Tag: Love Pop Soda Shop

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Style Sessions We Recommend

Style Week with Vera Stanfield – Look 2 – Denim Overalls and Flannel

“This look is sort of inspired by the Rosie the Riveter look of the 1940s working gal, what with the head scarf and sneakers and all.”  -Vera

How wonderful that Vera describes this as her “dressed down” look. Even with denim overalls and flannel, she effortlessly keeps up a high level of style and creates a beautiful interpretation of Rosie the Riveter with the addition of the bomber jacket and bottle cap earrings.

Right across South Main from Red Velvet Vintage is Love Pop soda shop where Vera was grabbing a six-pack of assorted sodas to take to her family in Huntsville, Alabama, her hometown. 

“We did the same thing for them at Christmas, and it’s becoming something of a tradition now whenever we visit.”

And according to Vera, it was just a “happy coincidence” that she wore the bottle cap earrings to an old-fashioned soda pop shop. 

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As for Vera’s red lips, the color is a variation of the many reds that she wears. This one is Red Hot Red by Besame which is a line carried at Red Velvet Vintage. 

Outfit Details
Overalls by Freddies Of Pinewood
Bomber Jacket by Obey from Crazy Beautiful years ago
Flannel Shirt by Obey
Shoes – good old Converse Chuck Taylors
Scarf – vintage Vera Neumann (She collects Vera scarves) from Red Velvet
Bottle Cap Earrings by Attic Dwellers from the Cooper-Young Festival

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

The things we ate in 2014.

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Last winter, Holly Whitfield of the I Love Memphis Blog announced that Memphis is in the midst of a spectacular “Foodnado.” How apt! My cursory count of restaurants, breweries, and sundry food-related places that opened in 2014 adds up to 40, and not all of them in Overton Square.

But, then again, a lot of them are in Overton Square. Babalu Tacos & Tapas opened in June, offering tableside-prepared guacamole and lots of sharing plates. The place has been packed since. In August came Jimmy Ishii’s Robata Ramen & Yakitori Bar with a fine menu of ramen noodle bowls and skewers. Lafayette’s Music Room, an homage to the original much-loved, circa-’70s Overton Square bar named for the recently passed away ace bartender Lafayette Draper, opened in September and features wood-fired pizzas and a music schedule set at palatable hours. Schweinehaus, a cheeky Memphis take on German food, also opened in September. There’s beer, brats, and the occasional lederhosen sighting — what’s not to like? If you need olive oil, there’s the Square Olive, and there’s more music and fun at the Chicago-based Zebra Lounge.

Justin Fox Burks

Robata Ramen & Yakitori Bar

The most recent addition to Overton Square is Belly Acres, a farm-to-table burger restaurant, the latest of three burger-centric places to open in Memphis. This trend has our full endorsement. Belly Acres has a fantasyland interior and a menu that demands to be gone through one burger at a time. Down the street, there’s LBOE (Last Burger on Earth). Its menu raises the bar with such burgers as the super spicy Lava Me or Lava Me Not and the garlic-laden Love Stinks. Oshi Burger Bar downtown has something for everyone — beef burgers, tuna burgers, vegetarian burgers, gluten-free buns. They also have great milkshakes.

Justin Fox Burks

Oshi Burger Bar on South Main

Plenty of glasses have been raised at the taprooms opened in 2014 at High Cotton Brewing Co. and Memphis Made Brewing Co., and Memphis promises to get buzzier still in the new year with Pyramid Vodka. Wine in grocery stores finally passed, and while that doesn’t happen until 2016, local liquor stores are making the best of it with growler stations and more.

In grocery-store news: Whole Foods opened its expanded store in East Memphis, which includes a site-specific barbecue restaurant and a growler station. There’s the new Fresh Market in Midtown, and Kroger continues to show its commitment to Memphis in updating its stores, most recently the one at Cleveland and Poplar. Plus, there’s been some buzz about a Trader Joe’s opening sometime somewhere. We shall see.

In coffee news: Everybody freaked out when Muddy’s Bake Shop announced a new Midtown store in August 2013. Muddy’s Grind House opened this fall and offers a little of everything, from coffee to breakfast eats and yoga. The Avenue, near the University of Memphis, has great coffee and treats with Christian fellowship. There’s also Cafe Keough downtown in a gorgeous setting with a great cafe Americano. Tart offers quiches and more — a great go-to place when expectations are high. Ugly Mug took over the Poplar Perk’n space, and Jimmy Lewis, who founded Squash Blossom, returned to the scene with Relevant Roasters, selling wholesale, environmentally sound, and worker-friendly coffee with the motto “Every Cup Matters.”

After a few false starts, the Riverfront Development Corporation came through with Riverfront Grill. It serves a sophisticated but not too syrupy Southern menu and also has some of the best views in Memphis. Also new this year to downtown are the Kwik Chek spinoff Nacho’s, Marie’s Eatery in the old Rizzo’s Diner spot, and Cafe Pontotoc. Rizzo’s moved into the old Cafe Soul site, and there’s the Love Pop Soda Shop, a nifty craft soda shop.

In East Memphis, Skewer, serving Yakitori and ramen, opened in January. 4 Dumplings opened around the same time, and, as its name suggests, the menu is built around four dumplings. The vegan dumpling with tofu is not to be missed.

Since at least four people mentioned to me that Jackson Kramer’s Bounty on Broad is “secretly” gluten-free, I’m guessing it’s not really a secret. The dishes at this lovely farm-to-table spot are thoughtfully done and a delight to look at. The menu changes frequently, but at a recent dinner, there were mussels in fragrant coconut milk, charred broccolini, and creamed kale served over polenta. Also gluten-free is the Hawaiian import Maui Brick Oven, serving brick-oven pizzas and grain bowls.

Justin Fox Burks

Bounty on Broad’s Jackson Kramer

At Ecco on Overton Park, Sabine Bachmann’s cozy neighborhood restaurant, there are heaping dishes of pork chops, delicate pasta dishes, and artful cheese plates — something for every appetite. Strano Sicilian Kitchen & Bar serves a great roasted carrot soup and Italian classics from meatballs to pizza.

At press time, Porcellino’s, Andrew Ticer and Michael Hudman’s latest venture, was due to open “any minute now.” File this one under “This Should Be Interesting.” This is a butcher shop/sundry/coffee spot/wine bar offering grab-and-go sandwiches, fresh pastas, cured meats, house-made pastries, and more.

Categories
Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

A Visit to Love Pop Soda Shop

Part of the fun of Love Pop Soda Shop is checking out the neat names.

Diet Dang! Butterscotch root beer rolls off the tongue, does it not?

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There’s a soda called Kiss and Triple Cola, which advises you “Drink it for Vim & Vigor!”

There’s a bacon-flavored cream soda, (un)naturally. 

But I went for classic: Vernor’s ginger soda ($3). 

Love Pop also serves ice cream sodas. 

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Love Pop on South Main; Bleu’s New Lounge

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

There isn’t any furniture at Love Pop Soda Shop. That’s right: no tables, no chairs, no display cases. Instead, they’ve got 700 white plastic milk crates. Milk crates to sit on, milk crates to rest your glass on. The bar is actually a long row of — you guessed it — stacked milk crates, topped by a smooth wood panel. You really have to see it to believe it.

You might think that such an arrangement would be the product of necessity, a last-minute fix for a shop that didn’t have the time or money to buy proper furniture. Far from it. The design, by Memphis-based brg3s architects, is actually pretty nifty.

Think about it. Turn a milk crate on its side, stick an LED light behind it, and what do you get? A stylish, semitranslucent display case. Like Legos, Milk crates are cheap and infinitely rearrangeable.

Justin Fox Burks

More important, the design reflects the simplicity of Love Pop’s concept: Do one thing. Do it well. As you may have guessed, Love Pop serves soda — more than 200 varieties and counting — but you won’t find any Mountain Dew around here. Instead, they focus on small-batch bubbles, the kind of pop that is produced like craft beer.

A good example is Simpson Springs Sarsaparilla ($3) — a close cousin to root beer. Whereas the ingredient labels on most corporate sodas read like a chemistry textbook, this 100-year-old recipe, produced at a mom-and-pop shop in South Easton, Massachusetts, includes just four ingredients — and one of them is carbonated spring water.

And the taste? It’s like A&W Root Beer without the jet fuel (high-fructose corn syrup, phosphoric acid, sodium benzoate, etc.). I am no shill for soda, but Simpson Springs surprised me. It’s rich and smooth with undertones of vanilla and sassafras.

Co-owner Mignonne Wright says she dreamed up Love Pop back in 2005, when she and her son, Brendan, were on a road trip through the American West. While driving down Route 66, they happened on a place called Pop Soda Ranch, and Brendan says he thought he had died and gone to heaven.

“Back then I was an 8th-grader,” Brendan explains, “So the idea of over 600 different kinds of soda — that sounded like the best thing in the world to me.”

Wright says she wants Love Pop to be an all-ages hangout, the kind of soda bar that will be refreshingly new to millennials and comfortingly familiar to baby boomers, nostalgic for the lunch counters of the 1950s and 60s. At the grand opening on Saturday, they will give out free ice cream to make floats. How many kinds of ice cream, you ask?

“Just one,” says co-owner Taylor Berger. “Vanilla. We figure you’ve got enough choices with 200 kinds of soda, so you shouldn’t have to stress about ice cream.”

Love Pop Soda Shop, 506 S. Main

www.lovepopsodashop.com

Over at Bleu — the restaurant in the Westin — they’ve updated their lounge with new paint and furniture. And there’s a brand-new tap system for beer. But the real news at Bleu isn’t the lounge. It’s the revamped menu by chef Ana Gonzalez.

A ball of energy with a tight ponytail, Gonzalez comes to Memphis by way of Colombia. After attending culinary school at Johnson and Wales, she went on to work at Disney’s Contemporary Resort and the Peabody’s Capriccio Grill. In the three months since she came on at Bleu, she has given the restaurant a bold new flavor, emphasizing small plates that feature fresh, local ingredients.

Take the Bacon-Wrapped Shrimp with Polenta Cake ($8). A pair of tiny towers draped with micro-greens from Memphis’ Green Girl Produce, it’s Gonzalez’s mischievous take on shrimp and grits. (Grits and polenta are essentially the same thing; the only difference is the type of corn used and the fineness of the grind.)

Drizzled with deliciously vinegary barbecue sauce, Gonzalez’s shrimp strikes the right balance. At the top, there is the fresh taste of micro-greens like radish and daikon sprouts. In the middle, the plump richness of shrimp and bacon. And at bottom, the crisp crunch of fried polenta. The best part? It’s inexpensive, so you can order a second round.