Queo Bautista is selling the New Orleans-style cakes with the little plastic babies inside his new bakery, Panaderia Monterrey, in South Memphis. Just in time for Carnival season, which began January 6th.
Bautista, 46, opened his new bakery in October. Previously, he and his brother, Misael, were co-owners of Kay Bakery.
He went into an entirely different occupation after he left Kay, which is now owned just by his brother. “I was in the remodeling business,” Bautista says. “That’s not what my passion is. My passion is baking and design. And that’s the reason I came back. I stepped out for two years and I decided I wanted to come back. This property opened up and I got it.”
Bautista, who is from Acapulco, Mexico, didn’t grow up eating a wide variety of sweets. “We only had what we could afford. Homemade cookies from mama and also bread.”
His mother made “shortbread and sugar cookies. And, of course, the churros.”
When he was 16, Bautista got a job as a helper in a bakery in Mexico. But he got more involved in the business when he got a job in a small bakery after his family moved to Chicago in the late ’90s.
Bautista liked everything about the business. “The way the bread smells after it’s baked. The smell of all the ingredients. And all the sweets, of course.”
His family moved to Memphis in 2002. And in 2007, Bautista and his brother bought Kay Bakery. “We had it together until 2020. That’s when I stepped out.”
His new bakery isn’t a second Kay Bakery location, but Bautista still uses the same recipes as his brother, which are the original Kay Bakery recipes that he and his brother own. “We share the recipes together.”
Customers might not see some familiar Kay Bakery items, such as the gingerbread men, right away. “[Eventually] I’m going to get all those Anglo cookies. Like American-style baking cookies.”
For now, people can order any of their favorite Kay Bakery items, including the “regular cake” with buttercream icing, if they give him a day or two notice. “It’s a pretty small shop. Only 1,600 square feet.”
Bautista carries a lot of Mexican items, including “SeaShell bread — a bread with sugar icing on top. We got Elephant Ears. They are like sugar pastries. Fluffy. Of course, churros. We got those. And what we call the French bread. It’s like a sandwich bread.”
And they sell tres leches cake, which is made with evaporated, condensed, and regular milk.
Bautista’s clientele is different from his brother’s. “Honduras, Salvador, and Guatemala in this Winchester area. More South American population than over there on the North side. That’s more like a mix. A lot more Mexican population.”
His customers “use a lot more French bread. Like non-sweet bread rather than sweet bread. And then, of course, nothing with spice. They don’t eat any spicy food.”
His king cakes, which have to be ordered, are “made out of sweet dough. And it’s also got the color in it. The green, purple, and gold icing.”
They come with the decorations, including a pair of Mardi Gras beads. “It’s got a baby inside. I guess you can say the baby represents Jesus when he was running away from the king. Jesus was hiding.”
The baby also is hidden in Bautista’s popular Three Kings, or “Epiphany” cake, which is sold after Christmas. That cake, which isn’t as sweet as the king cake, is also round, which means “Jesus has no beginning and no end.”
The Three Kings cake isn’t as sweet as the king cake. “On the king cake, we put the icing. On the Three Kings cake, we don’t put any icing.”
And, he says, “It’s got candy on it. Like fruit candy. Papaya candy from Mexico. And then we got the figs, pecans, and cherries.”
A lot of Three Kings cakes recently went out of his new bakery’s door, Bautista says. “I made about 160 and then I sold out.”
Panaderia Monterrey is at 3127 South Mendenhall; (901) 249-7248.
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.
Becoming executive chef of IBIS restaurant is the peak of Jake Behnke’s career.
It’s sort of like reaching the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro.
Behnke did that, too.
His culinary climb began when he was 16. “Basically, I was fucking up real bad in high school,” says Behnke, 30. “My dad told me, ‘You’re going to learn to study, or you’re going to go to work.’”
Behnke chose work. He walked to the old The Grove Grill, where he met then-sous chef Ryan Trimm. “I told him I’d work for free and I’d learn the job.”
He dressed for success that day. “I was wearing khakis and a sweater. Loafers.”
Behnke got the job. The next week, he showed up to work wearing “ripped up shorts” and purple Converse high-tops. Trimm asked him, “What happened to the kid I hired?”
He began as a dishwasher, but he loved everything about the kitchen. “It was art and it was math and it was chemistry. It was all my favorite subjects rolled into one career.”
So, Behnke enrolled in the cooking course under Betty Hall at Kingsbury Career & Technology Center. The two-year course was part of the Future Business Leaders of America program. “I graduated at the top of my class.”
As a result of taking the course, Behnke got on the line at The Grove Grill and began his cooking career.
Behnke later worked at other restaurants, including Interim and the old Sweet Grass and Southward Fare & Libations, before leaving Memphis to study at Chef Academy in Terni, Italy. He discovered it “was cheaper to move to Italy and go to school” than to attend a culinary school in Memphis.
The course was in Italian, so Behnke took notes phonetically. He’d then “go home and type it into Google Translate.”
Italy was heaven. “I fell in love 10 times a day. With women, art, food. With the culture. Really and truly, Italy is a chef’s paradise. They source most things from the region they live in.”
Also, he learned, “In order to cook good food, don’t complicate it. You want to taste each ingredient in a dish. It just proved that good food is simple and it’s local.”
Returning to Memphis, Behnke worked at Acre, Restaurant Iris, and was the catering chef for Iris owner Kelly English. Behnke also was one of the chefs at an assisted living center. “We took the menu from frozen and canned to fresh.”
Behnke, who learned about IBIS from the restaurant’s operations manger Patrick Gilbert, describes the restaurant as “eclectic.” Which he likes. “It kind of gives me free rein to do whatever I want in the kitchen. And it definitely suits my personality type. I’m an eclectic person.”
His current menu includes Greek lamb meatballs and spicy chorizo stew. Future items could be “anything from a crawfish tartlet to ugali chicha — an African spinach, basically — and curry.”
Ugali chicha comes from his travels in Africa. “The church I go to does mission trips to Africa every other year.”
He was 22 when he first climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. “When I reached the top of ‘Kily’ I was so emotionally destroyed already from just mustering up all I could to get to the top.”
Behnke continues to march to his own drum as far as kitchen attire. “I wear Dickies 874 pants. I wear New Balance black tube socks. And then I wear SAS Guardians, an orthopedic shoe.” But no chef jacket. “I prefer a black button-down prep shirt.”
And he sports a perfectly-curled handlebar mustache. “All my life I’ve been a baby face. Clean cut. Shaven. I kind of went mountain man. Part of it was when I was going to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa last year. It’s really fucking cold on that mountain. So, I thought, ‘I’ll put a little extra hair on my body.’”
From posing with an Apache helicopter in Afghanistan to holding his own cheese dip (Photo: Courtesy Andrew Arbogast)
Editor’s Note: This story includes frank discussion of trauma and PTSD.
Andrew Arbogast has a continuing nightmare in which he crashes his helicopter while on military duty in Afghanistan.
“It’s usually at takeoff or landing,” he says. “The blade stops spinning and I go upside down and crash the helicopter. That never happened. Right? But it’s a recurring nightmare that, in a way, kind of reminds me that life is not guaranteed.”
A former Army Apache helicopter pilot, Arbogast, 39, was deployed to Afghanistan in 2014. “There were some very traumatic moments in combat. I have been at the wrong place at the wrong time. And I have to live with demons that, unfortunately, will never go away.”
Photo: Michael Donahue
Arbogast is owner of Arbogast Foods LLC, which includes Arbo’s Cheese Dip. Since hitting High Point Grocery May 15, 2021, the dip, which comes in original, spicy, and queso blanco, is in about 300 stores. “We’re rocking and rolling with Kroger. They’ve been ordering and selling out nonstop.”
He plans to add more products. “I don’t know if it’s because of the Army or the military or if I’m cut from a different cloth, but I’m so disappointed if I don’t have something to look forward to.”
But while Arbogast has successfully created a line of dips that are growing in popularity, an unsettling memory from his Army days continues to haunt him.
Taking Off
A native Memphian, Arbogast grew up with his dad’s spicy cheese dip, a family gathering essential.
He loved to cook and thought about going to culinary school but ended up switching his major from food service to psychology after getting an ROTC scholarship to finish his education at Northwest Missouri State University.
He then spent 10 years in the Army, which included a stint in Iraq. Instead of asking his mom to send him fresh socks, Arbogast asked her to send a George Foreman grill.
Arbogast was then deployed to Afghanistan, where he was air mission commander. Still all about food, he remembers sitting down with his soldiers and “breaking bread” with them, slicing a foot-and-a-half summer sausage and smoked Gouda cheese, while planning their mission to Afghanistan. “Food is morale,” he says.
When he got out of the service, Arbogast went to work as a category manager at International Paper. But in November 2020, he decided he wanted to do something with his dad’s cheese dip recipe.
He got thumbs-up during cheese taste-testings with friends. The dip is smooth, has character and body, but chips won’t break during dipping, Arbogast says.
A year after the business began, Arbo’s dip was in local grocery stores as well as non-grocery stores. In August 2022, the dip became available in major Texas cities. They’re sold at H-E-B Grocery Company’s Central Market stores. On October 22nd, 100 Kroger stores in Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi began carrying his dips.
Everything happened fast.
Arbogast and his wife Erin selling cheese dip (Photo: Courtesy Andrew Arbogast)
Arbogast’s cheese dip business sounds like a sweet dream. But, he says, “With as many good things that have happened, double have been failures through all of this. Which is what people don’t really see. They see success, but they don’t understand or are not privy to how much of a struggle this has been to grow this quickly and reach Texas, for example, or Kentucky. It didn’t come overnight.
“Going into this I was just so naive with, ‘Oh, all you have to do is make cheese dip and people will buy it.’”
Not so, he says. “I’m tired. I’m constantly stressed. But there is a key component that I’ve acquired from my time in service, time in combat. When things are at their worst, you have to remain resilient and positive in order to get through the day, the week, the month.”
His days include trying to meet the demands of Kroger and other retailers while striving to come up with new product ideas. “I’m still at that point where I’m managing everything as a single person. I’m managing the orders, the purchases of raw materials, bookkeeping, operation, and, most importantly, the sales. That’s one of the biggest struggles.”
Like the time an order of $25,000 worth of cheese had to be disposed of because it wasn’t put in a cooler. “I never have a day that goes as planned.
“At this point, I’m still running with it, but I need to hire someone, even if it’s an administrative assistant, to help me with some of the ordering or some of the logistics. Or a bookkeeper. It’s very hard to keep up with all of it effectively.”
Since Pancho’s Cheese Dip was bought by Minnesota-based food distributor Sabrosura Foods in 2021 and is no longer made in Memphis, Arbogast also has had to contend with competition from other local cheese dip makers.
“I’m kind of hanging on by a thread. Or, what I would refer to in the Army, when you’re task-saturated: ‘You’re hanging on to the stabilator.’ It’s the most rear part of the aircraft. You’re hanging on to the tail of the aircraft, basically.
“It’s hard not to treat every issue as an urgent priority. I’m still learning. And it feels like I have a long way to go. I’d love to sit down and just relax and take a deep breath. I haven’t figured out a way to do that. But I want to do it all, and I want to do it now.”
But, he says, “I’m afraid of losing control. I’m afraid at the end of the day.”
Then there are the nightmares. “It’s stuff unrelated to cheese dip,” he says, adding, “I don’t know if some of this stems from PTSD from the military or are just those things that continue to resurface.”
(above, below) Arbogast on duty in Afghanistan (Photo: Courtesy Andrew Arbogast)
Not Just a Dream
The helicopter nightmare harkens back to a real incident that involved Arbogast on March 6, 2014. “I was responsible and at the trigger of what we call a blue on green attack. What that means is ‘blue’ being the United States, the Army, our military, against the ‘green,’ allied forces or Afghan forces. Where we have mistaken them for the enemy.
“I took the lives of our allies. I think about it every day. And I still don’t know if I will be forgiven on judgment day.”
Recounting that incident, Arbogast says, “We were cleared to do what we were supposed to do in order to prevent loss of American lives. The guys were just at the wrong place at the wrong time and weren’t wearing uniforms. We had cleared it through our headquarters that these were supposed to be enemy bases where they were and where they were positioned. What we perceived as the enemy position was on a small ridge line. At the top of the ridge line was a heavy machine gun, a DShK, which is a threat to our aircraft.”
Arbogast later found out the “enemy” they were looking at was actually “an Afghan army.” But, he says, “They were out of uniform and their location was not plotted on a map that was current.
“Because of that we were cleared to engage because we saw that as an immediate threat. Once we had expended every bit of ammunition from our Apaches, we went back to re-arm.”
Then, he says, “There was a call over the radio that an Afghan army was being attacked at that location.”
This took place at night. “They didn’t know what was going on when they were being destroyed.”
Arbogast hasn’t forgotten the slightest details. “I remember everything vividly from that night. What I had for dinner: It was cold pork chops, carrots, and peas. We went out to just do our jobs.
“I don’t know how the other guys feel. It’s not something we talk about. Morally, I think it’s easier for some of them to believe that they were truly Taliban.”
A technical investigation took place, and Arbogast and the other soldiers were cleared. But in the report, one of the Afghan soldiers said they radioed into their headquarters and said, “We are being attacked. But we are not in fear. The Apaches are here to save us.”
Those words still haunt Arbogast. “Half a dozen were killed or maimed when they were trying to fight for their country. And I have to live with that.
“You push it down and you go on about your day. What do you do? Until it bubbles to the surface. No matter how many pills you take, how many hours of therapy or group sessions, it’s something that will continue to haunt you.
“What would have been the alternative? If our helicopter were shot down? As hard as it is to live like this, that would be even worse to imagine.
“War is hell. People don’t come back the same. And what you do with yourself will define you.”
Erin and Andrew Arbogast (Photo: Courtesy Andrew Arbogast)
A Positive Turn
Arbogast didn’t tell the story to his wife, Erin, for four years. “I didn’t see the good in discussing it. It’s just something you suppress. I don’t want anyone to worry about me. I just have to have a way to overcome it. So, talking about it or even just doing something that makes me happy will continue to bring progress. So, cheese dip it is.
“I turned all that moral injury, anger, and aggression toward something positive. The cheese dip. It’s almost one of those things that if I didn’t experience anything like that, would I have the courage to start this business?”
At one point, Arbogast thought he might retire and “live a boring life.”
But, he says, “You have nothing else to live for if you’re not continuing to hustle.
“This is the biggest thing I have ever done in my life. Even my time in the service, 10 years. This feels bigger than that. This is something where I put the onus on me to be successful for my family, and for my community. I don’t want to let myself down. And I don’t want to let others down. Because what I have is a good thing. And it would be a terrible waste to let this go at this stage.”
Arbo’s dips are a popular item at Grind City Brewing Co., says event director Ian Betti: “We sell a ton of it. It’s one of those snack-y, communal types of meals that work out really well.”
And, Betti says, Arbo’s dips are also a great way to support Arbogast. “He’s a casual, down-to-earth, genuine person. But also knowing he is a former Army aviator is super important to us, too, because we love supporting vets.
“We work with Folds of Honor, the organization that supports and raises funds to hand out to the family and children of fallen and wounded soldiers. He’s part of that.”
Arbogast is a newly appointed Folds of Honor board member. A portion of Arbo’s Cheese Dip sales proceeds go to the organization. “I can continue to serve outside of the uniform,” Arbogast says. “The mission has a direct impact on the families of service members that made the ultimate sacrifice. It’s better for me to devote my life to making sure the families of those that didn’t make it back are not forgotten.”
Arbogast wants to add more dips, salsa, and maybe Arbo’s seasoned pretzels to his business.
“One day I do have a dream of selling this brand. It’s not just the money I’ll earn, but it’s going to allow me to do something else with this short speck of time that we have. I feel like this is just one chapter and I have more chapters and I will continue to build.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get content in this life. When I do, it’s time to hang up the helmet and gloves. That’s what one of my flight instructors would tell me. The minute you think you’ve got it all figured out and you don’t need to learn and develop, it’s time to hang up the helmet and gloves. Because you’re done.”
Ryan, Adam, Isaac, and
Estefania Long (Photo: Michael Donahue)
If you want a Chicago-style pizza and to eat like the true Chicagoans do, head on over to the pizza joint Izzy & Adam’s.
“The novelty Chicago-style pizza is ‘deep dish,’” says owner Ryan Long, 33. “That’s how they did it originally in Chicago. What everyone knows.”
However, according to Long, the real Chicago style is “tavern style. Thin crust that you cut into squares.”
Beginning December 14th, Izzy & Adam’s will also start offering thin-crust pizza.
The restaurant, which opened last September, has been exclusively selling deep-dish pizzas. Its motto is “Windy City Flavor in the Mid-South.”
Both types of pizzas are available in “all the same flavors. Just different portions,” Long says.
The two-inch-or-so deep-dish pizza is “a cheese-lover’s pizza. There’s a lot of cheese on it. It’s kind of a different pizza. There’s more filling. And it’s just unique to Chicago because it was invented there.”
The Chicago thin-crust pizza is different than the New York-style, which most people are familiar with: big slices you can fold over.
But with deep dish, “you put ingredients on the bottom, then the cheese, and the sauce goes on top of it all. And it’s garnished with Romano cheese and parmesan.”
They use “raw Italian sausage” on both pizzas. “We put on quarter-size pieces and it cooks in the oven. The grease from that pork gets released into the sauce. That’s what makes it damn good.”
Long knows a thing or two about Chicago pizza. “I grew up in Chicago in the Northwest suburbs. Rolling Meadows.”
His whole family cooked on weekends. “We would do Greek burgers — half lamb, half beef. Lasagna was a big thing.”
They grilled outdoors all year — even in the snowy winters. “In the wintertime you shovel a pathway to the grill. That’s a Chicago thing.”
Long became fascinated with the restaurant business when he worked at Olive Garden in college. “The majority of people you cook for, you’ll never see them. But you still have that ability to change their day for the better.”
He was more into sports than cooking. “Football was always my primary sport growing up. I started when I was 6 and played until I was 21 in college. University of Texas at El Paso. Linebacker.”
But, he says, “I saw the competition level in college and realized I was probably not going to the NFL.”
Rosati’s Pizza in Chicago is where he learned the restaurant business. “I, essentially, learned everything from there and just took it all over here and opened up.”
Long planned to open a restaurant in Chicago, but his wife, Estefania, got a job with a pharmaceutical company in Memphis. “We brought all the equipment down here. We already had our oven, our assembly units. I had a dough mixer. We had a dough roller. We had quite a bit.”
And, he says, “We got pretty lucky finding a spot on Summer Avenue.”
He named the restaurant after his two sons, Isaac and Adam.
Long will never forget opening day. “We had 60 orders in the course of two hours. We had to close up early during our grand opening. It was nuts. We were only open for about three hours.”
The explanation? “We ran out of dough.”
His pizzas quickly became popular. “There were not a lot of deep-dish pizzas, if any, in Memphis.”
Long also discovered there were “a lot more people down here from Chicago than we expected.”
And those people “do miss the pizza.”
Pizza is his number-one seller, but his Italian beef sandwich, a “Chicago version of a French dip,” is number two.
Other items include wings, salads, and zeppole Italian doughnuts. “Very similar to beignets. Small little squares. And we just drop them down in the fryer for a couple of minutes, toss with powdered sugar, and serve with chocolate sauce.”
And, of course, Izzy & Adam’s sells a “Chicago hot dog,” Long says. “You have to have a Vienna beef hot dog. It’s a Chicago all-beef hot dog. With mustard, pickle relish, tomato, onions, pickle spears, and sport peppers — little yellow peppers.”
Izzy & Adam’s is at 6343 Summer Avenue, Suite 110; (901) 529-7428
Fans of P.O. Press Public House & Provisions, take note: Chef Jimmy Gentry is about to be back in the kitchen.
Gentry announced Wednesday that he’ll be returning to the restaurant scene in early January with The Lobbyist, a new upscale restaurant on the first floor of the Chisca building Downtown at 272 South Main. The menu will showcase his specialty of globally inspired dishes, a few returning P.O. Press favorites, and an elevated wine list.
“We have put a lot of hard work into this concept and are looking forward to sharing The Lobbyist with everyone in 2023,” said Gentry, owner and executive chef at The Lobbyist and Paradox Catering and Consulting. “We will offer similar cuisine to that of P.O. Press including some old favorites, however I would say the whole menu is a bit more elevated. Stay tuned to the website and other media for the announcements of the staff.”
Inside, there are plans for an eight-person chef’s table that overlooks an open kitchen, while a private dining room can seat up to 20. The bar can accommodate 20 additional guests, and will serve a selection of craft cocktails with early and late-night happy hours.
The menu is still under wraps, but visit The Lobbyist website for updates over the next month.
Connell and Brinkley Erb and Tom Sikes (Photo: Michael Donahue)
Brinkley Erb admits she wasn’t “a pancake person.”
Until one morning.
She had a craving for pancakes, but she wanted “a good healthy pancake,” says Erb, 23. She got online to see what people put in their recipes. “I saw some common ingredients in the various pancake recipes.”
Then she made her own. “I experimented and it turned out it was super yummy.”
Erb didn’t want to have to clean up the kitchen every time she made the pancakes. “I had the idea to try and freeze them and toast them and see what happened. And they were actually yummier.”
And, she says, “That’s when I thought we might be onto something.”
People are now flippin’ over Brinkley’s Good Flippin’ Pancakes. It’s the first product in Erb’s business, Brinkley’s Foods LLC, which she owns and operates along with her sister Connell and their stepfather Tom Sikes. The pancakes are now available at High Point Grocery, South Point Grocery, Big River Market, Grind City Grocer, and Cordelia’s Market.
A graduate of Hutchison School, Erb wasn’t a business major in college. “I majored in psychology and Spanish.”
She created her pancakes out of necessity. “In 2015, I got diagnosed with some food allergies, which excluded eggs and dairy from my diet.
“Vegan was not trendy. I just kind of had no other options, really, except to try and make these alternative things for myself.”
She also made the pancakes for her friends. “It became kind of a thing.”
They fit in perfectly with her lifestyle. “This is so nice for me when I go teach yoga. I can pop one in the toaster and there’s my breakfast.
“It’s something you can eat before a bike ride or a workout and be pretty sustainable. It’s nourishing.”
Erb describes her pancakes as “both a bite of a warm sunny day at the beach and some cozy ski lodge.”
Many people think pancakes are unhealthy. But not hers, she says. “At our tastings we actually take a little bowl and we fill it with a banana, some oats, some cinnamon, and some salt. And we have a sign that says, ‘This is all that’s in these pancakes.’ Because you really have to get in people’s faces about it a little bit for them to understand.
“Sometimes they think the little pinch of salt we put in the bowl is sugar. But it’s salt. We are not going to put any cane sugar in any product we make.”
News of her pancakes originally spread by word of mouth. “I started telling my yoga clients about them.”
She continued perfecting the recipe, as well as figuring out packaging and getting a business license.
Good Flippin’ Pancakes come in three flavors. “We have the original, which is just the bananas, oats, cinnamon, and salt. And then we have blueberry, banana, oats, cinnamon.”
They also have a chia flavor, with chia seeds as one of the ingredients. “It has a more nutritious kind of profile as far as fiber and proteins.”
She and her sister and stepfather make the pancakes at Memphis Kitchen Co-Op Marketplace in Cordova. Connell is the taste-tester, as well as the designer of the packaging and marketing materials. Sikes handles the paperwork.
Brinkley isn’t stopping at pancakes. She plans to introduce a Baked Oat Bite before Christmas. “It’s kind of a hybrid between a granola bar, a muffin, and a cookie. It’s got bananas, oats, and almond flour. Those are the main ingredients.”
The Bite, which also will be sold frozen, can be prepared in a microwave or toaster oven. They can be an “on-the-go snack” or a dessert “with a scoop of ice cream.”
For now, Brinkley’s Foods products are only available in stores. “We would love to get to the point where we’re doing online orders and shipping. But we are not there yet.
“My favorite part about this is the creative aspect. Getting in the kitchen and playing and experimenting really is what it is for me.
“That’s what I love. That’s the passion that started all of it.”
Kimberly Bolan, Kurt Kaiser, and Katherine Terry (Photo: Michael Donahue)
Kimberly Bolan and her brother, Kurt Kaiser, own Flipside Asia, a catering company that also sells Asian cuisine to the public.
And they have a mission.
“We’re educating people on what Thai curry should taste like,” says Bolan, 53. “A lot of people don’t know. They assume they hate it.”
“We get all our spices from Dubai and Southeast Asia,” says Kaiser, 43. “We do Indian food, but the focus is more on Thai curry. Just the spices they use. Thai curry is typically a paste. And you use the paste with coconut milk, lemongrass. Indian curry is more cumin, paprika, and chilis. It’s just completely different.”
Bolan and Kaiser, who cook out of the Memphis Kitchen Co-op Marketplace in Cordova, offer 20 dishes via @flipsideasia on Instagram and Facebook.
They do a lot of private parties. “The spring roll class I’ve been doing for girls nights and birthday parties is really fun,” Bolan says. “We show you how to make a Vietnamese fresh spring roll.”
Usually, what they cook during the week, they’ll sell to the public at the co-op at 7942 Fischer Steel Road.
They also sell at Curb Market, Grind City Grocer, and Cordelia’s Market. “Right now we’re just introducing our Thai vegetable curries with jasmine rice. If people like those flavors, they’ll love the others.”
Their food items, cooked fresh every week, include their popular laab namtok, or “lettuce wraps.” Kaiser described it as “a spicy minced pork with fresh herbs.”
They also make an Indian butter chicken, which is popular. “I’ve been making it over 20 years,” Bolan says. “It’s a tomato-based Indian dish served over basmati rice. It is so good.”
“Butter chicken is probably the most ubiquitous Indian dish around the world,” Kaiser says. “One of the things that separates ours is the spice we get directly from the Dubai market.”
They have a travel connection that brings back spices from Dubai, Bolan says.
A native Memphian, Bolan began cooking exotic dishes when she started traveling around the world after high school.
Seeing the different dishes in Peru and the Maldives, where she lived, made her want to learn. “It was fascinating to me that the food was such a huge part of their culture.
“That’s what, I think, spurred me into this whole thing. I’ve always loved to cook for people. And I didn’t want to live the rest of my life not having this food in my life.”
Most of her recipes are family recipes she got from friends living around the world.
Kaiser, who got his master’s in biology, spent about eight months with Bolan in the Philippines after graduation. “We started messing around in the kitchen in the Philippines,” he says. “We always kind of cooked a little bit together.”
He began cooking on his own after he moved to Vietnam in 2018 to open tap rooms for a brewery. But that job ended when the pandemic hit. He moved back to Memphis.
Kaiser recalls the origin of Flipside Asia: “I remember saying, ‘Your recipes are badass and I can’t find that flavor.’”
“Here we are,” Bolan says. “Two white kids from Memphis. And we’re not Asian, clearly. And we’re not really chefs.”
But, she says, “You have these recipes that have been handed to you from generations of people. And you’re interested in this and you want people to taste it. You want them to open their minds.”
Kaiser made a list of what they were making and he began delivering the dishes to a couple of neighborhoods.
“All our curries are notoriously mild,” Kaiser says.
“We want it to be authentic without blowing somebody’s brains out,” Bolan adds. “The general public doesn’t want it spicy in this part of the world. We want you to enjoy it. Like any food, you should taste it first and then decide if you want to add spice.”
They might open a food truck or a restaurant one day, but, Bolan says, “I’m riding this wave of happiness right now. I don’t want to mess anything up. And we’re having fun. If you can’t have fun, don’t do it.”
The second floor of Pontotoc Lounge has a planned March 17th opening. (Credit: Elly Hazelrig)
Onwards and upwards for the Pontotoc Lounge.
Literally.
The second floor dining area of the cocktail lounge at 314 South Main is slated to open March 17th, says owner Daniel Masters.
The new space is “an extension of Pontotoc,” he says. “We opened the stairway. So, when you walk in you can access it from downstairs.”
The upstairs area features tables and booths, and will feature the same menu as Pontotoc’s downstairs section. “So the seating will be comfortable for eating. We’ll have a nice, diverse amount of small plates to choose from.”
Pontotoc is “a creative cocktail lounge. We focus our kitchen on smaller plates to share.”
Describing the upstairs space, Masters says it’s “an intimate setting.” The concept features “more of an antique nature museum feel to it. We’ve put in a lot of small fun little touches. Art work, books.”
Pontotoc Lounge’s second floor. (Credit: Elly Hazelrig)
And, he says, “all nature based. And in the bathroom, there’s a TV playing old nature documentaries from the ‘70s.”
The “fun touches” include a lot of artwork featuring birds and two different nature murals.
Items upstairs are “things that I’ve gotten at at antique shops and on Etsy,” Masters says.
“The carpenters built custom booths. The color scheme is pretty diverse. It moves around.”
The building housing the Pontotoc Lounge was built in 1933. “It’s two floors with a basement. The upstairs dining area is approximately 1,700 square feet and can seat up to 40 guests.”
Masters doesn’t want to give too much away about the new upstairs space. “I want to leave a lot to the experience. I don’t want to put too much ahead of it so people are somewhat surprised. I want them to go in with a blank canvas, in a way.”
Pontotoc Lounge’s new second floor area provides an intimate space for dining and drinking. (Credit: Elly Hazelrig)
Melissa Cookston, the winningest woman in barbecue, can add another accomplishment to her collection. Her BBQ All Stars Superstore officially opened in Southaven, Mississippi, on Tuesday, December 14th.
And if you’re planning to spend any time around a barbecue pit soon, the new store has you covered with grills, sauces, seasoning, kitchen tools, and plenty of other materials that might be needed.
“I know that there are lots of BBQ and grilling enthusiasts in the Mid-South, and I wanted to create an amazing store for them” Cookston says. “I also wanted to create a store where there will be something for everybody. We’ll carry a big selection of gifts, such as leather travel bags, cutlery, and more. We will have so much space we are going to be able to offer the largest selection of barbecue and outdoor products around and be able to have a large area for cooking classes.”
The superstore contains a wide selection of spices, seasonings, grills, and cookware. (Credit: Melissa Cookston)
The section of the store dedicated to cooking classes will have a large area to accommodate in-person classes, and also boasts audio visual broadcasting and recording capabilities. Classes may range from smoking a whole meal to making sushi.
“The building will also house the World Junior Barbecue League headquarters,” continues Cookston, “so young barbecue enthusiasts will have a place to discuss their barbecue adventures and plans, have BBQ Boot Camps, and get helpful tips from all of the barbecue pros that will be in the store.”
The store will carry many recognizable grill and cooking equipment brands, including Big Green Egg, Primo Grills, Alfa Forni pizza ovens, Traeger Timberline, Green Mountain Grills, Myron Mixon Smokers, Blaze Grills, American Outdoor Grills, Gateway Drum Smokers, Cotton Gin Smokers, and Pitbarrel Smokers.
The store, located in Southaven Commons at 875 Goodman Road, is open seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Grills galore at The BBQ All Stars Superstore. (Credit: Melissa Cookston)
