Month: July 2017

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

Proposed Tax Cut in Jeopardy as Commissioners Reverse Course

CREDIT: JB

After the Shelby County Commission’s marathon 7 ½-hour special called meeting
JB

Key voter Eddie Jones

on the budget Monday night seemed to produce a consensus in favor of a $4.10-cent tax rate (with the final vote pending), Commissioners engaged in a much briefer discussion in committee on Wednesday.

They recapitulated the opposing positions in the far briefer span of 40 minutes, and this time reversed course with a 5-4 party-line vote in favor of a $4.13 rate — one that maintains a revenue base that the administration of Mayor Mark Luttrell regards as stable and that eschews the prospective tax cut that dominated discussion on Monday.

Wednesday’s vote was a pure party-line affair, with the Democrats present voting for the higher rate and the Republicans on hand going for the lower rate. To be sure, the regular Commission meeting scheduled for next Monday, when more Commissioners (probably all 13) will be present, could swing momentum back toward the tax-cut rate, but one fact argues against that.

The fact is that the Commission’s Republicans, at full strength and unified, add up to only 6 out of 13 members and usually need to peel away one Democrat or perhaps two to vote their way — in this case for the $4.10 rate and for a tax cut.

There are two inner-city Democratic Commissioners whose tendency to vote along with the GOP members is almost proverbial. They are Eddie Jones and Justin Ford, both of whom were being counted on by some key Republicans to cross over one more time. Ford was absent on Wednesday, but Jones was there, and he voted along with the other Democrats for the $4.13 tax rate.

Jones was one of the final speakers on the issue in Wednesday’s opening budget committee. His remarks — including a comment that Wednesday’s vote was “not the end of the road, just a fork in the road” — hinted at some residual flexibility on the issue. But, should he stick with the rest of the Democrats on Monday, and should Ford also hew to the party line, both the $4.10 rate and the suburban GOP dream of a tax cut are dead in the water

That outcome would suit the administration just fine. Harvey Kennedy, Luttrell’s CAO, began the tax-rate discussion Wednesday by commenting that, while the administration could make $4.10 work “if it’s the will of the body,” it continued to be opposed to the lower rate as too restrictive. And County finance director Wanda Richards added a warning that the $4.10 rate “down the road will increase our dependence on debt.

From that point on, a mini-version of Monday night’s lengthy debate ensued.

“Giving back to taxpayers” vs. “”a false narrative”

Millington Republican Terry Roland insisted that, during the seven years so far of his tenure, “this is the first chance we’ve had to give something back.” Germantown Commissioner Mark Billingsley argued in like manner: “I’d like to see us put a few dollars back in our citizens’ hands.”

Democrat Reginald Milton, whose special concern these days is public health, particularly the financial needs of Region One Hospital (formerly The Med), said he was “sympathetic” to taxpayers’ desire for some relief, but that, in view of the ongoing medical crisis, it would be “practical to maintain our dollars until we can see what happens.”

George Chism of Collierville would tilt back the other way. Focusing on the need for business and industrial expansion, he said that, for the sake of all citizens, “We gotta have some victories,” meaning a tax rate that would attract, rather than discourage, new investment.

Veteran Democrat Walter Bailey would have none of that, calling the idea of “giving back” a “false narrative:.” He put it baldly: “Rich people don’t need government. The working class and the poor need government services.” And service, he said, was “where we fail.”

After Roland and Republican Heidi Shafer weighed in again for the $4.10 rate (Shafer making a familiar argument that tax cuts spur growth), Bailey called for a vote, which ended with the aforesaid 5-4 outcome.

Van Turner, who as vice chair was presiding over the discussion, substituting for absent budget chair Steve Basar, then pointed out that, for procedural reasons, another vote had to be taken in order to complete the second reading of what was now an amended tax rate.

But first the Commissioners on hand then went through their appointed motions a second time. Roland began by seeming to suggest that, if necessary to support the lower tax rate, he would favor holding up on a prior vote to add 24 Sheriff’s deputies. Billingsley, who chairs the Commission’s law and order committee, said he, too, could “back away” on the new deputies and went on to interject an unexpected and potentially controversial argument.

Heat Over Community Grants and PILOTS

He turned the subject to something that had generated some unexpected heat during Monday’s prolonged debate — the matter of grants to putatively deserving local community causes and organizations. Mayor Luttrell professed hmself “troubled” and “gravely concerned” about how and whether the grants, administered by individual Commissioners from their own designated funds, were being accounted for.

“If you screw it up, you can go to the pokey,” Luttrell said, in support of adding a mechanism to monitor the grant process.

The process of allowing each of the 13 Commissioners to have a de facto fund for designating such outlays — called “community enhancement grants” — had been an innovation during this past fiscal year, one sponsored by Commissioner Milton, and on Monday he and the Mayor engaged in some intense sparring over the issue, with the Commissioner defending the purpose and accountability of the process.

Both Luttrell and Milton had grown hot under the collar, at various points each accusing the other of questioning his integrity.

Re-igniting the argument on Wednesday, Billingsley declared that, if necessary to create the possibility of a tax cut, “we cannot support the fluff,” and he spelled that out to mean the prospect of deleting the Commissioners’ individual community grants. (An amendment to that end by Bartlett Commissioner David Reaves had failed on Monday.)

Suddenly the Germantown Republican adopted a surprising and paradoxical-sounding rhetorical position. “I spend every day fighting for the poor,” he said, characterizing the proposed tax-cut rate as a question of “3 cents for the poor in Shelby County.” Roland chimed in that he, too, could be brought to support a “scorched-earth” policy.

Bailey pointed out what he regarded as the obvious, that cutting taxes was not a concern of the poor but that access to services was.

Both Jones and Roland continued in a populist vein and managed somehow to get on the same rhetorical page, though arguing for different tax-rate outcomes, with Jones denouncing the tax giveaways of the county’s PILOT (payment-in-lieu-of-taxes) arrangements and Roland thundering against the joint city/county EDGE board for its ability, independent of Commission oversight, to approve tax abatements.

Brief as that part of the discussion was, it augured a different, perhaps unifying theme that could potentially be picked up on Monday when, as Turner had said, either the $4.13 tax rate or the $4.10 rate could win out, in whichever case a final reading would be called for in a special called meeting for later next week.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Look Before You Link

Saturday morning dawned clear and bright, but I knew the heat was coming. So I set off around 8 a.m. for a bike ride. I planned to pedal to Overton Park, hit the trails for a circuit or two, then get onto the Hamp Line down Broad and work my way back through Binghampton to Midtown.

When I came to the intersection of McLean and Poplar, I encountered a huge fustercluck of traffic and illegally parked cars on both sides of McLean. There was a line of people out the door of the Exxon station that stretched down the sidewalk for 50 yards.

What in the world?

I worked my way through the mess and continued north, figuring I’d find out later what was going on. What was going on, as everyone in Memphis now knows, was Z-Bo-gate — or Kiosk-gate, if you prefer. All over the city, kiosks set up for folks to pay their MLGW bills were giving people the information that their accounts were paid off. That news, which spread like a California wildfire on social media, was further fueled by a rumor that departing Grizzlies superstar Zach Randolph had given $1 million to MLGW to pay off people’s utility bills.

Thousands of people waited hours in line to spend the $2 kiosk fee, happily exiting with zero-balance MLGW bills in hand, only to find out later that it was all a computer glitch of some sort and they’d just spent $2 — and wasted lots of time — chasing a fantasy.

What does this incident say about Memphis? For one thing, it says that we have a lot of poor people, folks desperate enough to get relief from, say, a $300 utility bill, that they would spend hours on a beautiful Saturday waiting in line, hoping for a miracle. It says further, that social media has the power to lead people down a primrose path of foolishness. And it says people will often believe what they want to believe, even in the face of what common sense or a little fact-checking might otherwise tell them.

But it’s not just poor people or people looking to beat the system who fall for this kind of stuff. That same weekend, thousands (maybe millions) of people on Facebook passed along a pasted-in message urging everyone they knew not to accept a friend request from one Jayden K. Smith, because doing so would expose all their personal information. Or some such hogwash. That was also a hoax, and though it had nothing to do with getting a bill paid, it had everything to do with human gullibility or the lack of initiative to do a little fact-checking before passing along false information as gospel.

We, all of us — rich, middle-class, poor, black, white, brown — are constantly being inundated with news stories, rumors, memes, gossip, videos, and other useful and useless information through our phones and computers. It’s often difficult to discern the difference between what is true and what is just internet horse puckery. The lines are blurred and getting blurrier as cries of “Fake news!” continue to emanate from the highest office in the land. That being the case, we should all keep in mind that the miraculous devices bringing us all this information also give us the ability to deter the spread of falsehoods by making an inquiring phone call or fact-checking via Google or Snopes.

The bottom line is that we all need to remember to look before we leap — or link. Or before we go stand in line for three hours with Jayden K. Smith.

Categories
Book Features Books

Talking to the Tillinghast brothers.

Richard Tillinghast and David Tillinghast are brothers, poets, and children of Memphis. Richard is the author of Journeys Into the Mind: A Book of Places. David is the author of Sisters, Cousins, and Wayward Angels. In advance of their signing in Memphis, I was able to corner the Tillinghasts and ask them a few questions. They are eloquent — and loquacious — fellas.

Memphis Flyer: What was it like growing up with two writers in the house? Did both of you know you were going to be poets early on, and did you read each other’s work? Any competition there?

David: From the start, Richard knew that he would be a writer. My interests lay in other areas, such as sports and girls. I enjoyed hunting and fishing, while Richard was concentrating scholastically. I joined the Navy. I saw lots of the world.

Certainly, there is no competition because that’s in bad taste.

Richard: Competition? Well, of course, all siblings compete with each other, but in this case I would say not so much. In my last couple of years in high school, David was in the Navy and off at college, so we weren’t at home together. I don’t think at that time it was clear to either of us that we’d be poets. I was taking classes with Mr. Callicott and playing drums in a band, and my ambitions were to be a painter and/or a drummer.

I was still playing in bands [when] I went off to Sewanee, and it was only there that it became clear to me I wanted to write poetry and make my living as a college professor.

I’ve known the Tillinghast name for as long as I’ve been a bookseller, and I was told long ago that you are Memphians. Tell me the particulars and what Memphis means to you.

David: Memphis is our hometown, historical as well as actual; our 1888 home on South Cox was way out in the country then. Mother and her two brothers went to Central High School. My grandfather, A. J. Williford, was a prominent attorney in Memphis. I remember hot, sweaty summer nights eating watermelon at the Pig and Whistle. Some of us boys would ride our bicycles to the Malco Theater to watch Randolph Scott. Some afternoons, I would take the street car up to the Falls Building on Front Street where my father had an office.

Richard: Yes, even with the old New England name of Tillinghast, David and I are both Memphians. This identification gets stronger and stronger for me as I get older and now spend my summers at Sewanee.

Our father was a New England Yankee, and our earliest American ancestor came to Rhode Island in 1640. The Williford side of the family has been in West Tennessee since before the Civil War. When you grow up in Memphis, that’s what you are, a Memphian and a Southerner. Though I have traveled all over the world, I am very proud to be from Memphis. David and I both graduated from Central High. I was among those who hung out with Furry Lewis. Bill Eggleston was a friend, and his work epitomizes something important about our region, as do the paintings of Carroll Cloar and Burton Callicott. Jesse Winchester as a singer and songwriter, the great historian Shelby Foote, and Peter Taylor as a friend and mentor are also Memphians whose work means a lot to me.

And my favorite question to ask writers: whom do you read and, if apropos, who influenced you?

David: Of the yonder writers, there is Homer’s Odyssey; the letters of Peter Abelard to Heloise; and of course, passages from Shakespeare, the old English ballads. Moving sketchily forward, there is Bobby Burns, James Whitcomb Riley, Winston Churchill’s histories, W. H. Auden. The Georgian poets of the first war: Wilfred Owen, Edward Thomas, Rupert Brooke. Erich Maria Remarque, John Steinbeck’s stories, Hemingway. On a more immediate level, I was influenced by my mentors George Garrett and James Dickey, not stylistically, but through our everyday contact, which eventually developed into friendship.

Richard: What do I read? Here is my summer reading: Robert Macfarlane’s Landmarks. Dennis Covington’s riveting Salvation on Sand Mountain. Donald Hall’s Essays After Eighty. Two books by Sewanee graduate Jon Meacham: American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House and Franklin and Winston. The Oracle at Stoneleigh Court by Peter Taylor. And I’m re-reading “The Bear” by the greatest of them all, William Faulkner.

Richard and David Tillinghast booksigning at Burke’s Book Store Thursday, July 13th at 5:30 p.m.

Categories
Art Art Feature

Tyler Hildebrand on “Retirement.”

Tyler Hildebrand is getting older.

“I just turned 33 July 3rd,” he says. “I found a gray hair in my beard. It’s the first one. You know what? I’m feeling old.”

“Retirement Party” is the name of his new show of mixed-media (house paint and found objects) works at David Lusk Gallery. “I’m retiring a lot of things. I think this is it for me as a working artist.”

Hildebrand, a former Memphian now living in his hometown of Cincinnati, began drawing as a child. “My grandma was an art teacher. I was never that close to her. I was close with my other grandma, who was just kind of a rough lady. She would cuss, and she would take off her shoe and hit somebody. That happened.”

Hildebrand joined his high school football team and then his football career suddenly came to an end. “I got in trouble and went to rehab in Mexico, so I didn’t get to play my senior year. It was mostly stupid stuff. You’d get arrested for weed. Or you’d steal some liquor from Kroger. And that kind of stuff adds up. So, at a certain point, they’re like, ‘Well, you’re going to have to do some time in juvie.’ It was wild. It was an experience. It was cool.”

And he said, “I wanted to be a tough guy. But, looking back, I wasn’t as tough as I thought.”

Hildebrand majored in illustration when he was at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida. After graduation, Hildebrand, who married his high school sweetheart, Emily, opened Hilde’s Gallery and sold his own work.

Hildebrand and his wife moved to Memphis after he got a scholarship to Memphis College of Art. Memphis, he says, “is one of my favorite places. It has a weird feel here. It’s just authentic. And sort of dark. It’s got some kind of an aura about it. Some history. Some ghosts. Something’s going on here.”

Hildebrand developed his style, which he calls “a little edgy.”

He created his “Mohawk Blvd.” series, which were based on a tough Cincinnati neighborhood, where he used to get in trouble when he was younger. He created fictional characters that populated the area.

After he and his wife moved to Nashville, Hildebrand created another series called “Lumberjack Road,” which was based on their lower-middle-class Nashville neighborhood that was filled with food chains. “There was this sculpture where this lumberjack cut this lady’s head open at this table, and it was just White Castles coming out of her head. That was it. Waffle House and White Castles were everywhere.”

He and his wife moved to Baltimore, where Hildebrand got a job teaching drawing at the University of Maryland. “That’s when I really kind of started painting whatever I wanted to paint. And I started feeling older.”

One painting in the Lusk show includes several colorful Snoopy rugs. “You like Snoopy when you’re a kid.”

The painting also includes the face of Johnny Cash, one of his heroes along with Waylon Jennings. Jennings “was a rebel before punk rock or anything. He and Johnny Cash were the outlaws.”

And the painting includes a depiction of a man defecating on a wall. “It’s like young to old. And this is the reality. This is real life now. I’m not in this adolescent fairytale anymore. This is real. I’ve got to do stuff. Make money.”

His Lusk show includes about a year-and-a-half of work. “I feel like this is my last hurrah. There’s a lot of work. I’ve got a 9-to-5 job now I really like. It’s a desk job. I work at a college. I do sort of administrative stuff. But I’m liking the routine. I like it better than being alone in a studio kind of weirding myself out.”

Instead of spending time painting, Hildebrand is “worrying about getting the gutters fixed and stuff like that. Just normal stuff. My wife and I are trying to start a family. I kind of like the normal stuff a little bit.”

But then, he said, “I might start painting flowers.”

At David Lusk Gallery through July 29th

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Finding Fela at Art Village Gallery

Skin is a political expression, and Fela Kuti used to show a lot of it in the 1960s and ’70s. First, he wore open shirts. Then no shirt. Then, eventually, the revolutionary singer, bandleader, multi-instrumentalist, and pioneer of Afrobeat wore nothing but the briefest briefs and the disfiguring map of scars he collected at the hands of Nigerian authorities. Fela was a complicated and tireless agent of change, pushing back against government corruption. The vibrant music he made — a pan-African fusion with a twist of James Brown — brought Fela money and fame. It also brought soldiers to the door of his nearly autonomous compound. He was arrested more than 200 times, and beaten even more frequently as he fought his multi-front battle against colonialism, corruption, poverty, and personal demons.

Fela Kuti

Finding Fela, showing at South Main’s Art Village Gallery Friday, July 14th, is a tightly packed documentary by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney. It’s built around the creation of the Tony-winning musical Fela!, a challenging live show that seemed to defy all conventions of the typical Broadway musical. Twenty-minute, primarily instrumental songs and Pan-Africanist politics weren’t the sort of things audiences were accustomed to seeing on the Great White Way, even in 2010. The show would have to be as innovative and unconventional as the man it portrayed.

Finding Fela uses the Broadway show as a framing tool as it digs deep to tell the multifaceted story of musical and conventional revolution, with the aid of interviews and fantastic archival footage.

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Zip-Tie Drag Races this weekend

Roadkill editor Elana Scherr wants motorsports to be for everybody. “Imagine a dog show where all the dogs are rescues,” she says, describing the kinds of drag races she promotes. “That’s the Zip-Tie Drags.”

Scherr’s the editor of Roadkill Magazine and Roadkill.com, which are aimed at a community of car enthusiasts who want to race and work on cars without breaking the bank. “We’re not about 100-point restorations,” Scherr says, describing the casual, recreational Roadkill vibe. “We’re about friends getting together, getting some beverages, and working on [rescue] cars over a weekend.”

Roadkill’s Zip-Tie Drags were created as a gathering place for fans of the magazine and lifestyle. “Motorsports can be intimidating,” Scherr says. “People are like, ‘Can I bring my crappy Toyota Celica to this muscle car race?’ Or, ‘All I have is a mini van. Can I still hang out?” At a Zip-Tie event, the answer is always yes.

Roadkill Zip-Tie Drags

“We have what’s called the $3,000 hooptie challenge,” Scherr says, spelling it out: “H-O-O-P-T-I-E.” It’s a race exclusively for cars valued at $3,000 or less.

“Rather than best, fastest, and most expensive cars, we’re looking for the worst — real piles. We want cars so bad people would gladly sell them for $3,000 or less.

“I should point out, we do have a safety check,” Scherr adds. “We’re not letting people do something dangerous.”

So, if all you’ve got is a mini van, can you still hang out? The last Zip-Tie event found two different mini-vans squaring off against three Ford Festivas, a Dodge Shadow, and a Buick with every body panel a different color. The threshold for entry is low.

Roadkill web series stars David Freiburger and Mike Finnegan (who’ve yet to win a challenge) will be on hand to meet fans, sign autographs, and answer car questions.

Categories
Cover Feature News

Memphis’ Most Iconic Hamburgers

It seems like lately the hamburger is taking up a larger chunk of our culinary landscape. Why is that?

John T. Edge is the director of the Southern Foodways Alliance and author of the recently released Potlikker Papers. But, more importantly for our purposes, he is the muse behind Hog & Hominy’s John T. Edge Burger, which was named best burger in the country by Food & Wine last spring.

In 2005, he published a book titled Hamburger & Fries, one in a series that included Fried Chicken and Apple Pie.

Edge had an inkling of the coming burger wave when he was writing his 2005 book, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it then. “I think it’s been building. I saw the beginnings of it in the early 2000s. There’s a way to pin that to 9/11 and the aftermath of 9/11 and a deepening appreciation of the American vernacular food. It’s not just hamburgers; it’s fried chicken; it’s apple pie,” he says. “All of those singular American foods we’ve come to appreciate. And I think in this political divisive moment we live in now, you can extend that out to iconic American food — that in a moment when it’s difficult to take pride in our political leaders, you can take pride in our cultural creations, and one of our singular cultural creations is the hamburger.”

It’s Burger Week, y’all. The Flyer has teamed up with 15 local restaurants for a $5 burger deal. $5! You can’t beat that. Check out the Burger Week spread on page 20, or go to memphisflyerburgerweek.com for all the details.

In the spirit of Burger Week, we dedicate the cover space to some of Memphis’ most iconic hamburgers. Enjoy, and go eat you a burger. — Susan Ellis

Rocky Kasaftes

The Greek Burger

His dad, Alex Kasaftes, served “a great ham sandwich” when he opened Alex’s Tavern in 1953, says Alex’s son, Rocky Kasaftes. “My mom would cook the ham at home in the oven. Maybe use brown sugar, Coca-Cola, and cloves,” he says. “Daddy would bring the ham over here and set it in a rack. He would slice the ham off the rack.”

Alex eventually sold hamburgers. Rocky’s mom, Eugenia, also sold hamburgers when she owned Highpoint Grill, the fore-runner to High Point Pub.

Rocky and his mom began serving hamburgers in the mid-’70s at Alex’s Tavern, but Rocky, who now owns Alex’s, soon made the burgers his own. “Someone brought me a thing of Cavender’s, the Greek seasoning.” He began using Cavender’s on the burgers as well as a “special kind of pepper, too. Not regular pepper. Seasoned pepper.”

Rocky likes to cook his burgers in a skillet. “When it’s almost done, I put that cake dome on top of it. It kind of steams that cheese.”

Rocky’s hamburger has had a few names over the years. “They used to call it the ‘Alex Burger.’ The ‘Rocky Burger.’ I like the ‘Greek Burger’ ’cause we’re Greek. That’s what’s in the window. That’s what I like. In respect to mom and dad.” — Michael Donahue

Alex’s Tavern, 1445 Jackson, 278-9086

Huey Burger

You want to know how to make a good burger? There’s no better person to ask than Jimmy Lee, general manager of Huey’s Germantown. Lee’s been with the company for 20 years — about the length of time Huey’s has been dominating the burger category in the Memphis Flyer Best of Memphis polls.

Huey’s famous hamburger got its start in the early 1970s while Thomas Boggs was still just a bartender in Midtown. “John Gray’s Big Star was right around the corner on McLean,” says Lee. “There wasn’t much on the menu back then, but they did do a burger. Our kitchen manager in Midtown, Terry Gant, would walk over to John Gray’s meat market with a shopping cart and buy ground chuck. He would patty up the burgers by hand. Then the company developed our special seasoning. … The meat that we’re buying today is certified Angus beef, which is better than what we were using back then. But the way we cook and season the burgers has remained largely unchanged in the last 40-plus years.”

Boggs would eventually buy the business and, with his partner Jay Sheffield, build the little dive into an iconic regional franchise. “We don’t mash the burgers. That was one of the things Thomas Boggs taught us. It’s a major taboo. It squeezes all the juices out.”

In addition to the classic Huey Burger, a number of specialty burgers have cropped up on the menu in recent years. New topping combinations, such as the West Coast’s guacamole and Monterey Jack combo, are developed by Huey’s employees in periodic, in-house contests. Huey’s Burger Week contribution, the Bluez 57 Burger, came out of one such contest. — Chris McCoy

Huey’s, multiple locations, hueyburger.com

Justin Fox Burks

Acre Burger

Acre Burger

Why are so many restaurants — upscale and otherwise — creating such fantastical burgers these days? Who’s responsible for this gourmet burger trend that’s sweeping the country? Why, Memphis restaurateur Wally Joe, of course.

Not really, but the affable owner-chef at Acre restaurant does joke that some of his chef friends have pinpointed the beginning of the over-the-top burger craze with the cheeseburger that Joe created circa-2003 for his former restaurant, Wally Joe’s.

“Fredric Koeppel of the CA wrote about it, and it just took off,” Joe remembers.

And it does sound pretty good.

“We used trimmings from in-house, dry-aged ribeyes for the meat,” Joe says. “We created a house-made horseradish brioche bun, added black truffle cheese and tomato confit, and served it with hand-cut fries.”

Wally Joe knows a thing or two about great food. He’s been cooking since he was a kid, beginning at his family’s restaurant, KC’s, in Cleveland, Mississippi, back in the mid-1990s. He was the first Mississippi chef ever invited to cook at the famed James Beard House and is a master of several types of cuisine.

So what makes a great burger?

“The most important thing is that it can’t be lean beef,” Joe says. “You want about an 80 percent lean/20 percent fat ratio. Ground chuck is probably the perfect beef for a good, home-cooked burger.”

And what kind of burger does Joe serve now at Acre? “Just your basic burger — good beef grilled to order, aged cheddar, lettuce, tomato, horseradish. What’s more all-American than a burger?” — Bruce VanWyngarden

Acre, 690 S. Perkins, 818-2273, acrememphis.com

The Soul Burger

Soul Burger

Earnestine & Hazel’s, the weathered but somehow elegant dive at the northwest corner of South Main and G.E. Patterson, one of several bistros in the stable of legendary folk restaurateur Bud Chittom, fairly drips with grease, spice, and history.

So does the Soul Burger, the basic but well-layered hamburger that has been devoured many thousands of times over by Memphians and tourists, the famous and unfamous alike, since the establishment, once upon a time a church, then a pharmacy (owned by Abe Plough), then a bordello (run by the eponymous ladies of the current establishment’s name) became a restaurant for good in 1992, thanks to Russell George.

George offered one specialty, the Soul Burger, and that, served with packages of chips and washed down with sodas or beer, is still the staple meal, one that’s been dubbed a classic in connoisseurs’ journals around the world. Cooked on a long tabletop grill that’s decades old, the Soul Burger starts out with mayonnaise and mustard mixed on the bottom half of a bun, then gets a well-done beef patty still oozing its own natural grease, pickles are added, shortly to be topped by a layer of cheese, then a succulent pile of thoroughly grilled onions, and finally doused in a spicy “Soul Sauce” made according to a closely guarded recipe. A top bun finishes off the tasty masterpiece, some 600 specimens of which can be cooked and served on a busy weekend day, claims veteran counterman Clarence Connery, who with irrepressible bartender Karen Brownlee, carries on the tradition of George, who died in 2013, and equally revered manager Keenan Harding, who passed away in June.

The Soul Burger still reigns as does Earnestine & Hazel’s itself, its lower walls covered with testimonial portraits from movers, shakers, and stars, the upper walls dotted with vintage vinyl records put there when episodes of the recent TV series Sun Records were filmed there, the establishment’s famous jukebox and its dance-and-performance floor ready to party. — Jackson Baker

Earnestine & Hazel’s, 531 S. Main, 523-9754, earnestineandhazelsjukejoint.com

Justin Fox Burks

David Acklin of Jerry’s Sno Cones

Jerry’s Burger

Six days a week, David Acklin wakes up at 5 a.m. to begin his routine. He makes a few stops on his way to work. One at Superlo Foods for some ground beef, then to Easy Way for tomatoes and lettuce, to Sam’s Club for other supplies, and lastly to a couple of banks.

Then he drives to a small pink and green shack on Wells Station — better known as Jerry’s Sno Cones — to begin preparing for the day ahead.

Jerry’s is often known for its sno cones, but for the past eight or nine years, its burgers have begun making a name for themselves.

Acklin, owner of the 50-year-old dive, says the reason Jerry’s burgers have a reputation of being good is because he tries to make each burger like one he would make at home and as fresh as possible.

“I could pick up a frozen patty like everyone else, but we’re just not going to do that,” he says. “No two of our burgers are shaped the same — I promise you that.”

Each morning before Jerry’s opens for business, Acklin personally seasons the beef, forms them out one-by-one by hand, then weighs each one to be sure it is right at one-third of a pound.

He says although Jerry’s will sell about 250 burgers each day, he wants to keep it “old school” by having just one person cooking the burgers and another grilling butter-coated buns.

Jerry’s offers burgers with the basic accoutrements like cheese, lettuce, tomato, and mayo, as well as nine specialty burgers like one with pesto, one with chili and cole slaw, and another with teriyaki sauce and pineapple.

Each burger has a story, Acklin says. He enjoys recreating burgers that others were excited to tell him about or one from a special occasion, like the ’70s burger, topped with Swiss cheese, worcestershire sauce, and mushrooms, which is based on a burger Acklin’s sister told him she had on her first date.

One of Acklin’s goals for Jerry’s is to have a real contender for one of the top three burgers in the city.

“We don’t have to be No. 1,” he says. “Number two or three is good for me.”

— Maya Smith

Jerry’s Sno Cones, 1657 Wells Station, 767-2659, jerryssnowcones.com

Tawanda Pirtle

Pirtle’s Burger

“No frills hamburger” is what Tawanda Pirtle calls the burgers sold at the eight locations of Jack Pirtle’s Chicken.

Pirtle, who owns the chain with her husband, Cordell, also refers to them as “American grilled,” “Southern grilled,” and “a very filling plain-old-fashioned grilled” hamburger. “Cheese, lettuce, tomato, onions, and pickles,” she says. “And mustard, mayonnaise, and ketchup, if you prefer.”

They’ve been selling hamburgers as long as they’ve been selling chicken, Pirtle says. “We’ve been doing hamburgers since we opened in 1957. Mr. Pirtle always believed you had to have a variety so your customers would eat with you every day.”

They use a “special seasoning” on the burgers, Pirtle says. “The seasoning we use is a seasoning Mr. Pirtle came up with himself. It’s a special Jack Pirtle’s seasoning.”

That seasoning accounts for the tastiness of the burger, says Pirtle, who wouldn’t divulge even a single ingredient. “Just a mixture of spices we call ‘good stuff.'”

The hamburgers are grilled on “just an old fashioned flat grill. And we toast our buns on the same grill.”

For a place that has the word “chicken” in its title, hamburgers are “very popular,” Pirtle says. “Our hamburgers are not as popular as our steak sandwich, but we’ve always sold a lot of our hamburgers.”

Has anyone ever ordered chicken on their hamburger? “We haven’t had that yet, but it’s not that we wouldn’t do that. Can you imagine having a burger and a couple of grilled tenders or fried tenders laid across it? That might be pretty tasty.” — MD

Jack Pirtle’s Chicken multiple locations, jackpirtleschicken.com

Belmont Burger

Belmont Burger

The Belmont Burger doesn’t look like a lot of hamburgers you see around town. It’s served on a French loaf instead of a hamburger bun, but it’s been a favorite of customers at Belmont Grill for decades.

They began serving the burger “when we took over The Belmont in 1984,” says manager/owner Jeff Anderson.

They began using the French loaf right away. “It’s always been done like that. It’s different than anything else that was out there at the time. Everybody had a burger, but it was totally different than what anybody had. So, that’s what made it unique. That’s how the popularity started. The French loaf and the sauce we put on it before we charbroil it.”

Anderson wouldn’t elaborate on that sauce. “We just call it the ‘black sauce.’ That’s as far as we go.”

As for the cooking method, Anderson says, “It’s cooked on a charbroiler. It’s just an open flame. The marinade definitely helps give it a unique taste. And the French loaf. It’s not a burger bun. You get a little more of a crispy bite to it.”

The Belmont Burger has “always been our No. 1 seller,” Anderson says. “We probably sell six times more than any other sandwich. In a day’s time, 50 to 100. It just depends.” — MD

Belmont Grill, 4970 Poplar, 767-0305

Roxie’s Burger

Roxie’s Burger

In May 2016, fire engines rushed to Roxie’s Grocery, the tiny Uptown market on Third Street. Local hamburger aficionados held their breath. When the store finally reopened, April 1, 2017, an oversized crowd showed up to welcome them back.

“We ran out of everything,” Keisha Edwards recalls, describing the happy chaos of opening day. “We ran out of cups. We even ran out of ground beef.”

Roxie’s is sometimes described as a “best kept secret,” although the sundry and kitchen where longtime regulars gather out front to sit on milk crates and shoot the breeze over cornbread and daily specials, has been serving the Uptown/Greenlaw neighborhood for 33 years. During that time, it’s earned a strong word-of-mouth reputation for dishing up tasty soul food and one of the biggest and best-dressed flat-top burgers in town.

“In the world,” Edwards corrects. Edwards, Roxie’s official historian, says the key to a good burger is love — and patience. “You’ve got to let it take as long as it takes,” she says. “You don’t want to rush it.”

Edwards personally recommends the Mr. Goodburger as her ideal of what the perfect burger should be. It ups the ante with two spicy, bun-challenging patties, bacon slices, and three different cheeses. “I want a burger that’s a complete meal,” she says.

— Chris Davis

Roxie’s Grocery, 520 N. 3rd, 525-2817

Memphis’ Most Iconic Hamburgers

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1481

Dammit Gannett

“Rustic Steakhouse Offers Feast for the Eyes, Food Challenge for Carnivores,” a dining/lumber column by Commercial Appeal scribe Tom Bailey, reads like it was shot through Google Translate a couple of times at least.

“The nearly open Marshall Steakhouse lords over I-22 just west of Holly Springs, promising a Mid-South dining experience like none other,” it begins. Then Bailey introduces owner Randall Swaney, a billboard executive who liked steakhouses so much he built one. According to the CA, “He hopes to open on July 14 his restaurant that has the outdoor influences of Loflin Yard or Railgarten and an indoor atmosphere that is part hunting lodge, part Peabody lobby.” Best passage: “Interstate travelers likely won’t be impressed by their backside view of the two-story, metal building, perched on Swaney’s six-acre strand between I-22 and Old Highway 178. But those who take Exit 26, swing around to Old Highway 178, and step onto the wood front porch — enlivened with a monumental, carved-wood, hand-painted sculpture of a Native American chief — enter new territory.”

Hole Foods

“Butthole” was on every American’s tongue last week, and the international incident, now known to everybody with an internet connection as #buttholegate, was Memphis’ fault.

Here’s what happened according to the prudes at The Washington Post (Yes, The Washington Post): “A woman named Chelsea Bartley left a two-star Google review of the Imagine Vegan Cafe, saying that even though she ‘eat[s] here all the time’ and ‘still probably will bc … there are few options,’ was disturbed by a recent incident in which the restaurant owner’s ‘bare butt naked baby was running around, stood up on a table with its black theyre [sic] so dirty feet, and bent over to show me it’s b——-.’ “This is a family newspaper,” the reporter noted parenthetically, explaining the censored “utthole.”

Categories
News The Fly-By

One Year After the Bridge Protest: Now What?

A few-dozen people gathered in Tom Lee Park last Sunday to commemorate the more than 1,000 protesters who blocked the I-40 bridge one year ago to rally for justice in the wake of the then-recent killings of several black men by police officers.

Sunday’s afternoon of events, organized by the Coalition for the Concerned Citizens of Memphis (C3), featured “street theater” comprised of skits related to social justice and meant to shed light on the “real obscenities” the C3 believes people of color currently face in society.

Some skits touched on immigrant rights and police brutality, while others paid tribute to individuals such as Alton Sterling and Martin Luther King Jr.

Al Louis, 63, a member of C3, was involved in the protest last year. He said he believed it was one of the greatest protests in the history of the city, but added there has not been nearly enough change in Memphis since last year, citing the small percentage of the city’s business receipts that minority businesses hold as an example.

“There are no laurels to rest at,” said Louis. “This event is just to honor ourselves for a minute, then get right back on the grind.”

The Coalition for the Concerned Citizens of Memphis (C3)

However, Louis says he is beginning to see a cross-racial effort that he did not expect to see in his lifetime. “This I’ve never seen before,” he said, regarding Sunday’s gathering. “It’s an effort among people of all hues and ethnic backgrounds. This is progress I never imagined I’d see in my lifetime.”

Representatives from five organizations, including the Memphis chapter of Black Lives Matter and Inward Journey were at the park Sunday, each with ideas about what needs to happen in the city for equality to be realized.

Another group present was Movimiento Cosecha, a nationwide organization that is in the process of being launched in Memphis. Volunteer Coordinator with Movimiento Cosecha, Roberto Juarez said that as immigration tension rises in the country, the group wants to be able to get the undocumented community to come together and fight back strategically.

He said the group organizes systematic boycotts and strikes, encouraging the community to have their voices heard by using their labor and consumer power.

There were also members of Show Me 15, who say they want to see the crime rate in the city go down and wages go up.

While the skits played out at Tom Lee Park, just a few blocks away, more activists celebrated the anniversary of the protest with a march from Robert Church Park to City Hall. In what was called March for 1,000 Children, youth from all around the city came to write down what they want to see change in the city. Their suggestions were collected in a box.

Organizers of the march say it was designed to send Memphis city officials a message that more changes need to take place.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Dueling Visions

The voices of Shelby County commissioners audiby changed during the course of Monday’s special meeting — a  marathon affair that had been called to deal with a budget that was already past its July 1st deadline. Toward the end of a meeting that started at 3 p.m. and adjourned at 10:15 p.m., the commissioners sounded either strident (maybe “strung out” is closer) or exhausted.

What had not changed was the substance of what they were saying. The commissioners — or at least what seems to be a working majority of them — remained fixed on a course that will give their constituents a tax cut of from 1 to 3 cents on a still-to-be-determined tax rate.

Mayor Mark Luttrell, who was as edgy as anybody on Monday, went with the flow and reluctantly consented to budget amendments that cut close into what he sees as a necessary fiscal reserve. But he is clearly resolved to do what he can between now and the fixing of the tax rate to either scale back the amendments or keep the rate close to the level of 4.13 cents, a status-quo figure adjusted to the latest county property assessment and designed to generate the same amount of revenue as the current pre-assessment rate of 4.37 cents.

Luttrell made it clear that he wants to have enough of a discretionary fund on hand to deal with exigencies. That was the case also two years ago, when the administration and the commission had a similar disagreement, one that ultimately saw a win for the mayor in the slowing down of what had been a pell-mell move toward a tax decrease and then the aborting of that tax-cut initiative altogether.

Luttrell had held the line back then, pleading that the county had infrastructure needs (it plainly did), and the tax rate held firm. The mayor’s victory proved to be a pyrrhic one, however — especially as the county’s general fund, even with a good deal of overdue paving and other infrastructure work taken care of, turned out in an ad hoc audit to have a significant and unforeseen surplus: upwards of $20 million. That was enough, contended the commission’s tax relief advocates, to have underwritten the gift to the taxpayers that they had intended but, ultimately, under pressure from the administration, had backed away from.

That was essentially the casus belli for what has turned out to be a two-year power struggle between the mayor and his commissioners. The commission, with two fired-up Republicans, Heidi Shafer of East Memphis and Terry Roland of Millington in the lead, and with a sufficient number of other suburban Republicans, along with fellow-traveling inner-city Democrats, following, began campaigning for new commission perks, including a greater share in budgetary decisions, and to that purpose, the acquisition of an independent commission attorney so as to augment its own oversight.

The commission ultimately got a lawyer approved, former commissioner Julian Bolton, though both his title and his function are more tightly circumscribed than the commissioners preferred. And the battle goes on, with both sides taking as much as they can and giving up as little as they have to. Right now the $4.10 tax rate seems to be holding, but sans a vote, some or all of that hard-earned three-cent discount could vanish in further negotiation, as could other budget goodies voted on on Monday. (More details this week in Politics Beat blog.)