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Loaded Santas: The Miracle Christmas Pop-Up Bar Hits Broad this Weekend

The Liquor Store on Broad will host the very first Miracle pop-up bar in Memphis. So what the heck is a Miracle pop-up bar anyway? Miracle is a global pop-up concept that partners with bars and restaurants around the world to offer masterfully crafted Christmas cocktails in cheery holiday-themed settings.

You can expect groovy concoctions like the Fruitcake Flip, Bad Santa, and Christmas Carol Barrel served in kitschy glassware. Guests can also expect the space to be transformed with over-the-top décor so you feel like you’ve walked into a nostalgic holiday wonderland.

Magrino PR

Have a “Hard (Cider) Candy Christmas” with the Miracle pop-up at The Liquor Store.

In order to prepare the bar and staff, The Liquor Store gave notice via Facebook last Friday: “We will be closed through Thanksgiving Thursday. Our team has earned some much-deserved time off, and we need to transform the space into @miraclepopup. We’ll see you on the other side.”

Due to COVID, drinks will also be offered to-go. Still as cheesy. Still as festive. Still a Miracle. You can reserve a 15-minute time block to come in, take photos, and pick up food and drinks to-go. Guests can also purchase the holiday-themed custom glassware, with a portion of the proceeds being donated to the James Beard Foundation’s Open for Good campaign to aid the relief efforts of independent restaurants and bars due to the negative impacts of COVID-19.

Cheers! Salute! Prost! Bottoms up!

Miracle Christmas Pop-Up Bar, The Liquor Store, 2655 Broad, starts Friday, Nov. 27, and continues through Friday, Dec. 25, cocktails from $6-$15.

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Cover Feature News

Shop Local, Memphis!

Meet Your Makers

Let’s fantasize for a moment. This holiday season, wouldn’t it feel good to resist the suck of Target or a crowded shopping mall? Consider a gift not made in China or replicated by the dozens in every color and pre-wrapped so you’re done with absolutely no thought at all. Think about the heft of a lovingly made earthenware bowl or a piece of handcrafted jewelry, made by someone you might very well bump into at your local coffee shop.

Shop local, support your local artisan. This is easy enough to do in Memphis, where there are dozens of makers crafting their wares. We spoke to a few of them, and we have a few ideas …

If you have eyeballs, then you’ve seen the work of Michelle Duckworth. The Bartlett native is an illustrator/artist whose work has hung in local galleries. Duckworth also participates in 10 to 12 artists’ markets a year, selling her mounted wood prints.

Duckworth describes her work as “fairytale-ish — a snapshot from the middle of the story.” She’s inspired by fairy tales and folk tales and old illustrated books from around the world. The works call to mind Grimm’s Fairy Tales — images that are at the same time pleasing to look at but a little scary, too. “They walk the line between being kind of nice and being kind of off,” she says.

Duckworth’s work is available at Five in One Social Club on Broad and through her Etsy shop at MichelleDuckworth.

If this speaks to you, you’ll want to check out the porcelain works of babycreep — pretty baby faces shorn off for planters, a tiny spoon that tapers into a finger. Fingers figure a lot in her work. There’s jewelry, too. Also available at Five in One Social Club.

Justin Fox Burks

babycreep’s wares

“I like to make my jewelry so that you see a cohesive design first. The tickle comes from the fact that it’s food,” says Funlola Coker.

Coker is primarily known for her oh-so-tiny and stunningly detailed food jewelry. Donuts, sushi, peas, asparagus, bacon and eggs, avocados, cauliflower, and more adorn her earrings and rings.

“I like to think that it’s for everyone,” she says. “A lot of people assume it’s for quirky or alternative folk, but really you can pair a simple pair of donut earrings with a chic grey dress.”

Is it the appeal of the food or working in miniature that drives her? It’s both, she says. “I love food and food presentation. I feel like I enjoy my food a lot more with good presentation. It doesn’t have to be fancy, just visually appealing. However, I love to dive into the process of my work. Rolling out tiny peas or texturing a little piece of chicken is extremely satisfying. It’s all very time consuming, but the more I do it the faster I get, and before I realize it, I’ve iced 60 miniature donuts by the end of the day.”

Coker’s work is available at Five in One Social Club and at funlolacoker.com.

Looking for a unique set of earrings? Five in One’s popular Grit and Grind earrings are one way to show that you are a homer. Their pretty tinysaw label earrings bring to mind architecture and beehives.

After Lisa Wheeler graduated from college with a degree in ceramics, she was itching to make something … anything. But, she decided, it would have to be something she could use, something she needed. And that’s how she ended up making soap.

Her first batch involved coconut oil, olive oil, and lye. (“The lye really freaked me out,” she says.) She let the soap cure for two months, and then she tried it out. “I loved it,” Wheeler says. “I felt like a chemist.”

After experimenting with ingredients, Wheeler was ready to launch her line — LATHA. First she needed a gimmick. She’d seen cupcake soaps, cake soaps. She then hit upon drink soaps. Among her Bawdy Bars, which come in a cup, are Electric Lemonade, Sparkling Mojito, and Sex on the Beach. LATHA also sells bath bombs, including the Jager bomb, and scrubs such as On the Rocks. For the recent Crafts and Drafts event, LATHA introduced beer-inspired soaps.

Susan Ellis

LATHA soap

One drink she hasn’t been able to translate into soap is bubble tea. The color was weird. “I’m going to revisit that,” she says.

LATHA soaps are available at lathabar.com.

Need to clean up your act? Check out Gifts from Nature. Some of their bar soaps: the blue-striped Seersucker, Rehab (with charcoal), and the Mannish. Available at www.gfnsoap.com. — Susan Ellis

Naughty and Nice

Aunt Margaret would clutch her pearls if she got the “Merry Fucking Christmas” card from Five in One Social Club, but Uncle Bob would love it.

You can’t please everyone all the time, especially when it comes to holiday gifting. But you can get pretty close if you shop locally.

Small, locally owned retail shops dot the landscape from Broad to the river. In them, you can find beautiful, useful things for the nice people on your list, like Aunt Margaret, and funny, kitschy things for those on your naughty list (lookin’ at you, Uncle Bob).

The Nice List

You know that friend that is In. Love. With. Memphis? Stock and Belle on Broad offers up tons o’ tasty treats to help get them grit, ground, and Bluff-i-fied.

Look for artist Kyle Taylor‘s prints of a melty, good-enough-to-eat Pancho’s cheese dip man and Taylor’s huge prints of a matadored Marc Gasol as Big Spain. Stock and Belle also carries plenty of Memphis wearables, like the Nine Oh One trucker hat and the house-made “Embrace Your Inner Memphis” T-shirt.

For the luxe-loving jet-setter on your list, hit up 20twelve on Broad. The store focuses on high-end fashion, and, while picking out clothes for somebody else can be tricky, 20twelve has plenty of perfect gift items.

Toby Sells

20twelve

Chocolate-bacon-pretzel bites, anyone? Yes, everyone. That’s but one flavor in Sugarfina’s Vice Collection candy bento box, which also includes maple bourbon caramels and pale ale gummies.

20twelve also sells many high-end fragrance brands — and gift cards, of course.

That friend of yours who won’t stop talking about running probably loves Breakaway Running. Its Overton Square location still feels new and has everything to get your running buddy on the road — or trail.

Picking out clothes for someone else is tough (that’s double for running clothes), but you can’t go wrong with a pair of Yurbuds, the sport earphones that just won’t fall out. Ever. Or, get your runner some nighttime illumination, like a Petzl headlamp.

A sense of adventure fills you up when you open the door at Outdoors Inc., and you see all the gear you could possibly need to enjoy the, well, outdoors.

Toby Sells

Outdoors Inc. medical kit

Your pal may do that fake smile thing when she opens the Adventure Medical Kit from Bighorn, but she’ll be praising your name when she’s mending a wound on the trail. If you want to win Christmas, give someone the Yeti Hopper, the indestructible, always-cold cooler that has become a status symbol for the outdoor set.

Toby Sells

Breakaway Running headlamp

The Naughty List

Let’s get straight to the penis candles, shall we?

Tater Red’s has been a shopping mecca for Beale Street tourists (and locals alike) for more than two decades. It’s a cornucopia of the peculiar and profane.

You know you have one friend who would love one of Tater’s penis candles, (which come in red and black). Tater has vagina candles, too, but he was out of those on a recent visit. Also, look for a ton of throwback Memphis sports gear, adult coloring books, voodoo dolls, and Hangover Helper Mints.

Toby Sells

Tater Red’s mints

Okay, we’re back at Five in One, but we’re on the Naughty List and, well, the Broad Avenue shop is the only place you’re going to find that “Merry Fucking Christmas” card, which is made in-house. Five in One has tons of great, original Memphis-themed stuff, like Samantha Crespo’s new book, 100 Things to Do in Memphis Before You Die Vol. 2, T-shirts and sweaters, and Beerings — earrings made from cans of Memphis beers.

Toby Sells

Before You Die

Maggie’s Pharm is another great Nice List shopping place, but Maggie also loves the naughty snark.

That special someone in your life needs a pair of socks that read, “I hate everyone, too.” You’ve got that other friend who needs a bottle of “I Can’t Believe I Fucked That Guy” hand sanitizer. Load up on stocking stuffers like “I Love My Penis” gum, “Coffee Makes Me Poop” gum, or “Mother Fucking Girl Power” gum.

Toby Sells

Maggie’s Pharm socks

Maggie’s also has nice cards, wide selections of herbs, coffees, teas, and more. But, y’know, go for the gum and the socks.

Head on down to A. Schwab on Beale Street, and bring home a fat sack of 100 percent USDA-certified Memphis kitsch.

You want the authentic hip-swiveling Elvis clock? How about a pair of Elvis sunglasses (you know the ones)? A TCB patch legit enough to fool even the Memphis Mafia? Go to Schwab. And what says Christmas more than a pink Elvis snow globe refrigerator magnet?

There’s plenty of great non-Elvis stuff, too, like a “Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go to Beale Street” coozie, an old-school collectible Memphis plate, and Beale veteran John Elkington’s kids book, The Pirates of the Gayoso Bayou. — Toby Sells

Eat, Drink, Be Merry

I’m not big on giving gifts of food for Christmas. What with all the ham, weird wedges of cheese, chemically enhanced popcorn, loads of cookies, and tins and tins of peppermint bark — erp! — it’s too much. But there are exceptions. Lots of exceptions …

You can’t go wrong with a bottle of Pyramid vodka. The general reception for this smooth delight: Hells, yeah! And, if the holiday family-together time is getting to you, we recommend you grab your friends and take a tour of the Pyramid facilities. You’ll learn something, for sure, and the tour is capped off with a taste of the product. You might want to call to make sure they’re open first, though: 576-8844.

Absolutely nobody complains about a gift certificate from Joe’s Liquor or Hammer & Ale. For the mixologist on your list, there’s the Elixir No. 01 line — simple syrup, mint julep, and orange and green chile syrup — from the Crazy Good folks.

I receive a tin of Aunt Lizzie’s cheese straws every year. If I don’t get one, there’s going to be trouble. Bad trouble. These are the perfect snack for sports-watching or Netflix-binging during that lovely stretch between Christmas and New Year’s.

For out-of-town folks, get them an order of barbecue — Corky’s, Rendezvous, Germantown Commissary, doesn’t matter — and you’ll be treated like a damn hero. Another option: a gift box from Memphis Flavor (memphisflavor.com). The Memphis Flavor Original Sampler box includes barbecue sauce from Central BBQ, a jar of Flo’s Homemade Goodness, Makeda’s Cookies, and more.

I’m a sucker for good packaging. Judy Pound Cakes’ simple brown box, tied in string and stamped with a pound sign, rings all my bells. The cakes come in all sorts of flavors — chocolate cayenne, cherry almond, plum — but the Plain Ol’ pound cake is my favorite. Makes a good hostess/host gift.

Susan Ellis

Judy Pound Cakes

Your dog has been a good, good dog. (Forget about the couch!) Treat him or her right with a bag of Farm House Santa Paws, yogurt-iced peanut butter cookies, available at Curb Market. Donuts, brownies, muffins, and cupcakes — why not? At Hollywood Feed Bakery, each treat was created specifically for your pup.

Susan Ellis

House Santa Paws

Susan Ellis

Hollywood Feed Bakery

One of my go-to gifts for Christmas, birthdays, house-warmings, whatever is Dinstuhl’s Cashew Crunch. The angels sang when they created this candy. I once gave a friend a box as a thank-you present, and she ended up breaking a tooth. After three or four visits to the dentist, she was totally fine and still eating the crunch.

Hipsters need gifts too. Scratch ’em off your list with a jar of brilliant red Koolickles from Porcellino’s. Pickles and Kool-Aid — it’s a match made in … well, we’re not sure exactly where.

Susan Ellis

Koolickles from Porcellino’s

The caramels from Shotwell Candy are a fine, fine thing indeed. Just thinking about the Craft Beer & Pretzel caramel, I’m misting up. You might want to warn the recipient that this gift is precious and should be hidden immediately in their secret snack drawer.

Susan Ellis

Shotwell Candy

GiveGood Toffee makes an excellent stocking stuffer. At $5 for a pack-of-cards-sized box, it’s a little pricey, but the company was founded to empower young adults living on the autism spectrum. Learn more at givegoodco.com.

Susan Ellis

GiveGood Toffee

For those who like to represent, there’s the Nine Oh One coffee mug, available at 387 Pantry. The stoneware beer cup by Erica Bodine Pottery is pretty special, too, and you can put it in the dishwasher. You can find one at Miss Cordelia’s.

Susan Ellis

387 Pantry coffee mug

Muddy’s Bakery has made its rep on delicious cupcakes and gnome-tastic adorableness. The “Hustle n’ Dough” T-shirt features gnomes and a tumbling stack of pies. Resistance is futile. — Susan Ellis

Susan Ellis

Muddy’s Bake Shop T-shirt

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News The Fly-By

Rec Room Bar-arcade Opens on Broad

Sure you were good at Street Fighter II in your old teenage mall arcade days, but can you still get that K.O. after a few craft beers?

Beginning this week, fans of retro arcade games will have the chance to brush off their skills at the Rec Room, a new arcade bar inside a warehouse at 3000 Broad Avenue. The venture — spearheaded by a partnership group that includes entrepreneur Taylor Berger and Buckman chemical sales executive Bill Ganus among others — will feature a number of 1980s and ’90s arcade games as well as mini-living rooms set up with retro gaming consoles.

“This is about the last 40 years of pop culture. Video games trigger such visceral memories of being a teenager or even younger than that. We have Nintendo Power. We have old [school gym] bleachers where you can sit and have a beer,” Berger said. “All of these things trigger these really cool memories.”

Justin Fox Burks

Vintage arcade games at the Rec Room

Standing arcade floor games include Pac Man, Street Fighter II, Donkey Kong, Tron, Burger Time, and Road Blasters, among others. But groups can also rent one of six mini-living rooms — complete with couches and chairs — by the hour to play games on gaming consoles. The games, everything from Atari 2600 to Xbox 1 and PlayStation 4, are projected onto a wall.

“We were standing in this 6,000-square-foot warehouse, and we knew it could be an arcade,” Ganus said. “But even with the [floor] games in there, you’re staring at this huge concrete slab wall. We thought, ‘It would be really bad if we projected old-school consoles up on the wall, so your friends could come in, sit on a couch, and play two-player Contra on a 25-foot screen.”

Video games not your thing? In true rec room fashion, the bar has darts, foosball, ping-pong tables, air hockey, and cornhole boards.

Berger said they lucked onto the massive warehouse space because a friend of his is planning to open another business in part of the space.

“He had 6,000 extra square feet that he wasn’t using,” Berger said.

At first, the bar will serve four rotating styles of beer from Wiseacre Brewing Company, as well as some nationally distributed beers by Sweetwater and Oskar Blues Brewery. The Truck Stop food truck, which debuted at last year’s “Untapped” event at the Tennessee Brewery, will be on-site at the Rec Room peddling tacos. Bluff City Biscuits will sell biscuit sandwiches. The bar is open seven days a week, opening at 4 p.m. on week days but earlier on weekends.

“We’re opening at 10 a.m. on Saturday and noon on Sunday so people can ride over on the [Shelby Farms] Greenline in the morning, eat and play, and ride home,” Berger said.

The bar, near Tillman and Broad, sits on the soon-to-be-constructed Hampline bicycle path, which will run from Overton Park to the Greenline. The partnership group behind the venture, which includes 12 people including Berger and Ganus, is hoping the bar’s location near Tillman will help spur revitalization of the eastern side of Broad.

“There’s definitely room to expand Broad Avenue, especially as the Hampline is developed. It’s made this a really important corridor to connect the High Point area with Overton,” Ganus said.

Though the bar-arcade concept isn’t new, Berger said the Rec Room is different because it’s about transforming an outdated industrial park into something new and fun.

“This ain’t no Dave & Buster’s. This is a warehouse in Binghampton,” Berger said.

Categories
News News Blog

Rec Room Bar-arcade Opens on Broad April 1st

On Wednesday, fans of retro arcade games will have the chance to brush off their skills at the Rec Room, a new arcade bar inside a warehouse at 3000 Broad Avenue.

The venture — spearheaded by a partnership group that includes Taylor Berger, Bill Ganus, Barry and Blake Lichterman, Andy Cates, Michael Tauer, and several others — will feature a number of 1980s and ’90s arcade games as well as mini-living rooms set up with retro gaming consoles.

Standing arcade floor games will include Pac Man, Street Fighter II, Donkey Kong, Tron, Burger Time, Road Blasters, among others. But groups can also rent one of six mini-living rooms — complete with couches and chairs — by the hour to play games on gaming consoles. The games, broadcast from everything from Atari 2600 to Xbox 1 and Playstation 4, will be projected onto a wall.

At first, the bar will serve four rotating styles of beer from Wiseacre Brewing Company, as well as some nationally distributed beers by Sweetwater and Oskar Blues Brewery. The Truck Stop food truck, which debuted at last year’s “Untapped” event at the Tennessee Brewery, will be on-site at the Rec Room peddling tacos. Bluff City Biscuits will sell biscuit sandwiches. The bar will be open seven days a week, opening at 4 p.m. on week days but earlier on weekends.

Check out this week’s Memphis Flyer for more details. Until then, check out these pics from Flyer photographer Justin Fox Burks of Rec Room’s Monday night soft opening.

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Special Sections

Help Wanted — MERRYMOBILE DRIVERS!

MerrymobileAd-1961.jpg

In the summer of 1961, anyone looking for a job might have noticed these tiny newspaper ads for two competing ice-cream companies.

You could go to 741 S. Cox and knock on the door of Mr. Johnstone and apply for work driving a truck for Ice Cream Circus — a company I no longer remember.

Or — a better option, if you ask me — you could pay a visit to 3065 Broad and apply for a coveted position as a Merrymobile driver. Not only would you be driving a real, honest-to-goodness Merrymobile around the streets of Memphis, but look, you could earn more than $100 a week.

I’d go for the Merrymobile job. Just think of all the stories you could tell your kids. And what an ice-breaker at parties: “I remember that time I was a Merrymobile driver …” Not many people can say THAT.

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Sports Sports Feature

Broad Is the New South Main

It may lack South Main’s upscale condos, swanky boutiques, and jazz clubs, but the folks on Broad Avenue are trying their best to bring more positive attention to their area through an art walk similar to the monthly South Main Trolley tour.

In the second annual Broad Avenue Artwalk, art galleries, such as Gallery 1, Archicast, Metalworks, and Material, will host opening receptions for work by local artists. Galleries will be open from 6-8 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 2.

For more info, check out the Flyer’s searchable listings.