Author: Lesley Young

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Two new bakeries: Two Girls and a Whip and Lucy J’s

How many artists does it take to make an edible masterpiece?

Two.

And a whip.

Actually, a whip is a whisk, and the artists are Mary Katherine Dunston and Courtney Lollar, two women who have been making custom cakes for a decade apiece and who recently opened their own cakery Two Girls and a Whip in the South Main neighborhood in October.

“We deal primarily in all things cake and cake related,” says Dunston, who works in the fondant medium.

Lollar is on the buttercream side of things, Swiss meringue buttercream as a matter of fact, a less sugary version of traditional icing, and between the two of them, they’re a perfect match.

“Courtney does everything I don’t do. We’re a perfect marriage,” Dunston says.

They offer custom cakes and cupcakes — think floating unicorns and fishnet wedding cakes, gourmet cakes and cupcakes, and boozy cakes and cupcakes.

Everything is divided into three categories: Basic Betties – chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, lemon, etc.; Fancy Nancies — Nutter Butter, Pay Day, Snickers, carrot, etc.; and Top Shelf Boozy Suzies — White Russian, Pina Colada, Strawberry Margarita, and Irish Carbombs — with real alcohol, y’all.

Prices range accordingly. Cakes can go anywhere from $35 to $2,600. That’s a 60-hour cake we’re talking about here, a version of which you can see on display in the shop.

Lollar got her start making ice cream cakes for Ben & Jerry’s while a student at MCA (yet another creative transplant to Memphis thanks to the fine arts college), and Dunston made her first fondant cake on a whim to take to a party.

“It was a Pittsburgh Steelers helmet, and I screamed and cried,” Dunston says. “I made my own fondant. I had no idea you could go to the cake store and buy it. I spent $150 on just the stuff to make it, and I screwed up the fondant five times.”

Dunston contacted Lollar a couple of years ago about doing a dessert food truck together, and Lollar suggested opening an actual bakery.

“I was like, wow, okay, let’s do that,” Dunston says.

“It can be stressful, but it’s fun,” Lollar says.

• Tracy and Josh Burgess are opening Lucy J’s Bakery in Crosstown Concourse later this year that will not only serve up pastries, pies, and other sugariness, but also provide a living wage to their employees. That’s right, all employees will start out at $15 an hour.

“It’s unheard of here,” Tracy says. “And they will all have health benefits through the Church Health Center.”

That’s not all. They plan on hiring at least half of their employees from the Dorothy Day House, a nonprofit which assists families who are battling homelessness.

The Dorothy Day House, located in Midtown near the Concourse, houses three families at a time, giving them a place to live, providing job placement opportunities, and eventually finding them new furnished homes with the first month’s rent covered.

The Dorothy Day House, unlike other shelters, allows the whole family to stay together.

Tracy is the director of development for the DDH, and Josh, who has a long history in the restaurant business, is the executive director of Lucy J’s.

Lucy J’s, named for the couple’s children, Lucy and Jacob, will offer danishes, cupcakes, cakes, custom cakes, pies, breads, muffins, and other favorites, and there will be a pay-what-you-can coffee option, with all the profits going to the Dorothy Day House.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

All that and avocado toast: Park + Cherry and Edge Alley

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

You’ve probably tasted some of their inspired eats if you’ve been to any of the Dixon special events over the last several years.

You know, their hopsicles like Wicked Apple made with Boston lager and hard apple cider and Lunar Lemon made with Blue Moon and hard lemonade.

I’m speaking of wife and husband duo Kristi and Kevin Bush, of CFY Catering, and now you can taste their artful entrees full-time by paying a visit to the Dixon Gallery and Garden’s Park + Cherry.

In July, the couple took over the year-old restaurant, which originally debuted under the charge Wally Joe, who left Park + Cherry to focus his efforts on Acre.

“We were doing so many events here, it was almost our home away from home,” Kevin says. “Three-fourths of the people who work here, we have done their wedding, so it was a good fit for us and a good fit for them.”

Their focus is on sandwiches and salads and fresh-made sweets as well as a full coffee menu.

“We enjoy the science of cooking, but we also enjoy the art of cooking. That’s what attracted us here,” Kevin says.

I’ve been on a sort of extended avocado toast tasting safari as of late, and while there is no winner, the Bush’s would be in the final running.

They pickle their avocado and offer generous portions of it atop cream cheese and brioche finished off with greens ($4). You also can’t go wrong with the Ancient Grain Salad, with quinoa, farro, spinach, and grapes tossed in a white balsamic vinaigrette ($10). There’s the Pork & Cherry sandwich, with pork loin, cherry gastrique, chicharrones, and lemon aioli ($10), and the Prosciutto & Peach, with prosciutto de Parma, gruyere, roasted peaches, and balsamic reduction on a homemade croissant ($8), and, like I said, a display case full of freshly made desserts.

Desserts are their specialty. They started their own wholesale dessert business while Kristi was pregnant 10 years ago.

They also started an herb garden at the garden, which they use daily, and serve Edge coffee.

“Kristi and I always find inspiration through places other than food. Coming here is already inspiring walking through the galleries and gardens,” Kevin says. “It’s a great escape for Memphians.”

Park + Cherry by CFY, inside the Dixon Gallery and Gardens, 4339 Park, 761-5250, dixon.org. Hours 10 a.m.- 4 p.m., Tues.- Sat., Sun. 1-4 p.m.

Speaking of Edge coffee, I lived in the Edge district several years back and prayed and prayed and prayed for a coffee shop there. I guess I had to move for it to manifest. You’re welcome.

Edge Alley opened three months ago next door to High Cotton Brewing on Monroe, and it’s all you want in a coffee shop and then some.

Actually it’s not even a coffee shop.

“I like to say we’re a restaurant with a great coffee program,” says owner and chef Tim Barker.

They offer direct-trade Thai coffee from the Chiang Rai region, which they roast in house and serve any number of ways. They also sell their roast to other restaurants in town (like the Dixon).

“It’s rare and not easy to source,” Barker says. “We work with only one bean that works with all extraction methods.”

I found the Americano nice and strong, or “with a bitter walnut taste,” according to Barker.

The avocado toast is neck-and-neck with Park + Cherry’s (Barker recommended the Bush’s avocado toast without my even asking). Edge Alley serves all of their sandwiches and toasts on a biscuit-croissant hybrid.

“It’s flaky layers that you can pull apart, and the layers are made of biscuit dough,” Barker says.

The avocado toast is topped with an herb purée and an herb vinaigrette ($6.50). The menu changes daily and is what Barker calls “hyper-seasonal.”

They have biscuit gnocchi, shrimp and grits, a big farmer’s plate, and coffee-style braised brisket.

They also just launched a dinner menu upon getting their liquor license, so expect some different serving hours and check social media for their daily offerings.

“Our food style is upscale comfort food, with an emphasis on simplicity and quality,” Barker says. “We stay away from the precious food movement and focus on recognizable dishes that are high-quality.”

Also, leave some time for shopping. Edge Alley houses four micro-retail businesses from vintage clothing to interior design.

“We wanted to invest in the neighborhood, so we tried to offer on some scale what the neighborhood is missing,” Barker says.

Edge Alley, 600 Monroe, 425-2605, edge-alley.com. Hours Mon.-Fri. 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., Sat. 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., Sun. 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.

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Cover Feature News

Mid-South Mindfulness

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

One day recently when I was trying to meditate, one of the many whack-a-mole thoughts that popped into my head was, “I wonder what Thich Nhat Hanh would have to say about Ken Burns’ The Vietnam War?”

Thich Nhat Hanh, known as Thay — Vietnamese for teacher — among his fellow practitioners, is a world-revered Vietnamese Zen Master who was exiled from his home country in 1965 for objecting to the Vietnam War.

Justin Fox Burks

My thoughts did not stop there. I thought he probably wouldn’t watch it because it’s about killing people and that would contradict two of the five Mindfulness Trainings, what are called the Five Precepts in other Buddhist traditions, the first of which is not to support any kind of killing and the fifth of which is to be mindful of what you consume, including media.

I spent four days at Thich Nhat Hanh’s practice center and monastery in Batesville, Mississippi, Magnolia Grove, in May, and my experience convinced me to attempt to uphold these Five Mindfulness Trainings — reverence for life; practicing true happiness with generosity of mind, speech, and action; practicing true love in my relationships; practicing loving speech and deep listening; and being mindful of what I consume, physically and mentally. (Disclaimer: I am human.)

People, this shit works.

When I returned home, the chronic pain I had been wrestling with for close to five years and for which I had seen eight orthopedists, three physical therapists, and countless other specialists, was just … gone. I won’t attempt to explain it. I had been trying to intellectually cure it for years. I just had to be in a place where I could stop. And be. Every moment, just be.

Justin Fox Burks

I quit rushing to finish brushing my teeth. I quit dragging my body around to hurry up and walk to meditate and get that over with so I could rush to lunch so I could gulp some food down my gullet so I could try to go and force myself to take a nap. You get the idea.

Plus, there was a sweetness there. Who can be angry and negative when you are surrounded by monks and nuns laughing and playing with dogs, when each monastic’s smile is distinctly beautiful, when all anyone around you has to offer is love and compassion, when the food is So. Damn. Good. and you are encouraged to delight in Every. Single. Bite?

You’re probably wondering how Thich Nhat Hanh came to set up a monastery in Mississippi.

Valid question. His first monastery and practice center, Plum Village, was established in 1982 in southern France, where he eventually settled after his displacement. In 2000, he set up Deer Park in Escondido, California, and in 2007, Blue Cliff Monastery in Pine Bush, New York.

Perhaps the seed for setting up a Buddhist practice center in the Mid-South was planted several decades ago.

In the mid-1960s, while on one of his many speaking tours in the U.S., Thich Nhat Hanh became friends with Martin Luther King Jr. while both were spreading their messages of nonviolent resistance. King would later nominate Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize.

That seed was watered when Thich Nhat Hanh held a Peace Walk in Memphis in 2002.

“At least 2,000 people joined, and the Vietnamese community saw such a large crowd, they developed the aspiration to find a place to make into a Plum Village practice center,” says Magnolia Grove nun Sister Boi Nghiem. “At the time we already had a center in Vermont [which moved to New York] and in California, and we wanted something in the central United States.”

A group of families purchased 120 acres in Mississippi, just south of Sardis and just north of Batesville, and in 2005, Thich Nhat Hanh officially accepted Magnolia Grove as a practice center.

Justin Fox Burks

So what exactly is Magnolia Grove Monastery?

An intentional community is a close description. Around 30 monastics live there, where they practice Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings, mindfulness trainings, and meditation. Every Sunday, they open the center to the community, where anyone can come for the day to meditate, practice mindful walking, mindful eating, listen to dharma talks, engage in dharma discussions, and eat the most wonderful food to ever cross your lips.

“It’s a place for people to come to learn how to live in the present moment and pause from the busy-ness of daily life,” Sister Boi says. “It’s a place to find moments of peace in everything and breathe and a place to get in touch with what is in your heart. It’s a place where you can realize the wonders of life are in the here and now.”

“People really enjoy the serenity and peacefulness of the land,” says Magnolia Grove monk Brother Phap Huy, also called Brother Radiance. “When we ring the big bell at 5 in the morning, people will stop their car and come and just listen. The ringing of the bell is a great way to quiet the mind into a peaceful mind.”

They host various retreats at the monastery throughout the year, such as the one I attended, and visit nearby communities, including Memphis, a couple of times a year to host a Day of Mindfulness.

Speaking of which, on Saturday, October 7th, they will return to Memphis for a Day of Mindfulness at Church of the River, downtown. This one will be a little different, though, as there will be 120 monastics from all four practice centers around the world.

Every other year, more than 100 monastics from Thich Nhat Hanh’s four monasteries travel throughout the U.S. to plant and water seeds of compassion, peace, and mindfulness. This year’s tour is themed Awakening Together. Saturday’s Day of Mindfulness, called “Be Free Where You Are,” will include walking meditation, a dharma talk, a brown bag mindful lunch (the monastics invite the community to bring a vegan lunch if you can), and deep relaxation (think sleep) followed by a Q & A. The Day of Mindfulness is free, but donations are always appreciated. The event will run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

“It’s very rare for people to see 100 monastics in the South,” Sister Boi says. “To come and observe how we walk together and to feel that, you have to come and see it directly.”

The Memphis Day of Mindfulness will be followed by a Day of Mindfulness at Magnolia Grove on Sunday as well as a six-day retreat with the touring monastics at Magnolia Grove, October 10th-15th. Space is limited for this retreat.

Justin Fox Burks

Also for the curious observer, on Thursday at the Malco Paradiso, there is a special screening of the documentary Walk with Me, directed by Marc J. Francis and Max Pugh and narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch, which explores the lives of the monastics in Plum Village and what it means to devote their lives to mindfulness. The screening is at 7:30 p.m., but at 6:30, 15 monastics will gather at the fountain near the iBank building for a meet-and-greet and a walking meditation to the theater. Tickets must be purchased in advance. To do so, go here: https://gathr.us/screening/20486.

Thich Nhat Hanh is a peace activist, global spiritual leader, and author who has published more than 100 titles and sold more than three million books in the U.S., including his well-known Peace Is Every Step and The Miracle of Mindfulness. He has established six monasteries and a dozen practice centers around the world with 600 monastics living out his teachings and practicing them with their communities. King described him as “an apostle of peace and nonviolence.”

For more information about Magnolia Grove, Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings, and a calendar of upcoming events, go to magnoliagrovemonastery.org, or just drive to 123 Towles Road in Batesville on a Sunday. It will change your life. I promise.

“What’s nice about our practice is that we practice with the community,” says Sister Boi. “We’re building community through the purpose of mindfulness, through the art of living peacefully in the present moment.”

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Food & Drink Food Reviews

The Kitchen expands with Next Door; another Mama Gaia

Crosstown Concourse is at it again with another addition to their fun selection of eating places. Next Door Eatery, a sister restaurant to The Kitchen, opened at the end of last month and should prove to maintain a steady clientele through lunch and dinner.

The concept is the same as The Kitchen — locally sourced, clean eating that tastes good. Next Door aims to lower the cost and make the food even more accessible.

“We tried to create a menu with a broad appeal that would reach a wide audience,” Colin Ness, director of operations for all of the Next Doors, says. “We are trying to limit the no vote.”

That includes trying to reach vegetarians, vegans, and the gluten-free audience.

In addition to a nice variety of salads, there’s the Roasted Veggie Bowl with seasonal veggies served over quinoa and topped with sunflower seeds and their cilantro tahini dressing ($11.95); Veggie Tacos ($9.95); and a Beet Burger ($8.95), as well as a nice selection of Snack & Share bites and appetizers.

Cheft Drury Baswell (left); Friday’s special — fish and chips

One of their most popular items is their burger, which can be ordered “50/50” — a patty mixed with cremini mushrooms to cut down on the calories ($11.95).

They offer daily specials, soups, craft cocktails, a patio, and an environment that mixes contemporary and rustic styles.

“We want to offer something to the construction worker who is looking for an incredible tasting burger to families, millennials, urban professionals, and everything in between,” Ness says.

The Crosstown location is the second Next Door to open, the first being in Boulder, literally (I literally mean literally) next door to the first Kitchen. The Memphis location was the first expansion out of state, and there are more in the works.

The Kitchen and Next Door were launched by Kimbal Musk, Jen Lewin, and Hugo Matheson in an effort to serve healthy food that is responsibly sourced and tastes good. The nonprofit The Kitchen Community grew out of this effort, which uses a percentage of profits from the restaurants to build Learning Gardens in schools across the country so that students can learn the importance of real food. There are around 100 gardens in Memphis so far.

“We couldn’t be more excited about the team we’ve put together in Memphis,” Ness says. “Being in Crosstown Concourse is such an exciting and unique opportunity. How could we not be a part of it?”

Next Door Eatery, 1350 Concourse, Suite 165, 779-1512, nextdooreatery.com. Hours 11 a.m. to close daily.

When Philipp and Cru Peri von Holtzendorff-Fehling decided to open their first all-organic vegetarian restaurant Mama Gaia in Crosstown Concourse, they always had the idea they wanted to expand.

They just didn’t know it would happen so quickly.

“We were talking to Philip West and Dorothy Pugh [of Ballet Memphis], telling them what we were up to at the time, and we were not even open at Crosstown yet,” Philipp says.

One thing led to another, and the four of them quickly realized they were all on the same page.

“They were considering food and beverage options, and we were telling them about our concept of offering food that is healthy, delicious, and fast,” Philipp says. “We were what they were looking for. They just didn’t know it before they met us.”

Just five months after launching their first restaurant, the couple is offering Mama Gaia 2.0 in the exquisitely archimania-designed Ballet Memphis in Overton Square. The architectural firm won an award for the Crosstown Mama Gaia space already.

This one is round and all windows and light with touches of Elektra Eggleston — daughter to the photographer — textiles in green leaf patterns.

This space offers some options the other does not, such as the Copia Petitzza, a pizza made out of pitas with oven-roasted zucchini, eggplant, peppers, onion, and leeks over olive basil sauce and topped with cheese (vegan option offered) and basil ($7.50), as well as Pita Wedges served with house-made tzatziki sauce ($3), quinoa patties made for dipping in marinara sauce ($4), and a full coffee bar (my personal fave).

And there are cocktails.

“Everything is made fully organic with fresh-squeezed juices and herbs,” general manager Cy Washer says.

That means organic vodka, gin, and tequila. As of now, they haven’t found organic rum and bourbon, so they offer non-GMO versions.

The Crosstown Cooler comes with fresh-squeezed cucumber and lime, mint, and The Botanist gin, and the Allegro is puréed berries with vodka ($9-$11).

Due to space and a few other restraints in the electrical department, there are a few things left off the menu, but look for brunch with waffles and crepes, a tastily stocked grab-and-go cooler, and a thoughtful calendar of events to come.

“We are so happy to be in Overton Square and are looking forward to finding out what’s going on and do some programming around that as well as what’s going on with the Ballet,” Philipp says.

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Food & Drink Food Reviews

On taking a new approach: Stanley Bar-B-Que and Red Fish

CREDIT: Bianca Phillips

It’s never too late to find your passion, and for career bartender Andy Walker, that passion has turned out to be smoking meats.

“For the first 20 years of my career, I stayed as far away from the kitchen as possible,” Andy says. “Now, barbecue is a real passion for me. You’d be surprised what you’re really good at.”

Andy is one of the brothers and sons, behind Stanley Bar-B-Que, formerly Schweinehaus, in Overton Square.

He owns and runs the eatery with his brother, David, who is not new to the restaurant business nor to barbecue — he was on a barbecue-cooking team for Memphis in May for years, studied at the French Culinary Institute, and was an executive chef in New York before returning to Memphis to be with his family.

Andy and David opened Schweinehaus with their parents, Stanley and Martha, in 2014 once David returned to the Mid-South to be with his family while his father was being treated for congestive heart failure. Stanley passed away just after Christmas last year.

The brothers had already been adding more and more barbecue items to the menu in response to the demand they heard for it in the Overton Square area. They fully transitioned from a German beer hall to a barbecue restaurant in November, and officially changed the name to Stanley Bar-B-Que earlier this summer to not only match the name with the product but to also honor their dad.

“Dad always loved barbecue,” Andy says. “He would treat himself to ribs at the Rendezvous once or twice a year.”

They offer the full monty — ribs, pulled pork, chicken, turkey, and brisket. They can do Picnic Packs, ranging anywhere from a four-pack for $22 to a 12-pack for $59, with quarts and pans of sides that can feed from 50 to 300-plus. They have barbecue nachos, smoked whole wings, Texas chili, and homemade pies made by Mom.

“We have people who come in and buy whole pies,” Andy says. “They might be our best-seller.”

They kept some of the Schweinehaus favorites, more for survival instinct than anything else.

“We kept the things we would get murdered for taking off the menu,” Andy says.

That includes Beer Fries, with shoestring fries, beer cheese, chili, sour cream, and pico de gallo ($7); their popular pretzel, with beer cheese and Schweinehaus Mustard ($8); Sauerkraut Balls, with apple butter ($9); and Fried Brussels, with bacon, citrus vinaigrette, candied almonds, and balsamic onions ($9).

Lately they’ve been giving the space a makeover, giving it a “softer” look than the heavy wood tables and iron chandeliers.

“We’re painting, adding more chairs, finishing out the stage, and adding more TVs,” David says. “I like to say we’re a work in progress all the time. In the restaurant business, you have to constantly be your own worst critic.”

Stanley Bar-B-Que, 2110 Madison, 347-3060. stanleybbq.net, Facebook, UberEATS, Bite Squad. Hours Sun.-Thurs., 11-1 a.m., Fri. and Sat., 11-2 a.m.

After a short-term dance with high-end dining, restaurateurs Dana Chen and Shon Lin decided to refocus their efforts on what they know.

The couple opened Izakaya on New Year’s Day to much fanfare. Memphians clamored to get a look at the historic Nineteenth Century Club, which the couple restored for a $4 million price tag, but changeovers and other difficulties led them to shut the doors just four and a half months later.

They own three other restaurants, including two Red Fish Sushi Asian Bistros in Olive Branch and Lakeland and Kublai Khan in Southaven, and felt that a Memphis-based Red Fish would be a good fit.

On July 1st, the well-appointed mansion on Union reopened its doors as Red Fish, recently complete with a new sign and sculpture designed by local artist Yvonne Bobo.

“We felt like a lot more people in the area can experience the Nineteenth Century Club,” Chen says. “We have a new price point that everybody can afford.”

Bianca Phillips

Cashew Tofu from Red Fish

They offer a wide range of sushi options, hibachi dishes, bento boxes, stir fry, and a section of the menu dedicated to “Deep Fried Chicken” options.

Chen says sushi and chicken are their top sellers.

“We have the best sushi in town,” she says. “That’s what all of our customers tell us.”

Justin Fox Burks

Other top sellers include General Tso’s Chicken and Golden Sesame Chicken ($9.95 lunch/$12.95 dinner). Things expand quite a bit for dinner, with an appetizer menu that offers crab puffs and beef tataki and chef specialities like Chilean sea bass, served with roasted corn, jumbo lump crabmeat, onion, garlic, asparagus, and seafood sauce ($34.95) and yuzu filet mignon, served with julienned vegetables and Yuzu wasabi sauce ($31.95).

These days Shon is running the kitchen, and they’re waiting for the right time to open the upstairs again.

“It’s a beautiful building, and everybody can come in and experience it while eating some really excellent food,” Chen says.

Red Fish Sushi Asian Bistro, 1433 Union, 454-3926. redfishbistro.com, Facebook. Hours Sun.-Thurs., 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., Fri.-Sat., 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Now open in Crosstown Concourse: French Truck and I Love Juice Bar

For a while there, the running joke was that Geoffrey Meeker‘s laundry smelled like coffee.

That’s because the former chef was determined to roast the perfect coffee bean with a five-pound roaster that he operated in his laundry room.

And that is how French Truck Coffee was born.

Based out of New Orleans, the coffee roaster and shop holds itself to high standards — sourcing its beans directly from farmers around the world, delivering the freshest roast possible, and pulling the perfect espresso every time.

“The highest standard for Geoff is Blue Bottle Coffee,” says Memphis French Truck partner Jimmy Lewis.

Ah, Blue Bottle Coffee. I have stood in line in Williamsburg. It was pretty darn good, even if there was a dizzying amount of beards and tattoos and scarves.

Lewis came into the picture just over a year ago once he saw the potential for growth of his coffee roasting business, Relevant Roasters.

After several conversations with Geoff, the two created a partnership, and a Memphis French Truck Coffee was born.

“I recognized I needed help and that I wouldn’t, couldn’t, and shouldn’t do this alone,” Lewis says.

Recently Lewis and Meeker have expanded from their original location on Tillman, the former Relevant Roasters shop and roastery, into the Crosstown Concourse building.

Situated in the central atrium of Concourse, the shop offers one of the most interesting people-watching opportunities in the city.

They also offer a tasty menu. The Waffle Sandwich with egg, prosciutto, and goat cheese is sensational ($9), and their avocado toast rivals any in the city, with red pepper and pickled red onion (one $6/two $9). They have a variety of toasts, actually, including B.N.B. — that would be bacon, Nutella, and basil (what?!), bacon date — bacon, date, ricotta, and pistachio crumbles, and other savory and sweet choices.

They import their pastries from Porcellino’s and have some specialty fizzy teas they can whip up for you.

For now, food is offered until 2 p.m. Hours will expand, but first they hope to remodel their Tillman location from a roastery and cafe into just a cafe where they will offer a similar menu, making the Concourse location the primary Memphis roaster.

So far, there are six French Truck Coffee locations — two in Memphis, three in New Orleans, and one in Baton Rouge.

Look out, Blue Bottle.

French Truck Coffee, 1350 Concourse, 878-3383. Open Mon.-Fri. 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sat.-Sun. 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. 584 Tillman, 458-5599. Open Mon.-Thurs., 7 a.m. to 1 p.m., Fri. 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sat. 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sun. 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. frenchtruckcoffee.com.

Part of the core mission of the Crosstown Concourse concept is to provide an environment of health to its residents and visitors, with gyms and many medical businesses setting up shop in the monolithic structure on Cleveland.

So it makes sense for I Love Juice Bar to join the party.

“I talked to them a long time ago, before the whole project here got started,” says Memphis I Love Juice Bar owner Scott Tashie. “I’ve always liked the old buildings here, and I took notice and interest in the building.”

The juice, smoothie, and wellness shop will host the opening of its second location in the Concourse building, along with the block party the project is hosting for its grand debut to the community, this Saturday, August 19th.

The first Memphis I Love Juice Bar opened in September 2015, bringing a menu of fresh and organic juices, wellness shots, smoothies, and clean grab-and-go foods to Midtown on Cooper.

Tashie also ran Cosmic Coconut, a similar concept on Sanderlin by the Racquet Club, which he recently reimagined as City Silo Table and Pantry, a restaurant concept offering most of the same smoothies and juices, but with an expanded menu of tasty breakfast, lunch, and dinner dishes.

“This location will be like the Midtown one, but with a few different grab-and-go items and some new, really neat products like bars and snacks,” Tashie says. “We will have a fully stocked grab-and-go section with quick juices you can grab, spring rolls, sandwiches, our Pad Thai bowls, and we make it all here.”

The 800-plus square-foot space will offer some indoor seating as well as open onto the block-long “patio” of Crosstown Concourse.

“It’s been a lot of fun working with the concept here with the columns inside the space, and we designed these special wooden doors to slide in when we are closed,” Tashie says.

Folks can enter either from outdoors via the patio or from inside the building.

Tashie says he’s excited to be a part of the Crosstown Concourse vision.

“It has been cool to watch this take place, and it will be interesting to watch everyone come in and out,” Tashie says.

He also thinks his product has something to offer the space.

“We have a community feel at our shop in Midtown, and it will carry over here,” Tashie says.

I Love Juice Bar, 1350 Concourse. Open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days a week. ilovejuicebar.com.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Now open: Beale Sweets Sugar Shack and 901 Scoop

Dawn Likens

Fudge from Beale Sweets Sugar Shack

Woodworking, gardening, horses. Everybody has a passion. For Beatrice Bryant, it’s fudge.

Thankfully for this self-appointed fudgeologist, her passion is also her career, and she has the opportunity to share this love of butter and cream and sugar with people from all over the globe. Right on Beale Street.

With the help of Beale Street Management general manager Jeff “Goose” Goss, Bryant opened Beale Sweets Sugar Shack at 156 Beale earlier this summer.

“Goose came in Bass Pro, where I was the team leader of the General Store, and he saw all the fudge, and within five seconds he said, ‘We need to talk,'” Bryant says.

She was already planning to go on medical leave for a knee replacement, so it was an easy transition from working as a manager at the Pyramid to running a candy store on Beale.

You can’t leave the shop without escaping her enthusiasm.

Her newest favorite is Tiger Butter, a basic vanilla fudge in glorious Tiger blue. Previously, she was pushing her caramel fudge, which she nicknamed God’s Gift to Fudge — a sort of pralines and cream that comes with the verbal instructions to “shut up and suck.”

“You let the fudge melt in your mouth along with the caramel,” she says. “Enjoy it, and take your time. It’s candy, right?”

Of course, there’s more than just fudge in the wood-lined sugary playground. All sorts of old favorites are shelved and stacked and barrelled, including everyone’s old favorite — candy cigarettes.

“Everybody asks for those,” Bryant says. (I asked about the gum cigarettes. They have the powdered sugar you can blow out like smoke. No, I did not leave with a pack. They were out.)

She has gummy pizzas and gummy sushi and five-pound Rice Krispies Treats and even chicken-and-waffle taffy.

The alcoholic candy is a big seller, and she plans on expanding her line of fudge to include a cinnamon-roll flavor with Fireball.

There are no limits to her fudge-making genius.

Watermelon, Blue Suede Shoes for Elvis Week (peanut butter and banana sandwich, in case you didn’t guess), cotton candy (with chunks of cotton candy mixed in the vanilla fudge, which quite literally melts in your mouth).

“Fudge has turned into a huge new life for me,” she says. “You can do anything with fudge.”

Beale Sweets Sugar Shack, 156 Beale, 528-1055. Hours Mon.-Thurs., 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Fri. and Sat., 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Sun., 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Say what you will, but Memphis doesn’t stray too far behind what the Yuccies are doing, and the latest in foodie-dom that’s sweeping the nation’s hip is Thai rolled ice cream.

Originating from street vendors in countries such as Thailand, Cambodia, and the Philippines, the frozen treat is akin to homemade ice cream meets stir fry.

“It’s the same style as hibachi,” says Bahji Hakimi, who just opened his own Thai rolled ice cream shop, The 901 Scoop, in the heart of the University of Memphis area. “I call it stir-fried ice cream.”

Hakimi stands over a frozen griddle, which he keeps at -18 degrees Celsius, and pours over the homemade milk base — a combination of heavy cream, whole milk, dry milk, sugar, and a dash of vanilla, which Hakimi makes fresh every morning. While it freezes, he adds the flavor — buyer’s choice of all kinds of toppings, such as candy bars, cookies, fruits, etc., and begins chopping. He then spreads the chopped mixture flat over the griddle, letting it freeze to the right consistency so he can then scrape and roll it into quarter-size rolls, enough to fit in a 20-ounce bowl, to which he then adds more toppings.

The 901 Scoop has a regular menu of five choices of flavors such as Cookie Monster, with cookie dough, Love Ya Latte, with coffee, as well as a build-your-own option and a weekly special.

Last week he had Figgy Fresh on the board, a recipe of homemade fig preserves, lemon zest, cinnamon, honey, and pistachios.

For the less adventurous, or those in a hurry — it takes about four minutes to make the rolled stuff — he has the scooped stuff and shaved ice as well as a Candy Bar Taco, which includes a homemade waffle cone, vanilla bean ice cream, and topped with Butterfinger, Snickers, and Reese’s, finished with chocolate or caramel sauce.

Things are going so well, he’s had to order a second griddle.

“I knew there was a need for it here. I knew there was a market for it,” Hakimi says.

The 901 Scoop, 3536 Walker, 421-5519. Open 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

The scoop on Riko’s Kickin’ Chicken and Pinks Coffee House

Honey Gold, Honey Hot, BBQ, Lemon Pepper. We’re talkin’ wings here, Riko’s wings to be exact.

Riko’s Kickin’ Chicken, created by Mariko “Riko” Wiley, has been a serious contender on the food truck scene over the past three years, serving up party-size wings, whole wings, as well as legs and thighs.

Riko, who has worked in the restaurant business for a decade, had that proverbial entrepreneurial bug, while at the same time experienced that universal food truck dilemma: Omnipresence is still just an idea.

In March, Riko and his wife, Tiffany, responded to these circumstances with a physical address — 1329 Madison, near the corner of Cleveland.

If opening day is any indication, they made the right choice.

“We had a line around the building from open to close. We closed at midnight that day,” Tiffany says.

She says their biggest seller is the 10-piece party wings, rolled and dipped in one of 10 sauces for $5, but they also have some not-so-wingy best-sellers, too.

Tiffany Wiley of Riko’s Kickin’ Chicken shows off their popular wings.

The shrimp burger is a popular choice — a beef or turkey burger, grilled and topped with shrimp ($10), as are the Kickin’ loaded fries — French fries covered in Ranch dressing, bacon bits, jalapeños, and cheese ($4.99), which you can make Kickin’ Chicken loaded fries if you want to top them with chicken.

Recently Riko thought he would try dipping his catfish filets in his signature honey gold sauce, and they were faced with another opening day.

“It went viral,” Tiffany says. “We had a line out the door.”

They also offer Kickin’ Fried Bologna ($6) which comes with slaw and barbecue sauce, a veggie burger ($6), tacos (two for $7) with your choice of chicken, fish, or shrimp, and cakes and banana pudding, and they offer catering and hope to open a second location in the future.

“We’re really embracing the area and getting to know everyone,” Tiffany says.

“We cook to order and cook it when the customer comes in and orders. We put a lot of love into our food,” she says.

Riko’s Kickin’ Chicken, 1329 Madison, 726-5347. You can find them on Facebook and Instagram. Open Tuesday-Thursday 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Friday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Sunday noon to 4 p.m. Check Facebook for Monday openings.

One of Leanne Nastasi‘s favorite college memories was hitting all the different coffee houses in Montreal.

When the Canadian sales manager and her husband were transferred to Olive Branch, Mississippi, for his work, she couldn’t find any eclectic coffee shops.

So she just opened her own, Pinks Coffee House.

“I found the perfect spot,” Nastasi says.

The spot she found was on Pigeon Roost Road in the Old Towne district of Olive Branch, and over the last three years, Nastasi has carved out just the kind of coffee house she — and her customers — have been looking for.

“I knew it needed to be a place kids could come to, so I created the TV room in the back with sofas,” she says.

She really wanted to create a place for everyone.

“It’s a community meeting place, a safe place, where you can come and not be concerned about what you look like or who you are,” Nastasi says.

When she first opened, she tried to create a traditional coffee house, with a top-of-the-line espresso machine and such, but she found that her customers wanted candy-bar coffee drinks and homestyle meals.

Now she has people driving in from Cordova and Vicksburg just for her chicken salad.

“I put cranberries, pecans, local honey, and not too much mayo and serve it on a croissant,” Nastasi says.

Her BLAT is her second-biggest seller, also served on a croissant, which she heats before adding the mayo ($7.25), and customers especially like her BLTP — her BLT topped with her popular spicy pimento cheese ($7.25).

She makes quiche — with or without crust, funeral potatoes, mango salsa, and all sorts of sweets, including cupcakes, mini cupcakes, oatmeal cranberry cookies, peanut butter pie, and on and on, and her Rolo caramel mocha is nothing to sneeze at.

She also hosts family game nights, tea parties, offers catering and lunch boxes, and kids cooking classes, and her daughter, Gracie, who is 8, runs a kids’ book club.

“I have a little girl who wants to be a baker, so I pay her to come in and make the mini cupcakes,” Nastasi says.

“It’s a place where you can come with your laptop and get to know different people,” she says. “If you stick around, you feel like you’re part of a family.”

Pinks Coffee House, 9120 Pigeon Roost in Olive Branch, (662) 420-7229. Find them on Facebook. Open Monday through Friday 7-ish to 5-ish, Saturday 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Now open: Ono Poke and Agavos Cocina and Tequila

Tinawat Klaimongkol-Gai likes being a foodie ambassador in Memphis.

He was the first to offer a selection of ramen in Memphis at Skewer, which was near the Clark Tower.

When he found himself without a job after Skewer closed, he did a little traveling. What he noticed was a phenomenon in the form of fresh fish cubed and served over rice in bowls.

“Poke is everywhere now,” Klaimongkol, or Gai, as he is called, says. “It’s in all the big cities — New York, Chicago, L.A., Austin. But not here.”

Now there is, thanks to ambassador Gai.

In mid-June, Gai opened Ono Poke at 3145 Poplar across from East High school.

Poke is a fish salad that originated in Hawaii before Hawaii was a state and has become popular among the surfing crowd as a protein-laden pick-me-up between surf sessions.

“A lot of different kinds of Asian people lived in Hawaii long before World War II, including Japanese, Filipino, and they all combine their food into unique dishes,” Gai says.

Poke (fresh fish salad) at Ono Poke

Gai’s menu works mostly in two forms — house bowls and build-your-own.

The house bowls include such concoctions as the Pele Bowl, the Big Wave, and the Buddha Bowl.

The Pele comes with tuna and crab stick, jicama, edamame, cucumber, jalapeño, carrot, and spicy Pele sauce. The Big Wave serves up salmon and crab stick, fresh greens, corn, seaweed salad, pineapple, tomato, and Yuzu Delight sauce — a sort of Japanese citrus sauce. And the Buddha Bowl is for all the vegetarians out there (holla!), with tofu, fresh greens, edamame, broccoli, tomato, jicama, and wasabi sauce.

All of his sauces are homemade, and all dishes come on either white or brown rice, buckwheat noodle, greens, or a mixture of two. All bowls come with a choice of toppings, including seaweed, sesame seed, cilantro, kimchi, onion, radish, and others.

So far, so good for Ono Poke.

“Everybody is enjoying trying all the different kinds,” Gai says. “The menu is not fixed. It will be flexible according to what’s in season and what I can get my hands on.

“I like new things, and I like Memphis,” he added.

Ono Poke, 3145 Poplar, (901) 618-2955. Hours are Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Website coming soon.

You remember those enchiladas at El Puerto — grilled chicken topped with cheese sauce and green sauce and sour cream?

Well, El Puerto might have closed (due to Cookout’s buying the building), but the owners Esthela and Alex Rojas haven’t gone anywhere. Well, actually they went about a mile northeast into the old Republic Coffee building at Walnut Grove and Tillman.

The Rojas are the couple, along with Esthela’s brother and sister-in-law Cesar and Margaret Villalpando, behind the new restaurant and tequila bar Agavos Cocina and Tequila.

“We had been looking at opening another restaurant,” Esthela says. “We were going to try to do both restaurants, but when Cookout bought the building, we just decided to close and make this a different concept.”

The concept is to offer homemade dishes using their grandmothers’ recipes served in an unexpected and very pleasant presentation.

“It’s a little more fine dining, a little more upscale,” Alex says.

So far, their No. 1 seller is the Tequila Shrimp — six jumbo shrimp served with a special tequila lime sauce along with a side and rice, lettuce, pico de gallo, and sour cream ($14.50).

They also fix a lot of hamburgers, the Agavoburger to be more precise — ground beef mixed with chorizo, served with onions, fried jalapeño, bacon, and chipotle mayo ($9.50).

They have quite the selection of tequilas and margaritas. Depending on how much you want to spend, you can sip on a 1942 Don Julio or Herradura Anejo or just a regular silver tequila along with just about everything in between, with close to three-dozen types of specialty tequilas to choose from.

And their menu boasts about 10 different signature margaritas, including the most popular choice of mango.

The Rojas and the Villalpandos will be adding more items to the menu soon, including those enchiladas we were just talking about, and pretty soon you can expect to see karaoke on the calendar as well as a Latino night with DJ Moi.

But don’t expect to recognize the place. They changed it up quite dramatically from its previous incarnation with a curved wooden bar reminiscent of tequila barrels, painted walls, and colorful decorations evoking the colors of Mexico — “red for the harvest, blue for agavo, and green for when the plant is growing,” says Esthela — as well as a beautiful mural of a blue agavos plantation on the north wall.

“We use fresh ingredients every day,” Margaret says. “All of our food is homemade using our grandma’s recipe.”

Agavos Cocina and Tequila, 2924 Walnut Grove, (901) 433-9345. facebook.com/agavoscocinaandtequila. Hours are Sunday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Peace & Tofu at Magnolia Grove Monastery

Vietnamese seaweed-wrapped tofu, yuba, sweet potato fritters. All seem simple enough — dishes we can get at our favorite local Pho place. But get up early on a Sunday, drive an hour south, and these dishes can be experienced on a whole other dimension.

I am speaking of Magnolia Grove Monastery in Batesville, Mississippi, the Thich Nhat Hanh intentional community, that was established in 2005. Each Sunday, the 30-something monastics who live there open their doors to visitors to share a day of mindfulness with them, practicing walking meditation, listening to a dharma talk about what mindfulness is and how to practice it, and sharing a meal.

That meal will make you question how you ever lived before.

So what’s the secret?

“We use a special seasoning,” answers Sister Hoc Nghiem, mischievously. Hoc Nghiem (it means “True Practice”) is a nun and former Memphian who lives at Magnolia Grove.

That special seasoning is a combination of joy, love, compassion, mindfulness, and just good energy, she adds.

The nuns say a kitchen bodhisattva prayer that expresses gratitude for being able to prepare and offer food to their community and recognition that the most important food is joy, love, and harmony.

“Our teacher [Thich Nhat Hanh] says the kitchen is like the meditation hall,” says Sister Boi Nghiem, who Sister Hoc’s sister both in blood and in monastic life

“We will come in a little early and enjoy a cup of tea and enjoy the moment,” Sister Hoc says. “Then we will do something to make the kitchen pleasant, such as make a vase of fresh flowers and light some incense or some sage.”

Then they say a kitchen bodhisattva prayer that expresses something along the lines of gratitude for being able to prepare and offer food to their community and recognition that the most important food is joy, love, and harmony.

Sister Hoc adds that the fact that most of their food comes fresh from their garden creates another layer of that special something.

“And when we grow our garden, we also do it with joy and love,” Sister Hoc says. “We don’t just focus on the food to harvest, but when we are watering our garden, we also do that with joy and happiness.”

All the food prepared at Magnolia Grove is vegan in accordance with the Five Mindfulness Trainings, which represent the Buddhist vision for a global spirituality and ethic and include the first training, “Reverence for Life.”

“When you eat the food here, you can cultivate compassion because you know no animals had to sacrifice their lives, and it makes you feel good about yourself,” Sister Boi says.

The last of that je ne sais quoi that separates the food at Magnolia Grove from any other meal is the fact that they eat in silence for the first 20 minutes of the meal as a way to practice eating meditation and mindful eating.

“I think one of the reasons people enjoy the food here so much is that when they eat, they know they’re eating,” Sister Boi says. “There’s no cell phone or TV to distract them, so they’re really tasting the food and really living in the present moment.”

Sister Boi adds with another mischievous smile, “It’s Vietnamese food, and Vietnamese food is always good.”

For more information on visiting Magnolia Grove for a day, go to magnoliagrovemonastery.org.

Many of the monastics will be in Memphis on Saturday, June 17th for a Day of Mindfulness presentation at Rhodes College as part of Rhodes’ Compassionate Campus Initiative. The event is from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Bryan Campus Life Center on Rhodes Campus, and participants are encouraged to register on eventbrite.com (where you can also make a donation).

Here is a recipe from Sister Boi:

Fried Tofu with Nutritional Yeast

Serving for 5 people

Ingredients:

– 1 box of firm tofu

– 5 teaspoons nutritional yeast (crush it with mortar and pestle to powder)

– 2/3 teaspoon salt

– 1/4 teaspoon sugar

To cook:

– Cut tofu as square or triangle shapes, put them into a bowl, then add sugar and ½ teaspoon salt, shake well and let sit for 15 minutes.

– Mix crushed nutritional yeast and ¼ teaspoon salt together.

– Fry on low heat so tofu turns yellow and stays soft, put them on a tray, sprinkle the nutritional yeast all over them, shake well. Let sit for 5 minutes before serving.

– Serve with rice.