S. Houston Levee Road, Suite 104 (Collierville), 286-4335; 7704 Poplar (Germantown), 800-1951; 2902 May, (Southaven). B, L, WB, $

SWANKY’S TACO SHOP—Taco-centric eatery offers tortas, flatbreads, quesadillas, chimichangas, burgers, and more. 4770 Poplar, 730-0763; 6641 Poplar (Germantown), 737-2088; 272 S. Main. 779-3499. L, D, $

THREE LITTLE PIGS—Pork-shoulder-style barbecue with tangy mild or hot sauce, freshly made coleslaw, and baked beans. 5145 Quince, 685-7094. B, L, D, $

TJ MULLIGAN’S—Cold drinks, comfort food, and plenty of live entertainment. 1817 Kirby Pkwy. (East Memphis), 755-2481; 8070 Trinity, Suite 1 (Cordova), 756-4480; 2821 N. Houston Levee, (Lakeland), 377-9997. L, D, $-$$

TOPS BAR-B-Q—Specializes in pork barbecue sandwiches and sandwich plates with beans and slaw; also serves ribs, beef brisket, and burgers. 1286 Union.,725-7527; 4183 Summer, 324-4325; 5391 Winchester.,794-7936; 3970 Rhodes, 323-9865; 6130 Macon, 371-0580. For more locations, go online. L, D, $ TORCHY’S TACOS—Plenty of Tex-Mex variety, with creative monthly special tacos. 719 S. Mendenhall, 343-8880. B, L, D, $

VENICE KITCHEN—Specializes in “eclectic Italian” and Southern Creole, from pastas, including the “Godfather,” to hand-tossed pizzas, including the “John Wayne”; choose from 50 toppings. 368 Perkins Ext., 767-6872. L, D, SB, $-$$

WANG’S MANDARIN HOUSE—Offers Mandarin, Cantonese, Szechuan, and spicy Hunan entrees, including the golden-sesame chicken; next door is East Tapas, serving small plates with an Asian twist. 6065 Park Ave., Park Place Mall, 763-0676. L, D, $-$$

WASABI—Serving traditional Japanese offerings, hibachi, sashimi, and sushi. The Sweet Heart roll, wrapped — in the shape of a heart — with tuna and filled with spicy salmon, yellowtail, and avocado, is a specialty. 5101 Sanderlin Rd., Suite 105, 421-6399. L, D, $-$$

THE WING GURU—A staple of the Memphis wing scene, featuring everything from classic buffalo to exquisite lemon pepper. 5699 Mt. Moriah, 509-2405; 875 W. Poplar, Suite 6 (Collierville), 221-7488; 8253 Highway 51 North, Suite 103 (Millington), 8720849; 4130 Elvis Presley (Whitehaven), 791-4726; 5224 Airline, Suite 107 (Arlington), 209-0349. L, D, $-$$

WOMAN’S EXCHANGE TEA ROOM—Chicken-salad plate, beef tenderloin, soups-and-sandwiches, vegetable plates, and homemade desserts are specialties. Closed Sat.-Sun. 88 Racine, 327-5681. L, $

CORDOVA

THE BLUE ROOM RESTAURANT—An elevated take on traditional Southern recipes, located in the U of M Kemmons Wilson Culinary Institute. Closed Mon. 1245 N. Germantown Pkwy., Suite 101, 249-7512. D, SB, $$-$$$

BOMBAY HOUSE—Indian fare includes lamb korma and chicken tikka; also, a daily luncheon buffet. 1727 N. Germantown Pkwy., 755-4114. L, D, $-$$

THE BUTCHER SHOP—Serves steaks ranging from 8-oz. filets to a 20-oz. porterhouse; also chicken, pork chops, fresh seafood. 107 S. Germantown, 757-4244. L (Fri. and Sun.), D, $$-$$$ GREEN BAMBOO—Pineapple tilapia, pork vermicelli, and the soft egg noodle combo are Vietnamese specialties here. 990 N. Germantown Pkwy., Suite 104, 753-5488. L, D, $-$$

JIM ’N NICK’S BAR-B-Q—Serves barbecued pork, ribs, chicken, brisket, and fish, along with other homemade Southern specialties. 2359 N. Germantown Pkwy., 388-0998. L, D, $-$$ EL MERO TACO—This food truck turned restaurant serves up Mexican and Southern-style fusion dishes, including fried chicken tacos, chorizo con papas tacos, and brisket quesadillas. 8100 Macon Station, Suite 102, 308-1661. Closed Sun.-Mon. L, D, WB, $ POKÉ WORLD—Serves up Hawaiian poké bowls filled with rice and diced, raw fish. Also offers Taiwanese bubble tea and rolled ice cream for dessert. 1605 N. Germantown Pkwy., Suite 111, 623-7986. East Memphis: 575 Erin, 779-4971. L, D, $ PETALS OF A PEONY—Authentic Sichuan cuisine, from crispy duck to peony fried chicken. Be prepared for spice! 1250 N. Germantown Pkwy., 787-8886. L, D, $-$$

SHOGUN JAPANESE RESTAURANT—Entrees include tempura, teriyaki, and sushi, as well as grilled fish and chicken entrees. 2324 N. Germantown Pkwy., 384-4122. L, D, $-$$ TANNOOR GRILL—Brazilian-style steakhouse with skewers served tableside, along with Middle Eastern specialties; vegetarian options also available. 830 N. Germantown Pkwy., 443-5222. L, D, $-$$$

VILLA CASTRIOTI—From traditional pasta dishes and family concoctions to hand-tossed brick oven NY pizza. 714 N. Germantown Pkwy., 753-3894. L, D, MRA, $$$

Premiering This Month

SEASON 15

Premieres Sun, March 22 at 7 PM

SEASON 1

Premieres Sun, March 22 at 8 PM

Binge all 8 episodes after broadcast premiere

NEW SERIES

Premieres Sun, March 22 at 9 PM

Early Passport releaseBinge all 8 episodes March 1

GERMANTOWN

BLUE HONEY BISTRO—Entrees at this upscale eatery include brown butter scallops served with Mississippi blue rice and herbcrusted beef tenderloin with vegetables and truffle butter. Closed Sun. 9155 Poplar, Suite 17, 552-3041. D, $-$$$

FIRST WATCH—Fresh, made-to-order breakfast, brunch, and lunch creations. 7810 Poplar, 665-5590. B, WB, L, $-$$ GERMANTOWN COMMISSARY—Serves barbecue sandwiches, sliders, ribs, shrimp, and nachos, as well as smoked barbecued bologna sandwiches; Mon.-night all-you-can-eat ribs. 2290 S. Germantown Rd., 754-5540. L, D, MRA, $-$$

LAS TORTUGAS DELI MEXICANA—Authentic Mexican food prepared from local food sources; specializes in tortugas — grilled bread scooped out to hold such powerfully popular fillings as brisket, pork, and shrimp; also tingas, tostados. Closed Sun. 1215 S. Germantown Rd., 751-1200; 6300 Poplar. 623-3882. L, D, $-$$

LIMELIGHT—Wolf River Hospitality Group brings Wagyu beef, duck gnocchi, and other fine dining dishes on a rotating seasonal menu. Closed Mon./Tue. 7724 Poplar Pike, 791-2328. D, $-$$$

LOCAL LIME—Tacos and margaritas in a casual environment, plus other goodies like the Mexican caramel apple crisp skillet. Closed Mon. 7605 W. Farmington, Suite 1, 224-2204. L, D, $-$$$

MELLOW MUSHROOM—Large menu includes assortment of pizzas, salads, calzones, hoagies, vegetarian options, and 50 beers on tap. 9155 Poplar, Shops of Forest Hill (Germantown), 907-0243. L, D, $-$$

MOONDANCE GRILL—From the owners of Itta Bena and Lafayette’s. Serves steak cooked sous vide and seafood dishes including Abita-barbecued shrimp and pan-seared sand dab, in addition to an extensive wine and cocktail list. 1730 S. Germantown Road, Suite 117, 755-1471. L, D, $$-$$$

MR. P’S WINGS—Casual eatery featuring hot wings, burgers, fried fish, and other American food. 2075 Exeter, Suite 35, 587-6777. L, D, $$

NOODLES ASIAN BISTRO—Serves a variety of traditional Asian cuisine, with emphasis on noodle dishes, such as Singapore Street Noodles and Hong Kong Chow Fun. 7850 Poplar, Suite 12, 755-1117. L, D, $ RIO LOBO CANTINA—Mexican and Latin-American cuisine. 3165 Forest Hill Irene Rd., 310-3432. L,D, $-$$

ROCK’N DOUGH PIZZA CO.—Specialty and custom pizzas made from fresh ingredients; wide variety of toppings. 7850 Poplar, Suite 6, 779-2008. L, D, SB, MRA, $$

ROYAL PANDA—Hunan fish, Peking duck, Royal Panda chicken and shrimp, and a seafood combo are among the specialties. 3120 Village Shops, 756-9697. L, D, $-$$

SAKURA—Sushi, tempura, and teriyaki are Japanese specialties here. 2060 West, 758-8181; 4840 Poplar (Memphis), 572-1002; 255 New Byhalia (Collierville), 316-5638. L, D, $-$$

SOUTHERN SOCIAL—Shrimp and grits, stuffed quail, and Aunt Thelma’s Fried Chicken are among the dishes served at this upscale Southern establishment. 2285 S. Germantown Rd., 754-5555. D, SB, MRA, $-$$$

STONEY RIVER STEAKHOUSE AND GRILL—Specializes in handcut steaks, a fresh seafood selection, and plenty of house specials. 7515 Poplar, Suite 101, 207-1100. L, D, $$-$$$$

SUFI’S MEDITERRANEAN GRILL & BAR—Offers authentic Mediterranean and Persian cuisine, from hummus shawarma to traditional moussaka. Closed Mon. 7609 Poplar Pike, 779-2200. L, D, $-$$$ TAZIKI’S—Mediterranean-inspired dishes all made from scratch. 7850 Poplar, Suite 26, 612-2713; 540 S. Mendenhall Rd. (Memphis), 290-1091; 7974 U.S. 64 (Bartlett), 203-0083. L, D, $

THE TOASTED YOLK CAFE—Churro donuts, signature Eggs Benedict, and plenty other boozy brunch options at this franchise’s first Tennessee location. 9087 Poplar, Suite 11. B, L, $-$$

UNCLE GOYO’S—More than 30 dishes with a focus on authentic Mexican cuisine, from the brains behind TacoNganas. 1730 S. Germantown Rd., 310-4855. L, D, $-$$

WEST STREET DINER—This home-style eatery offers breakfast, burgers, po’boys, and more. 2076 West, 757-2191. B, L, D (Mon.-Fri.), $ ZEN JAPANESE FINE CUISINE—A full sushi bar and plenty of authentic Japanese dishes, like Hibachi or Wagyu beef. 1730 S. Germantown Rd., 779-2796. L, D, $-$$$

COLLIERVILLE

BELLY ACRES—Upscale burger restaurant, featuring creative combos such as the Cowboy (fried onion strings, pickled jalapeños, and BBQ saucer, or the Hot Pow with pepper jack and spinach. 3660 S. Houston Levee, 209-0168; 6130 Poplar (Memphis), 707-7638. L, D, $-$$

CAFE PIAZZA BY PAT LUCCHESI—Specializes in gourmet pizzas (including create-your-own), panini sandwiches, and pasta. Closed Sun. 139 S. Rowlett, 861-1999. L, D, $-$$

CIAO BABY—Specializing in Neapolitan-style pizza made in a woodfired oven. Also serves house-made mozzarella, pasta, appetizers, and salads. 890 W. Poplar, Suite 1, 457-7457. L, D, $

COLLIERVILLE COMMISSARY—Serves barbecue sandwiches, sliders, ribs, shrimp, and nachos, as well as smoked barbecued bologna sandwiches. 3573 S. Houston Levee, 979-5540. L, D, MRA, $-$$

DAVID GRISANTI’S ON MAIN—Serving Northern Italian cuisine and traditional Grisanti family recipes. Closed Sun./Mon. 148 N. Main, 861-1777. L, D, $-$$$

DYER’S CAFE—Juicy hamburgers, split dogs, and milkshakes at the historic Collierville restaurant. 101 N. Center, 850-7750. L, D, $-$$

EL MEZCAL—Serves burritos, chimichangas, fajitas, and other Mexican cuisine, as well as shrimp dinners and steak. 9947 Wolf River Pkwy., 853-7922; 402 Perkins Extd., 761-7710; 694 N. Germantown Pkwy. (Cordova), 755-1447; 1492 Union, 274-4264; 11615 Airline (Arlington), 867-1883; 9045 Highway 64 (Lakeland), 383-4219; 7164 Hacks Cross, (Olive Branch). 662-890-3337; 8834 Highway 51 N. (Millington), 8723220; 7424 Highway 64 (Bartlett), 417-6026. L, D, $

CHICAGO STEAKHOUSE AT THE GOLDSTRIKE—1010 Casino Center, Robinsonville, MS, 1-888-24KSTAY / 662-357-1225

FAIRBANKS AT THE HOLLYWOOD—1150 Casino Strip, Robinsonville, MS, 1-800-871-0711

IGNITE STEAKHOUSE AT SOUTHLAND CASINO HOTEL—1550 N. Ingram, West Memphis, AR, 1-800-467-6182

JACK BINION’S STEAK HOUSE AT HORSESHOE—1021 Casino Center, Robinsonville, MS, 1-800-303-SHOE

LUCKY 8 ASIAN BISTRO AT HORSESHOE—1021 Casino Center, Robinsonville, MS, 1-800-303-SHOE

SOUTHLAND CASINO HOTEL’S THE KITCHENS—1550 N. Ingram, West Memphis, AR, 1-800-467-6182

THE STEAKHOUSE AT THE FITZ—711 Lucky Lane, Robinsonville, MS, 1-888-766-LUCK, Ext. 8213

TWAIN’S STEAKHOUSE AT SAM’S TOWN TUNICA—1477 Casino Strip Resorts, Robinsonville, MS, 1-800-456-0711

EMERALD THAI RESTAURANT—Spicy shrimp, pad khing, lemongrass chicken, and several noodle, rice, and vegetarian dishes are offered at this family restaurant. Closed Sunday. 8950 Highway 64 (Lakeland), 384-0540. L, D, $-$$

FIREBIRDS—Specialties are hand-cut steaks, slow-roasted prime rib, and wood-grilled salmon and other seafood, as well as seasonal entrees. 4600 Merchants Circle, Carriage Crossing, 850-1637; 8470 Highway 64 (Bartlett), 379-1300. L, D, $-$$$

JIM’S PLACE GRILLE—Features American, Greek, and Continental cuisine. Closed for lunch Sat. and all day Sun. 3660 Houston Levee, 861-5000. L, D, MRA, $-$$$

MAUVE’S TAVERN—An Irish-themed eatery with elevated tavern classics, from signature burgers to hearty entrees featuring locally sourced ingredients. 78 N. Main on the Town Square, 403-5100. L, D, SB, $-$$$

MAROON BREW CO.—Family-friendly restaurant serving up gourmet hot dogs, smash burgers, chicken, and shareables, all made to pair with beers brewed on-site. Closed Mon. 642 W. Poplar, 799-0354. L, D, $-$$

MULAN ASIAN BISTRO—Hunan Chicken, tofu dishes, and orange beef served here; sushi and Thai food, too. 2059 Houston Levee, 8505288; 2149 Young, 347-3965; 4698 Spottswood, 609-8680. L, D, $-$$

NASHOBA—Offers live music, sports games, and pub classics. Specialties are hot honey flatbread pizza, brisket fried rice, and the Nashoba burger. 4600 Merchants Park Circle, Suite 111, 630-4683. L, D, $-$$

OSAKA JAPANESE CUISINE—Featuring an extensive sushi menu as well as traditional Japanese and hibachi dining. Hours vary for lunch; call. 3670 Houston Levee, 861-4309; 3402 Poplar (Memphis), 249-4690; 7164 Hacks Cross (Olive Branch), 662-890-9312; 2200 N. Germantown Pkwy. (Cordova), 425-4901. L, D, $-$$$

RAVEN & LILY—Eatery offers innovative Southern-inspired cuisine with such dishes as crispy shrimp and cauliflower salad, spiced lamb sausage and parmesan risotto, and bananas foster pain perdu. Closed Mon. 120 E. Mulberry, 286-4575. L, D, SB, $-$$

STIX—Hibachi steakhouse with Asian cuisine features steak, chicken, and a fillet and lobster combination, also sushi. A specialty is Dynamite Chicken with fried rice. 4680 Merchants Park Circle, Avenue Carriage Crossing; 854-3399; 150 Peabody Place, Suite 115 (Downtown Memphis), 207-7638 L, D, $-$$

WOLF RIVER BRISKET CO.—From the owners of Pyro’s Fire Fresh Pizza, highlights include house-smoked meats: prime beef brisket, chicken, and salmon. Closed Sun. 9947 Wolf River, Suite 101, 316-5590; 1350 Concourse Ave., Suite 165, 791-4389. L, D, $-$$

ZOPITA’S ON THE SQUARE—Cafe offers sandwiches, including smoked salmon and pork tenderloin, as well as salads and desserts. Closed Sun. 114 N. Main, 457-7526. L, D, $

ARLINGTON / LAKELAND

BRENDALAY GRILLE—Wide variety of steaks, flatbreads, pasta, soups, sandwiches. Favorites: Brendalay BBQ Shrimp and Cajun Rosemary Shrimp. 6259 Quintard (Arlington), 317-6998. L, D, SB, $$$$

KITCHEN TABLE—“Crafted comfort food that makes you feel right at home.” Steaks, seafood, catfish, chicken, chops, soups, salad, even handspun cotton candy. 12062 Forrest (Arlington), 317-6402. L,D, SB. $-$$

VILLA CASTRIOTI—From traditional family dishes and pasta concoctions to hand-tossed brick-oven NY pizza. 9861 W. Lake District Dr., (Lakeland), 466-8288. L,D, MRA, $$$

OUT-OF-TOWN

BOZO’S HOT PIT BAR-B-Q—Barbecue, burgers, sandwiches, and subs. 342 Highway 70 (Mason, TN).,901-294-3400. L, D, $-$$

CITY GROCERY—Southern eclectic cuisine; shrimp and grits is a specialty. Closed for dinner Sun. 152 Courthouse Square (Oxford, MS), 662-232-8080. L, D, SB, $$-$$$

COMO STEAKHOUSE—Steaks cooked on a hickory charcoal grill are a specialty here. Upstairs is an oyster bar. Closed Sun. 203 Main, (Como, MS). 662-526-9529. D, $-$$$

ELFO GRISANTI’S NORTHERN ITALIAN CUISINE—Grisanti family classics like lasagna, homemade ravioli, garlic bread, and Northern Italian pizza. Closed Sun. 5627 Getwell (Southaven, MS), 662-470-4497. L, D, $-$$

HARRY’S ITALIAN—Authentic Italian dishes using traditional recipes made from scratch, plus steaks and other entrees. 8472 U.S. Highway 51, (Millington, TN), 872-0056. L, D, $-$$$

MANILA FILIPINO RESTAURANT—Entrees include pork belly cutlet with lechon sauce, and shrimp and vegetables in tamarind broth; also daily combos, rice dishes, and chef specials. Closed Sun.-Mon. 7849 Rockford (Millington, TN), 209-8525. L, D, $

MARSHALL STEAKHOUSE—Rustic steakhouse serves premium Angus beef steaks, seafood dishes, rack of lamb, and more. 2379 Highway 178 (Holly Springs, MS), 628-3556. B, L, D, $-$$$

MEMPHIS BARBECUE COMPANY—Offers spare ribs, baby backs, and pulled pork and brisket. 709 Desoto Cove (Horn Lake, MS), 662-5363762. L, D, $-$$

PIG-N-WHISTLE—Offers pork shoulder sandwiches, wet and dry ribs, catfish, nachos, and stuffed barbecue potatoes. 6084 Kerr-Rosemark Rd. (Millington, TN). 872-2455. L, D, $

SAINT LEO—Offering sophisticated pizzas, pastas, sandwiches, and salads. A James Beard nominee for Best New Restaurant in 2017. 1101 Jackson (Oxford, MS), 662-234-4555. D, L, WB, $-$$

SIMON’S—A unique dining experience situated on Court Square in a charming small town, offering Angus steaks, catfish, BBQ brisket. Closed Mon./Tue. 201 N. Main (Bolivar, TN), 731-403-3474. L, D, $$-$$$

SNACKBAR—An intriguing mix of “French Bistro with North Mississippi Cafe.” Serving a confit duck Croque Monsieur, watermelon-cucumber chaat, pan-fried quail, plus a daily plate special and a raw bar. 721 N. Lamar (Oxford, MS), 662-236-6363. D, $-$$$

TEKILA MODERN MEXICAN—Modern interpretations of classic dishes from all over Mexico. 6343 Getwell, (Southaven, MS), 662510-5734. B, L, D, $-$$

WALK-ON’S SPORTS BISTREAUX. Cajun classics: fried alligator, pepperjack boudin, shrimp, gumbo, along with unique specialties. 2715 Snowden Lane (Southaven, MS), 662-870-8379. L, D, $$ WILSON CAFE—An impressive culinary destination in the heart of the Arkansas Delta. Serving jambalaya, Waygu flatiron, butternut ravioli, swordfish & shrimp kabobs, burgers. 2 N. Jefferson (Wilson, AR), 870655-0222. L, D, WB, $-$$$

Moments, Treasured

What to make of significant days after significant loss?

BY FRANK MURTAUGH

I’m marking a first birthday this month. It’s not exactly a celebration, and I need to explain the “first” part. But it is, indeed, a first birthday. My mom, you see, died last November. She was 82 and hit with a cancer — “of unknown origin” — that grew especially aggressive the last two months of her life. As Mom assessed her battle, she told my sister and me, “My body is playing a mean trick on me.” Mom had a Ph.D. in history and crossed the Atlantic Ocean several times, once for a year in Torino, Italy, as my father pursued his own doctorate. But she could be gracefully eloquent with the description of something as glorious as the Pieta or something as sinister as cancer. “Mean trick” said it all.

So I turn 57 this month, but it’s my first birthday without my mom to help make it happy. As big a day as March 4, 1969, may have been for me, it was at least as big for Melinda Murtaugh, as she became a parent that day. I’ve long considered this oddity of birthday celebrations: Isn’t every single one also a “Mother’s Day”? ey remember the moment, after all, better than the prize arrival in the delivery room.

What do we make of birthdays after our parents are gone? Outliving them is the way of nature, the first hope every mother and father has for a newborn. But what do we do with the gratitude felt on a birthday, when our prime benefactors are now memories? I’m a rookie at this endeavor, so forgive my attempts at answering. But I have thoughts.

I was blessed to spend the last three weeks of my mom’s life with her in Seattle, where she moved from Vermont in 2021 to be near my sister Liz’s family. My boss and colleagues allowed me to contribute what I could across the miles for our December magazine, knowing the contributions would be minimal, and with a distracted heart. e challenge of this time with Mom, of course, is that each day got worse. e opposite of a typical visit with someone ill or ailing. But terminal cancer is the opposite of a lot of things.

feeling she’d missed out on visiting time. A silly notion for someone whose body was tiring, but an expression of her appreciation for the moments.

I got to watch the World Series with Mom. e Dodgers’ hero in Game 7 was their catcher, Will Smith. It just so happens my maternal grandmother’s name was Will Smith. (Yes, a boy’s name. She went by her middle name, Cooper.)

Mom smiled the morning after Los Angeles won its championship, as she liked my connecting baseball to her mother. Because she knew there are few things I love more than baseball or my maternal grandmother. ey went together well.

Not knowing how many weeks or days she had — but knowing she was dying — Mom wasted no time wondering about this variable. Virtually every day, she whispered to Liz and me, “I treasure these moments.” (Among the areas Mom’s cancer attacked were her vocal cords.) ere were no more daily chores for her to manage, very little correspondence she could handle, so it was living the best she could, for every hour she could. She’d actually complain a bit after a lengthy nap,

Each of my daughters was able to travel thousands of miles for some treasured time with Mom. One of them was holding her left hand when Mom died; Liz was holding her right. A few minutes later, Mom’s Echo device played her favorite Beatles tune, “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” If AI has reached the point where it can hit that kind of moment so perfectly, sign me up. ese are the “birthday presents.” Each treasured moment I enjoyed with my mom for almost 57 years. How lucky am I? I think of that scene Sally Field nailed in Steel Magnolias, though inverted: is beautiful woman brought me into the world, and I was able to be with her when she left it. How many candles on a cake is that worth?

I’ll relish however many birthdays I have remaining, in large part because Mom will be with me for each one. Same goes for this year’s World Series and the next Beatles song I hear. We spend most birthdays feeling like we’re in a spotlight, and that’s as it should be. When we fi nally realize who turned that spotlight on? at’s when we celebrate our first.