Tag: Highland strip

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News The Fly-By

MEMernet: Hardcore Coffee, About That Bass, U of M Construction

Posted to Facebook by Griffith Roasting Co.

Memphis on the internet.

Hardcore Coffee

Spooky season is in high gear over at Griffith Roasting Company. The Memphis coffee roaster collaborated with Hi Tone on “Hardcore Candy Corn.” They describe it as “a premium-flavored roast with notes of caramel, marshmallow, and vanilla.” The company also rolled out the pumpkin-cinnamon “Heads Will Roll” flavor for the month. (Hey, it was an easy pun, okay?)

About That Bass

Posted to Facebook by Memphis Bass Fishing

The Memphis Bass Fishing Facebook group is what Facebook was invented for. Local folks giving the skinny on where to fish, what bait to use, dank fishing memes, and, of course, photos of their latest catches.

More Construction?

Posted to Reddit by u/piranhamahalo

Speaking of dank memes, this one was posted to the Memphis subreddit with the title, “I … *eye twitches* they were done. It seemed done.”

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News News Blog

Work Begins on Highland Strip Walkability Upgrades

Credit: University Neighborhoods Development Corporation

The Highland Strip is getting a pedestrian-friendly facelift as work began last week on a $6 million project from Midland to Southern.  

The project will calm traffic along the strip, aiming to improve safety for all, especially pedestrians. Improvements will include a raised traffic table at the intersection of Midland and Highland. The device raises the entire wheelbase of a vehicle to reduce its traffic speed. A new mast arm traffic signal will direct traffic at the intersection. 

The project will bring two new signalized crosswalks on Highland, as well. It also includes raised medians with plantings, new street trees, new sidewalks, and landscaping along both the east and west sides of the roadway, asphalt paving, and new streetlights.

“This project will be totally transformational for the Highland Strip and the surrounding neighborhoods, creating a much safer, walkable, and enjoyable environment,” said Cody Fletcher, executive director of the University Neighborhoods Development Corporation (UNDC). “We expect these improvements will help transform the area from its current use as a high-speed cut-through artery to a more pedestrian-friendly and neighborhood-centric atmosphere.”

UNDC and MFA, the project manager, funded the project with proceeds from the Highland Revitalization Tax Increment Financing (TIF) program, with financing provided by FirstBanks. 

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Fam Opens Second Location on Highland

CREDIT: Fam/Facebook

Fam/Facebook

Asian restaurant Fam opened a second location this month on the Highland strip.

Fam, a fast-casual restaurant Downtown that focuses mostly on Japanese cuisine, is expanding and introducing new menu items –– such as Maine lobster bao buns. Fam is known primarily for hibachi-style rice bowls and sushi, but they also offer a number of sides and appetizers, like tuna salmon poke and octopus dumplings.

The first location opened Downtown at 149 Madison in late 2018 with a slightly smaller menu and has been evolving ever since. Owner Ian Vo says the name “Fam” is short for “family.”

Fam is also available for delivery via Uber Eats, BiteSquad, and DoorDash, as well as curbside pick-up and catering.

The new location is open at 521 S. Highland, and both locations are open for lunch and dinner daily.

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Highland Axe & Rec to open Sept. 4th

CREDIT: MIchael Donahue

MIchael Donahue

Highland Axe & Rec offers three lanes and six targets for axe throwing.


It’s time to start limbering up. Highland Axe & Rec opens Sept. 4th at 525 South Highland.

It’s safe to say this 5,000-square-foot venue isn’t your usual Highland Strip watering hole.

Highland Axe offers three lanes with six targets. People stand behind a line and throw an axe and try to hit the target.

It also offers food, two bars, games, three 12-by-10 foot projector screens, and three other TVs, plus plenty of seating. Highland Axe also has a basketball-throwing machine and  video game arcades and pinball machines.

But let’s start with the axe throwing.

Throwing that axe isn’t easy at first. I tried it twice and hit the flat of the axe against the wall both times.

Taylor Berger, managing partner in Partymemphis.com, which owns Highland Axe, Rec Room, Railgarten, and Loflin Yard, showed me the proper way to throw. You hold the axe in two hands with arms raised, take two steps forward, and throw. Berger’s throw, by the way, was right on the money.

You might have thrown an axe or two if you’ve been to the Rec Room. But Highland Axe is the ultimate when it comes to axe throwing. The back area, where the lanes are located, also includes a wide-screen TV, a bar, beer pong and seating for about 30 people. That space was a storage area until they converted it, Berger says.

Why axe throwing? “I got hooked on playing,” Berger says. He’d go to Rec Room with his buddies after the kids had gone to bed and throw some axes. But there’s no kitchen at Rec Room. Now, at Highland Axe, you can eat, drink and be an ax champion.

The main area includes three living room areas, each with its own set of couches and giant projector screen. You can rent out the seating areas to play video games, or, if nobody is renting them, you can relax and watch sports.

Berger installed a deluxe sound system, which will come in handy at Highland Axe dance parties and DJ nights. He also will offer occasional live music.

The menu includes a variety of appropriately-named items, including the “Axe,” “Big Axe,” and “Fat Axe” (thee patties) hamburgers.

The “Kick Axe Chicken Sammie” is a whole, marinated fried chicken breast with melted cheese, served plain, buffalo, or chicken jerk style. Chef Russell Casey came up with the menu.

I’m intrigued by the “Bad Axe Pop-Tarts,” which are pancake battered deep-fried strawberry Pop-Tarts with whipped cream and rainbow sprinkles. You get two to an order.

Movie posters from famous axe-related movies, including Friday the 13th, Golden Axe, American Psycho, The Shining, and So I Married an Ax Murderer, will hang on the walls.

Will they actually run axe movies at Highland Axe?

“Frequently. Yes,” Berger says.

Highland Axe & Rec will be open from 4:30 p.m. until late on weekdays and 11 a.m. until late on weekends.

Michael Donahue

People can play games or watch sports on giant projector screens in comfy living room areas.

Michael Donahue

Taylor Berger

Michael Donahue

Taylor Berger shows how it’s done.

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News News Blog

Demolition Begins to Make Way for McDonald’s on Highland

It’s the end of an era for the eastern side of the Highland Strip. The building that once housed Whatever, the Super Submarine Sandwich Shop, and the Southern Meat Market was leveled last week.

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After some resistance from the surrounding community in 2013 when the proposal was initially filed, McDonald’s, which is currently located at 657 S. Highland, will be relocated to the corner of Southern and Highland, right across the street. Initially, the issue surrounded how the fast-food restaurant would fit within the local neighborhood aesthetic and comply with the University District Overlay.

Since then, the issues were addressed, and the fast-food conglomerate was approved for its design a year ago last August: a wrap around drive-thru was scrapped for a double drive-thru in the back of the store, and the building is far closer to the sidewalk than originally planned.

The property was sold in March for $580,000, according to the Memphis Business Journal.

Gary Geiser, the owner of Whatever, said if the property had been up for sale, they would have purchased it.

“If we had even been notified that they were interested in selling it the property, we would’ve tried to buy it for sure,” he said. “But we weren’t notified.”

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  • Penelope Huston

The property, which now belongs to McDonald’s, has caused the collection of locally owned businesses previously located there to scatter. The corporation plans on the restaurant being completed by 2016. The current McDonald’s will be leveled and sold as property.

“I think [the new McDonald’s] is a really bad idea,” Geiser said. “I think it’s in a bad position. The train is always there. It’ll give them good exposure, but getting in and out of there will be a real bear.”

Originally, Whatever occupied a small corner of the building and expanded further into the property. They were forced to move to a space across the street at 555 S. Highland.

“We had a good run there,” he said. “It was an interesting corner. We were across the tracks from the rest of the Highland Strip.”

Since moving, however, sales have been up for Whatever. A second location opened on Madison Avenue, near Overton Square, and a third location in Cordova is opening in the coming weeks.

The Super Submarine Sub Shop moved to 3316 Summer Ave. The Southern Meat Market, after 114 years at the Highland location, moved to 3826 Park Ave.

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News News Blog

City Council Delays Highland McDonald’s Hearing

mcdonalds_logo.jpg

In the case of McDonald’s developing a new location on the Highland Strip, members of the Memphis City Council said the fast-food company will have to compromise with neighbors in the University District in order for it to be built.

At the October 15th city council meeting, the company responsible for the project, SR Consulting, requested the hearing to be moved to December 17th. Cindy Reaves, the president of the firm, said an alternate plan needed to be developed.

David Wade, an attorney representative for university area residents, tried to convince the council to go forward with the hearing, rather than postpone.

“I’ve been shown the basic design changes that are being composed,” Wade said. “The design that is going to be recommended does not address the basic objection that all of these people in this university area have.”

The major concern of residents is the proposed loop-around drive-thru that does not comply with the University District Overlay, an official set of standards that regulates all construction in the area.

Council members Shea Flinn, Wanda Halbert, and Harold Collins voiced in favor of the delay.

Collins suggested giving McDonald’s the benefit of the doubt to come up with a new plan that satisfies the community, while Halbert expressed her disappointment and told the company to “seriously listen” to the University District residents.

Flinn was reminded of an earlier dispute with a corporate company.

“I’m gonna speak in favor of the delay for one simple reason — and it’s located on Union and Cooper,” Flinn said. “That’s the CVS that’s sitting there. At the time when we considered that, there was discussion about the delay. The opposition for [the delay] was very against [it], so instead of getting the best possible compromise, we ended up with something that I consider less good.”

The council passed the delay in a 9-4 vote, approving the hearing for December 17th.

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Politics Politics Feature

A Tiff Over TIFs

Shelby County commissioner Mike Ritz is a first-termer who, on issues ranging from outsourcing Head Start programs to combating sexually oriented businesses, has indicated a willingness to stick his neck out. He is about to do so again.

This week, Ritz threw down the gauntlet against funding a developmental proposal which the University of Memphis is pushing hard and which Ritz sees as an out-and-out rip-off of the taxpayers.

The projec, approved by a 7-2 vote in committee Wednesday and up before the full commission next week, t would require TIF (tax increment financing) outlays for a portion of the adjacent Highland Street strip as a “gateway” to the university. The premise of TIF projects is that they generate significant increases in the tax base over the long haul.

“These TIFs are supposed to be used for public projects,” Ritz says. These include such things, as he has pointed out in notes sent to the media, as housing developments, street and sewer improvements, lighting, and parks.

But the Poag McEwen Lifestyle Center project on Highland, as Ritz sees it, is little more than a “gift” to the developers, who propose building a retail center/apartment complex on the west side of Highland from Fox Channel 13 north to the site now occupied by Highland Church of Christ.

“The University of Memphis is running interference for something that shouldn’t get done,” says Ritz, who maintains that the developers would be using a total of $12 million from the city and county and would be under no obligation to pay any of it back.

“There has been no analysis done on this project, and it contains no performance requirements,” says Ritz, who argues in his distributed notes about the project that “retail centers move sales and jobs around, they do not grow local economy; [there is] no growth of jobs or tax base.” In a conversation this week, he added, “It’s like moving checkers around on checkerboards. There’s no lasting benefit.”

Ritz’s statement of concern comes on the heels of two new reports.

One report from county trustee Bob Patterson notes that 120 local companies have tax freezes under PILOT (payment-in-lieu-of-taxes) programs and that some $44 million worth of county property taxes and 372 parcels of land are involved in the programs.

Another report, from the Memphis and Shelby County Industrial Development Board’s performance and assessment committee, indicates the likelihood of default by several corporations on obligations relating to their tax breaks under PILOT programs. Under the circumstances, Ritz says, the Highland project amounts to an additional “giveaway” which the county simply can’t afford.

University of Memphis officials have been aggressively promoting the project as a way of shoring up the university’s “front door.” One who concurs is veteran U of M booster Harold Byrd, who has had his differences with university president Shirley Raines concerning her lack of enthusiasm for an on-campus football stadium, of which Byrd has been a strong proponent.

But Byrd says he’s on “the same page” with Raines about the Highland Street project. “It would shore up an area that, particularly south and west of campus, has begun to deteriorate.” Citing what he says is a prevalence of “cash-for-title businesses, pawnshops, and fortune tellers,” Byrd says, “It’s definitely a distressed commercial and retail area.” Moreover, he says, “the residential area south of the university is in strong decline.”

Both circumstances would respond positively to the proposed Poag McEwen Lifestyle Center, he said, and the “gateway” aspect of the project would benefit the entire community, not just the university area itself. (For more on this perspective, see In the Bluff, p. 10.)

On the first round on Wednesday, the Highland TIF project, which has the imprimatur of the Memphis and Shelby County Redevelopment Agency, got preliminary support on the County Commission, too. The 7-2 vote in favor (Wyatt Bunker joined Ritz in opposition) came despite a recusal from Commissioner Steve Mulroy, a University of Memphis law professor.

The commission is scheduled to take up — and approve — the measure on a formal vote next week.

• This coming week sees the formal completion of the 2007 Memphis election cycle, with four City Council runoffs being decided on Thursday, November 8. The contests are between Stephanie Gatewood and Bill Morrison in District 1; Bill Boyd and Brian Stephens in District 2; Harold Collins and Ike Griffith in District 3; and Edmund Ford Jr. and James O. Catchings in District 6. Pre-election updates,as well as full coverage of the results, will be posted on the Flyer Web site and in next week’s print issue.