Tag: Arrive Memphis

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Longshot Isn’t Your Average Sports Bar

Chef David Todd (Photo: Michael Donahue)

Has Longshot stopped evolving?

Not by a long shot.

The restaurant in the ARRIVE Memphis hotel has gone from serving homemade sausage and small plates to what executive chef David Todd calls “refined, approachable bar food.”

“We re-did the menu with some internationally influenced entrees. Some sandwiches. Some appetizers. Things like that.”

And, Todd adds, “As of January 1st, we’re open seven days a week. And we got lunch on Saturdays and Sundays.”

Longshot had its share of stops and starts after it first opened in November of 2019. “We opened about five or six months before the pandemic hit. The whole hotel. We tried to do the whole to-go food. What everybody did.”

It closed around April. “We opened for a few weeks around late June, early July. That would have been 2020.”

The restaurant was only open for a few weeks. “We had some people test positive for Covid.”

Longshot re-opened for the third time in April 2021. And stayed open. Todd kept a few items from the old menu but added more. Also, during those times the restaurant was open, Todd saw how “different food worked in the space.”

The restaurant had a definite culinary direction in the beginning. “When we first opened, we had nine different house-made sausages. We had small plates. It was really cool.”

But that “wasn’t robust and diverse enough to really capture a lot of repeat business.”

“One thing I’ve learned over the years opening restaurants, is you definitely pick your vision and your direction. Go down the path you want to go. But as you’re going down that path, you learn what customers are responding to and what the space dictates.”

Longshot “went to a more robust, sandwich-oriented food menu. It covered more ground.”

Todd refers to his Longshot fare as “inspired, elevated bar food. And that means there are still burgers and chicken sandwiches, and I’ve got nachos on the menu.”

But he also includes items like Tuna Poke Nachos. “Raw tuna marinated in soy and different spices.” And Pollo Asado Nachos — a “marinated chicken thigh I roast. And we chop that off and make nachos with a house-made queso.”

“We’ve got vegetarian options. We’ve got a Smoked Mushroom and Shishito Philly. And then we’ve got a KFC [Korean Fried Chicken] Sandwich on the menu. We did a Diner Burger, a fun take on a classic burger. There’s a crispy duck entree. A short rib entree.”

Last year, Todd also took over the pizza program upstairs at Hustle & Dough. He “rounded out that menu” a little bit. “I added a curry cauliflower dip, a quinoa salad.”

His philosophy was the same as for Longshot: “Lean into traditional things that people connect to and they enjoy. And they might be presented to you in an international way.”

Longshot can be referred to as a sports bar, but it’s not a typical sports bar, Todd says. “You got the shuffleboard tables in there, so when it’s busy it’s going to lend itself to a festive kind of fun, energetic atmosphere. So, it’s not quite like a sit-down dinner place.”

Todd adds, “If you’re in there having a sit-down dinner, you wouldn’t feel like a fish out of water. But if you want play shuffleboard and drink some beer, you’re not going to feel like a fish out of water, either. It’s like a melting pot space in there on some levels.”

Longshot and Hustle & Dough are in ARRIVE Memphis at 477 South Main Street.

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Longshot to Reopen in Late April/Early May

David Todd at Longshot restaurant

Longshot restaurant at Arrive Memphis hotel is slated to reopen late April or early May.

“The world is a very interesting place right now, so we still have those ducks we have to get in the row for reopening,” says executive chef David Todd.

The restaurant, which opened in November 2019, closed in March, 2020, when the pandemic began. Arrive, which operates multiple hotels around the country, closed early in the game, Todd says. “We were one of the first places in Memphis to shut down. The world had basically turned upside down.”

The hotel opened a few weeks later, but Longshot remained closed.

“The space itself is exactly the way that it was. It’s just a beautiful space and they, literally had just built it out. It will still feel the way it felt before. Very fun. Very casual.”

Describing the restaurant, Todd says, “It almost looks like you’re going underground in a subway or something like that. It’s that big, long room. That’s why they call it ‘Longshot.’ It’s got the shuffleboard tables that run down the middle of it. It’s got lots of beautiful woodwork and booths. Then there’s this kind of light yellow tile-work that goes all over the inside of the space.

“That’s one of my favorite things about it. It’s the way Arrive is set up. That’s why I really wanted to be there and I really wanted to finish what I started.”

He likes the way diners have to walk down an alley to get to the restaurant instead of going through the hotel. “They set it up where it operates like a local restaurant.”

Todd, whose varied restaurant jobs included cooking at The Green Beetle and at the old Schweinehaus, says, “I kind of bounced back and forth from bar food to fine  dining. I really think my voice as a chef kind of lands somewhere in the middle.”

Todd, who was hired as executive chef in July 2019, was rehired in November, 2020. “And then everything started spiking again. We kind of took a step back. I’ve been developing the new menu, helping out in other areas. Anything to be useful. I am in the hotel. I am in the space. And we are working toward getting everything back going.”

Todd is excited to get back to Longshot. “I like my food to be really flavorful food and really approachable.”

So, he was happy when he was told, “We want you to do what you want to do. This is our vision. Use great ingredients. Get good product. But make what you want.”

“When we first opened we made house-made sausages. The menu was great. but it was just a little too snacky. And so what I’ve done is round out the menu with more selections – some things with Asian influences, some things with Mexican influences — which is fun for me as a chef. And it sounds almost arrogant to say I really want to be able to do whatever I want to do. They’ve given me the green light to make delicious food, which, as a chef, is all you can really ask for.

“We’re all really excited to get this place back open and see all the customers and people from South Main. Everybody was real supportive. We definitely missed being in the mix down here.”

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Grub Life: Chef David Todd is Cooking Healthy

CREDIT: Erin Kim

David Todd began cooking when he was eight years old. But his “Grub Life” will begin October 14th.

That’s when Todd, 42, executive chef at the temporarily closed Longshot restaurant at Arrive Memphis hotel, will launch the website for his side business, Grub Life.

The preordered fully prepared meal service features “chef-inspired meals,” Todd says. “I’ll have some breakfast options, snack options, and do five to six entrée-type meals, whether you want that to be lunch or dinner. The menu for entrées rotates week to week.”

Erin Kim

David Todd

He provides a “chef-driven, nutritiously flavored meal, as opposed to chicken, rice, and broccoli and stuff like that.

“There’s a beef option every week … a chicken, beef, and a fish. And often I’ll offer pork tenderloin.”

He will keep his menu in a healthy range of 30 to 35 grams of protein, 45 grams of carbohydrates, and 25 grams of fat.

“A lot of the meal prep businesses are very fitness-driven. I like to work out five or six days a week. But I feel like there’s this gap. I want to have one foot in other worlds. That’s why we chose Grub Life instead of a fitness name. It’s for people who want food to be hearty, but maybe not deep into the numbers of what they eat. Just delicious food. And you feel like you bought some food at a restaurant.”

But Grub Life also is for those who want to fit their eating goals into their fitness goals.

Todd partnered with Josh Huckaby, owner of The Green Beetle, and Antoine Scott, a certified nutritionist/fitness professional who owns A. D. Scott Fitness.

A native Memphian, Todd helped his mother in the kitchen as a child. “If I wanted to make something, she would let me make it: ‘Let’s go find the recipe and you do it.’ Of course, I destroyed the kitchen and made a mess of everything.”

He eventually got jobs making pizzas and other fast food. He also worked at fine dining restaurants, but, he says, “I had some substance abuse issues, and I didn’t keep jobs for a long time.”

Todd went to drug abuse treatment for his opiate addiction in 2007 in Clarksdale, Mississippi. They knew he had some restaurant cooking background, so he got jobs at the children’s center, where he cooked, and the adult center, where he organized the volunteer cooks.

He continued to cook following treatment. “I feel like cooking kind of rediscovered me. And it’s been a huge part of saving my life. When you go through a life change like that and get away from self-destructive habits and build your life back, I felt like the kitchen was a safe place to go.”

Todd worked with chef Ben Vaughn at the old Grace and Au Fond restaurants to see if he could “work his way into being an executive chef one day. Me just jumping in the water and getting my sea legs under me doing restaurant cooking again.”

He also worked at Southwind Country Club, Acre, Spring Creek Ranch, The Green Beetle, and Interim. Instead of going to culinary school, he decided to “piece together an education” for himself.

Now 13 years sober, Todd, who plans to return to Longshot when it reopens, says after the restaurant closed he thought, “I need to figure out how to [continue to] cook. This is what I was born to do.”

Grub Life was part of that “triumph of the spirit. That whole Memphis thing: ‘I’m not going to quit.’

“Everything that happened to me in life has been a learning experience. This is my soul on a plate. I love fine dining. I love approachable food, too. I want to marry those things together.”

Todd wants to “continue to grow” and make his food “accessible for everyone.”

“To me, that’s the ‘Grub Life.’ We’re all here. We all eat. We all like different things. Put it in a bag, shake it up, and see what comes out.”

Go to grublifefoods.com for more information and to see the Grub Life menu.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

You Have Arrived: Cocktails, Coffee, and Carbs at Arrive Hotel

I’m a total baby about cold weather. If it dips below 50 degrees, I’ll easily opt for Uber Eats over a trip into the cold to get food. This is one reason I think places like the Arrive Hotel are so cool: Once you’re there, everything you need is in one place.

Arrive is home to Longshot restaurant, bakery Hustle & Dough, coffeeshop Vice & Virtue, and the lobby bar, Bar Hustle. Each has its own look, feel, and menu, so you can spend the afternoon wandering from one to the other without ever really leaving the building.

Ali Rohrbacher, formerly the head baker at the cafe at Crosstown Arts and at The Liquor Store, runs the boutique bakery Hustle & Dough and shares the lobby with Tim and Teri Perkins of Vice & Virtue.

Photos by Lorna Field

Pablo Mata, lead bartender at Arrive’s Bar Hustle

The bakery serves up homemade breads like sourdoughs and baguettes, as well as special pastries and treats. Snacks for Bar Hustle are also cooked up in the Hustle & Dough kitchen, like the mushroom toast on porridge sourdough with basil pesto, wild mushrooms, ricotta, and parmesan; or Grandma Alice’s Pecan Pie, served with an all-butter pie crust and dark chocolate ganache “black bottom” — the Rohrbacher family recipe.

Erik Hmiel, beverage director for the hotel, says that fermentation is one thing the drinks and food have in common.

“One of the parallels that Ali [Rohrbacher], as a chef and baker, and I share is a mutual interest and appreciation for fermentation,” Hmiel says. “Obviously, that’s a big part of bread-making. She’s really obsessed in a great way with fermentation, and I’ve sort of jumped on that bandwagon and learned a lot from her.”

For example, Bar Hustle serves a cocktail with fermented blueberries, as well as a seasonal kombucha.

Like fermentation, a focus on flavor is another commonality between the food and drink menus at Arrive. Bar Hustle offers a selection of specialty cocktails dreamt up by Hmiel, each with their own unique ingredients and presentation. The Bird Graveyard is prepared with aquavit, Scotch, banana, carrot verjus, and marjoram and served in a tumbler glass with one large ice cube. It tastes slightly sweet and earthy. The deep purple Fabio’s Roller Coaster is made with rye, lemon, fermented blueberry, pastis, dry vermouth, and black sesame and served in a delicate coupe glass.

The cocktail menu is just as whimsical as the decor. The lobby is filled with velvet couches, plants, and oriental rugs. It’s easy to feel like you’re in a speakeasy or in Europe or in an eccentric aristocrat’s penthouse. It certainly doesn’t feel like a hotel lobby.

And that’s, in part, because Bar Hustle is for locals as much as it is for hotel guests.

“We put a lot of time, effort, and thought into what we’re putting out there,” Hmiel says. “We also have a service industry night on Sunday. At the end of the day, we just wanted to be a fun and inviting space for everyone.

“One of the things we might do in the future is a series of pop-ups every month, or every two months. That’s something we’re thinking about right now, going into the new year,” Hmiel continues. Bar Hustle also hosts musicians on Friday nights and is looking to expand their entertainment offerings in the coming year.

So if, like me, you hate going out into the cold, but you also don’t want to feel too stir-crazy at home all winter, take a trip to Arrive. You can start your day with coffee at Vice & Virtue, have lunch at Hustle & Dough, then grab a cocktail and a show at Bar Hustle — all without leaving the hotel. And, hey, if it’s too cold to go home, you can always rent a room for the night.

The Arrive Hotel is located at 477 S. Main.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Longshot Opens at Arrive Hotel

Longshot is technically in the basement of the Arrive Hotel, but to find the main entrance to the restaurant, you’ll need to take a short stroll down Butler off S. Main.

When you walk in, the inspiration for the name becomes readily apparent: The entire space is just one long, narrow room with booths on the left and a bar on the right. In between, there are five long shuffleboard tables placed prominently in the center.

“As best I understand, the story behind the name is that when they were looking at this building, when they were looking at all the different spaces, this space was like a ‘long shot,’ like a long hallway,” says head chef David Todd. “And I think that’s probably where somebody had the natural urge to want to do shuffleboard here. That’s kind of where the genesis of the name and all that was, and I think it’s really a cool thing.”

Photographs by Lorna Field

Chef David Todd poses in Longshot.

Longshot serves elevated bar food and specializes in house-made sausages inspired by world cuisine. They source their ingredients from local farmers and suppliers.

Todd says of the menu, “We make and grind all the sausages in-house. When they hired me on, they wanted to go in the direction of house-made sausages, which I was fully on board with. And then I came to the table a little bit late in the game, just a couple months before we were going to open, so James, who is the director of the hotel and formerly a chef, already had direction on a few of the sausages. And then the rest of it’s me.

“The only real constraint that they’ve put on me is they don’t want me to do anything Southern,” he adds. “They wanted it to be world cuisine and be interesting, which, honestly, that’s right up my alley.”

Todd describes working at Longshot as a dream job, and, in many ways, he’s a perfect fit for the role.

“I was at Interim, and immediately before I was at Interim, I was at the Green Beetle. So I’ve definitely kind of dabbled back and forth from fine dining to bar food throughout my career,” Todd says.

“This is kind of like the perfect mash-up of both. This is probably the job I’ve been trying to have for the last six or eight years. Really good ingredients, really strong flavor profiles, really interesting food, but at the end of the day, we don’t want it to be too pretentious. We want it to be accessible.”

Many of the sausages on the menu represent different parts of the world. There is a Vietnamese sausage, a Korean barbecue sausage, and an al pastor sausage. The shareable items are just as imaginative: They offer a smoked catfish dip, crispy duck legs, whipped pimento cheese, and more.

There are even a few vegetarian items, like a butternut squash salad with mustard feta dressing and a charred curry carrot sausage.

The bar menu features cocktail staples like Sidecars and Manhattans made with premium ingredients. And, because it’s Memphis, there are plenty of local beers on tap from breweries like Wiseacre and High Cotton.

Longshot will also feature specials from time to time, like the pumpkin cheesecake rangoon dessert that was served on Thanksgiving or the Wise Fries they serve in honor of James Wiseman on Tiger game day — served with pastor sausage, queso, sweet potato and russet potato fries, enchilada sauce, lime sour cream, baby romaine, and pico de gallo.

“We are going to be creative, interesting, and exciting, but at the same time, the quality has to be there,” Todd says. “We’re not going to outpace the quality by just trying to be super creative all the time.”

Longshot is located at 477 S. Main in the Arrive Hotel.