Some folks gently lost their minds recently as a crew was spotted painting the bricks of the former Nineteenth Century Club. The enormous mansion has been home to several restaurants lately and is now taking shape to become Tekila Modern Mexican.
Memphis Heritage said the move was the “last straw” and that the paint job will likely get the property removed from the National Register of Historic Places. One on the Memphis Masonry Preservation Society Facebook group suggested a protest.
Donuts and Such
Posted to Reddit by u/Memphronomicon
By now you’ve likely seen the video of a group of people (armed with pistols and rifles) brashly shutting down a stretch of I-240 to do donuts. It was one of several insane Memphis events caught on camera recently, including a theft raid on a gas station, people looting a FedEx truck, and a fight at Top Golf (below).
“This why I don’t do much in the inner city part of Memphis,” u/_kylanbrown said on Reddit. “I’m 20. I wanna have fun but Memphis just ain’t the place.”
Posted to X by @meka_badazz88
Quick PSA
“This Tuesday someone got caught crankin’ the hog at a popular local coffee shop (you can probably guess which),” u/skeleton_booger said on Reddit. “If you’re getting coffee keep an eye out for The Stroker.”
One of the former Memphis Police Department (MPD) officers indicted in the January beating death of Tyre Nichols agreed to plead guilty in state court, according to Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy.
Desmond Mills is one of five former officers charged in Nichols’ death. He pled guilty to the charges Thursday morning after pleading not guilty in September.
“As part of the global settlement reached between Mills, the DA’s office, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Mills agreed to plead guilty to federal charges of excessive force and obstruction of justice, as well as related state charges related to Nichols’ death,” reads a statement from Mulroy’s office. “He also agreed to cooperate fully and truthfully with both the state and federal investigations, including civil rights investigations by the U.S. Justice Department.”
With this, state and federal prosecutors have recommended a 15-year sentence for Desmond. Though, the final decision will be made by U.S. District Judge Mark Norris. Any time Desmond serves will be in a federal prison.
Mulroy said his office consulted with Nichols’ family, “who support the above agreement.”
“I join Tyre’s family in saying this is a fair result, given Mr. Mills’ level of involvement, and his willingness to cooperate with us,” said Mulroy. “His cooperation will help us bring to justice all those criminally responsible while also identifying needs for systemic reform within the police department.”
Attorneys for the Nichols family, Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, released a statement Thursday morning.
“Desmond Mills’ plea today is entirely consistent with our allegations in the civil lawsuit against the city of Memphis,” the said in a statement. “We stand strong in our belief that these officers, including Mills, acted at the direction of a policy that not only violated civil rights of innocent civilians but which caused needless pain to many.
“The MPD and its SCORPION unit directed, trained, and encouraged officers like Mills to commit baseless and horrific acts of violence against innocent individuals like Tyre Nichols. We vigorously restate our assertion that those policies were behind what ultimately caused Mills and four other Scorpion officers to kill Tyre Nichols.
“Mills was not an individual actor, and as our civil suit continues to unfold, that will become even more apparent.”
The Memphis Flyer is seeking nominations for candidates for our 14th class of 20<30 — the class of 2024.
Simply put, we’re looking to find and honor 20 of the city’s best and brightest young people. Candidates must be no older than 29 on January 1, 2024. Send a brief bio/summary of the nominee’s work and activities and a photo to under30@memphisflyer.com. Use “20<30 Nomination” in your subject header. Deadline for nominations is December 15, 2023.
Posted to Facebook by Memphis In May International Festival
Memphis on the internet.
Fest-troversy
“With a heavy heart, we share the news of the Beale Street Music Festival’s hiatus in 2024,” Memphis in May International Festival (MIM) said in a Facebook post last Thursday.
MIM attributed the move to “soaring expenses and a decline in attendance” and laid much of the blame on the redesign of Tom Lee Park by the Memphis River Parks Partnership (MRPP).
The news baffled many. Cancel it altogether? Not just move it?
Posted to Instagram by Mempho Music Festival
Clarity came last Friday when MRPP and Forward Momentum, the organizers of the Mempho Music Festival, announced a new, three-day music festival to be held in the park next year. Press releases about the move went to reporters’ inboxes, but those involved kept the news quiet on their socials.
Posted to Facebook by Tiffany Harmon
The news warmed up the MEMernet, however. Opinions and speculation flew and some dank memes (like the one above) were born.
A new three-day music festival will head to Tom Lee Park in May, organized by the producers of the Mempho Music Festival.
Memphis River Parks Partnership (MRPP) announced the news Friday afternoon. It came after Memphis in May announced Thursday it would pause its signature three-day music festival, Beale Street Music Festival, for 2024.
The new festival is a partnership between MRPP, Mempho, and a group called Forward Momentum. It is “a group of prominent Memphians focused on the betterment of our city and our music and tourism industries.” It claims its “mission is to ignite the power of live music, creating extraordinary experiences that resonate with the souls of music lovers.”
Carol Coletta, president and CEO of MRPP, said Forward Momentum was “a great fit for a signature music event in Memphis,” given its “successful track record and deep financial strength.”
“Music is in our blood, deeply connected to our Memphis community, and we aim to continue this rich legacy and history by introducing a feature destination event, with major acts and broad appeal, that will keep visitors coming back year after year,” said Jeff Bransford of Forward Momentum.
MRPP explained in a news release that Tom Lee Park is designed to host big music events as a park. The new, unnamed music festival will “dramatically reduce the number of days the park is closed to the public. The agreement states it will be closed no more than 13 days, which compares to the 36 days the park was closed this year.”
“Having Forward Momentum step up to claim that critical May weekend is more confirmation that our investment in Memphis’ riverfront has created a year-round attraction for tourists and locals alike,” said Memphis mayor-elect and Downtown Memphis Commission president Paul Young.
Details of the event are expected to be announced soon.
Muralists from the across the country descended on the Ravine and the Edge District last weekend for the annual Paint Memphis festival.
Tweet of the Week
Posted to X by Paul Young
“THANK YOU MEMPHIS!”
Scary!
Posted to X by @songsbychaplin
Spooky season is upon us and, yes, we know how some of you feel about the phrase “spooky season.” Either way, amazing yard decorations have sprung up all over town.
One Central Gardens home outdoes itself every year with a blend of horror and political commentary. This year’s design has former President Donald Trump behind bars.
Keep an eye on our Insta this month for a reboot of our series on the best Halloween yard decorations in Memphis. If you know of some good ones, send them please to toby@memphisflyer.com.
In late August, YouTuber @atver600 caught a group in Memphis unlawfully unloading a boxcar by hand. This is not the group that robbed a boxcar in Boxtown, nor the duo arrested for lifting Nikes from another train last month.
Those were late at night and very early in the morning. The group @atver600 caught were brazenly operating in the full light of day.
Tricky
Posted to Facebook by David Dahler
This image was posted to the Stop Memphis Crime Facebook group. What turned out to be trickier than the stunts pulled by the rider in the photo? Commenters wondered, “Where are his legs?”
Who to Follow
Posted to X by Memphis Jookin
You won’t regret following Memphis Jookin on X. The dance videos are mesmerizing and stoke that city pride. Don’t miss the funny one to the right on “how to workout in Memphis.”
Okay, granted, El Toro Loco isn’t the kind of hipster-beloved “authentico” Mexican joint you find on Summer Avenue, but if you can find a tastier dish than this grilled shrimp, garlic, rice, melted cheese(!), onions, tomatoes, avocado, peppers, etc. concoction, well, go for it. For my money, a frosty margarita and ETL’s camarones al mojo is hard to beat. — Bruce VanWyngarden
Bruce VanWyngarden sure loves him some camarones al mojo. (Photo: Bruce VanWyngarden)
Best Movie Reference
It’s been dangerous out on these roads the past couple years, what with the reckless driving, drag racing, and donuts being spun around intersections and in the middle of the street. Surely there’s a reason for this ceaseless vehicular tension. Well, according to one mayoral candidate who shall remain unnamed, the root cause of all these out of control drivers is … the movie Grease? Watch out for those Memphis youth, adorned with pompadours and black T-shirts, cigarettes rolled up in their sleeves, taking to the roads in their pink 1948 Ford De Luxe “Greased Lightning” convertibles. It’s chaos out there, I tell ya! — Samuel X. Cicci
These hooligans are behind all the reckless driving in Memphis.
Best Indictment
The Brian Kelsey circus continues. After a federal indictment by a grand jury for violating campaign finance laws, the former Tennessee senator eventually pleaded guilty, was sentenced to jail time, and had his law license revoked. But then he pointed the blame at his original attorneys, before firing them, and hiring new representation, and then this month claiming prosecutors violated his plea deal. Lots of finger-pointing going around, but who is really at fault here? Hopefully there’s a mirror in his cell. — SXC
Best Spelling
Earlier this year, the 36th annual Africa in April Cultural Awareness Festival decided to honor the Republic of … Rawanda? That big ol’ typo was front and center on a festival billboard, with the people of Rwanda left to rue the fact that no one conducted a spell-check. To double down, the billboard featured the green, yellow, and red colors of the country’s old flag, which had been discontinued in 2001. — SXC
Rwanda really got a raw deal from this billboard. (Photo: Reddit by u/Hungry-Influence3108)
Best Beer
The best craft brewers come up with some interesting concoctions, and Memphis has some of the best breweries around. But Meddlesome takes the cake this year with its Mashed Potato & Gravy black and tan, basically a Thanksgiving side dish in a can, that released on April 1st. The only downside is that this beer isn’t, well, real. Oh well, April Fools! — SXC
Too bad these mashed potato beers by Meddlesome aren’t real. (Photo: Meddlesome Brewing via facebook)
Best Solo Debut
A lifelong musician — and member of local bands Spacer and Magik Hours — multi-instrumentalist Cheyenne Marrs released his solo debut in late August. While upon first rotation, moments may give a reminiscent glimmer of The Beatles, Elliott Smith, The Strokes, or The Beach Boys, Everybody Wants to Go Home carries a depth and breadth all its own.
Cheyenne Marrs (Photo: Anna Rose Williams)
A pensive lyrical exploration of isolation and loss, it simultaneously encompasses loneliness and connection, melancholy and hope. The listener is set adrift with sleepy, sweeping guitar riffs that circle like a carousel and build into raucous fits like mood swings, dragging us low only to lift us up again. There’s a playfulness that eases the weight of it, brought in with shimmery synth, the stray jingle of bells, the clang of a xylophone, or the floaty flit of a flute.
In the opening track, Marrs commiserates, “You don’t have to stay down in your hell all alone.” And throughout the album, he muses on the state of not knowing — upon wrestling with the void left when processing a death, fighting one’s way through the darker parts of life, or navigating the shifting landscapes of our innermost thoughts and emotions.
Our editor listened to this full album three times in a row without interruption.
The catchy melodies on standout tracks, “Tweedy Bird,” “Fortune Faded,” and “Call Out” (they’re all standouts, tbh), implanted themselves as earworms for me, and as I write this, the line “I don’t have it all together, but you do — ain’t that what it seems?” is on a loop in my head.
After a few playthroughs, I’m reminded of the not-directly-translatable Welsh word, “hiraeth,” which embodies a grief and longing for a home that no longer exists, or maybe never did — a nostalgic yearning for a time, place, or feeling that cannot be reached.
Recorded in longtime Memphis musician/producer Graham Winchester’s home studio and released on Memphis-based Red Curtain Records, Everybody Wants to Go Home is both a lullaby and an alarm call that takes us on a journey from confusion and desperation to consolation and acceptance as we dig through the shadows and find the light. — Shara Clark
The Memphis Flyer’s annual Best of Memphis readers’ poll is back! We love to celebrate all things Memphis, and it’s time to announce our winners. From restaurants, to spa days, to family outings, and everything in between, our readers have spoken, and you all chose your favorites. Winners with “BOM” next to their name dominated the category, while ties have been noted.
Best of Memphis 2023 was written by Samuel X. Cicci, Shara Clark, Michael Donahue, Alex Greene, Kailynn Johnson, Chris McCoy, Abigail Morici, Toby Sells, Jon W. Sparks, and Bruce VanWyngarden. It was designed by Carrie Beasley with images by Justin Fox Burks.
Thanks to our readers for their nominations and votes. Your favorites are listed on the following pages, but we think you’re the Best of Memphis, too! We reserve special thanks for Colors Agency and Triniti Holliday for the excellent cover shot, and for our advertisers, who help to keep the Memphis Flyer a free publication.
Tourism topped a record-breaking $4 billion in spending in Shelby County last year, up from 2021, and enough to rank second in spending among Tennessee’s 95 counties.
These are the finalized figures from U.S. Travel and Tourism Economics and released recently by the Tennessee Department of Tourism Development (TDTD). The report shows spending here rose 16 percent from 2021’s spend of $3.4 billion to just over $4 billion. The new figure showed growth over 2019’s pre-pandemic activity when tourists spent more than $3.7 billion in Shelby County.
Credit: State of Tennessee
Visitor spending in Shelby County brought more than $391.8 million to state and local tax coffers. State officials said without this tourism money, each Shelby County household would pay $1,105 more in state and local taxes. Tourism spending also supported 27,745 jobs here.
What did visitors buy here? Food and beverage topped the list with more than $1.3 billion spent. Transportation ($956.7 million), accommodations ($669.5 million), recreation ($566.1 million), and retail ($490.6 million) rounded out the top five spending categories.
Credit: State of Tennessee
About 141 million people visited Tennessee last year and spent around $29 billion, a figure higher than the preliminary report issued earlier this year.
“Tennessee is thriving as tourism is soaring,” said Mark Ezell, TDTD Commissioner. “Our industry’s hard work is paying off with record levels of visitor spending and significantly outpacing inflation.”
Shelby County ranked second to Davidson County in spending last year. Nashville saw tourist spending rise 35 percent from 2021 to a record $9.9 billion.
