Robin Joyce didn’t dream she’d own a restaurant by the brewery when she found blueprints for the old Tennessee Brewery.
Joyce, owner of By the Brewery, which faces the converted, circa 1890 brewery, found the blueprints about 10 years ago on Craigslist. “I’ve always been interested in things that are Memphis,” she says.
The hand-drawn blueprints are “renderings of the expansion. … They were adding some extra brew tanks.” A notarized letter dated 1954 was included.
A few years later, Joyce told Billy Orgel, for whom she had done catering events, “I’ve got some blueprints for you.” Orgel had purchased the building.
The blueprints hark back to Joyce’s original ambition. “My mother was very creative, and so we always were drawing or painting or making our own wrapping paper.” But, she says, “I was an art major in school until I realized after six years I just needed to get out of college. So I pieced together enough credits to major in business.”
One of 23 children, Joyce’s grandmother immigrated from Mexico to the U.S. Each year, some of Joyce’s mother’s sisters visited and they’d make thousands of tamales. “We’d roll tamales all afternoon and freeze them for the holidays. We always had Christmas Eve with tamales.”
Joyce, who graduated from rolling masa to cooking for the family, taught herself by reading cookbooks and watching TV. “Julia Child would have been what you watched if you were interested in cooking.”
While working for a catering company that set up hamburger trucks at the Mid-South Fair, Joyce thought, “I could do this. But I would just do it better. I would use fresher ingredients. Granted, a burger’s a burger, but you don’t have to use frozen patties.”
She worked in an investment company after marrying and having three children. One day, her father asked if she could find someone to make box lunches for a meeting. Joyce volunteered but served “roast beef with caramelized onions and bleu cheese” instead of typical sandwiches.
That led to A Catered Affair, which she still operates. She began catering weddings, baby showers, and business luncheons. “It just grew.”
She considered opening a restaurant. “I thought it would be great to have kind of a spot on the corner like Cheers, where everyone knew your name. Fine dining would never have appealed to me.”
Joyce got serious after her children finished school. She asked Orgel if he knew where she could open “a breakfast and lunch place.” Orgel told her about the space by the old brewery. “When I first looked at it, it was being used for storage. It had a dirt floor and that was it. No electricity.” But, she says, “It very quickly became a vision.”
By the Brewery opened last March. Like those box lunches, Joyce’s creations aren’t traditional breakfast and lunch fare. An assortment of muffins filled with either sausage and cheese or Nutella and chocolate chips are among the breakfast offerings. The popular Avocado Toasted, an egg grilled in the middle of bread, is served until closing at 2 p.m. Joyce also does specials, including Game Day Bowl on weekends “to support the Tigers.”
As for the decor, she says, “I wanted it simple, but I also wanted it to look kind of old. While this is in a new building, the corner has history because this used to be the distribution side of the Tennessee Brewery. So the idea of coming in and having everything perfectly square and smooth didn’t seem right.”
She found 10-and-a-half-foot-tall doors in New Orleans. She used reclaimed cypress for the counter. And her daughter Hannah Joyce and Sarah Cooper painted the botanical mural on one wall.
The brewery blueprints hang on another wall. “When I gave them to Billy, he used them and got what information he could. When he gave them back, he had them framed.”
By the Brewery is at 496 Tennessee Street, Suite 101; (901) 310-4341.
