McKenzie Nelson – Memphis Flyer

It took three bartenders to come up with the idea of creating a place where food caters to the cocktails instead of the other way around.

Meet Cameo, a bar owned by veteran bartenders Paul Gilliam, 34, Mary Oglesby, 38, and McKenzie Nelson, 29, that’s slated to open in early 2022 in The Citizen apartments in Midtown.

“Chef driven/chef owned” is a popular business model, Oglesby says. “We want to turn that on its head as a bartender owned, cocktail-driven place, where food is excellent, but it’s there to highlight and support the cocktails as opposed to the inverse, where the cocktail is there to support chef-driven food.”

They take the food-is-king idea “and turn it around. You can come in this place where the focus is on cool cocktails, great wine, things like that. And also have exceptional food that is there to go with that.”

Their theme is “Fancy Drinks Party Time (FDPT),” Gilliam says. “We’re creating a space where you can enjoy the kinds of drinks you want.”

And, he adds, “What great time you think is great in this space.”

They want customers to have “well-plated, well-crafted drinks and snacks in an atmosphere that is not stuffy, that is fun and energetic. Just an all-around good time.”

You can get good drinks in a space “that is less fun.” But, Gilliam adds, “We don’t feel those two things are mutually exclusive. It is very easy to have both.”

Everyone has a favorite drink, Oglesby says. They want to make “the drink that’s going to make you the most happy ‘cause you’re the one designing it. We plan on having a vast menu of cocktails that we can make for people. From your very serious whisky drinker who wants to taste the nuances of their spirit to the person who wants a kitschy 12-ingredient tropical drink, to the person who wants to enjoy a cocktail with no alcohol in it. And everything in between.”

They currently are in the “research and development” stage in their search for a chef, Gilliam says.

“The same creative freedom we have, they will have as well,” Nelson says. “It will be more tapas, small-plate style, but I would say it’ll be pretty creative.”

All three owners have worked in various restaurants. “We all three bartended,” Oglesby says. “That’s how we all met and know each other.”

“We’ve all kind of met and grown through bartending,” Gilliam says. “We have all been creatively collaborating for years now. And it’s something we love and we’re really good at. And that we want to continue to do.”

“We’ve always talked about the bar that we would want to go to,” Nelson says. “That has all these type points as being someplace fun where I can get any kind of drink. And we kind of paused when Covid hit.”

But, she says, “We all have the same vision when it comes to the bar we want to hang out in.”

So, they got busy when things began to open back up. “We were going through all the things we need to make this possible. And it’s snowballed.”

Their broker found them their location at The Citizen, Gilliam says. “It’s a 1,400 square-foot shotgun space. It’s intimate. I would not say it’s small, but it’s just as we needed it to be. Nice, cozy, intimate. It’s a 50-seat space, 14 seats to the bar, 36 at a very long banquette.”

Explaining the name “Cameo,” Oglesby says, “We wanted to make use of this brick and mortar to highlight and collaborate with other people with the same passion in art, music, food.”

They want to showcase artists and people who cook with charity events or other functions. “Use our space to, hopefully, showcase and give a name to people who have the same passion as ours. And share that with the city.”

As for the interior colors, Gilliam says, “Opulent greens and dark moody crystal. A complete desecration of your grandma’s parlor. Taxidermy. Disco balls. Rustic glam.”

“We are going to have something there for everyone,” Oglesby says. “This is going to be a very inclusive space where I think anybody will feel comfortable. As long as they’re there to have a good time.”

For more information go to cameomemphis.com. Instagram is @cameo_mem

Cameo is at 1835 Union Avenue, Suite Three, in The Citizen apartments.

Salt/Soy is slated to open in February in the Broad Avenue Arts District.

The goal is to get the restaurant at 2583 Broad “up and going before Valentine’s Day so we can do omakase, a Japanese tasting menu,” says owner/sushi chef Nick Scott. “Usually, the omakase chef comes up with a tasting menu on the fly. This is something we’d set; three or four courses.”

Salt/Soy was hosting pop-up omakases Thursdays through Fridays at Alchemy, which Scott also owns. The pop-up events were “mainly a preview for what’s to come,” he says. They were “a huge success. The lines couldn’t get through the door.”

Camille Jones

Alex Moseley, and Brad McCarley

When Salt/Soy opens on Broad, the menu will include vegetarian and pork ramen bowls. The restaurant’s general manager, Brad McCarley, who Scott worked with at the old City Block Salumeria, is “curing all the meat in-house. We’re fermenting our own miso, our own kimchi. We’ll let that inspire the direction we go in. He’s got a ‘fried chicken and dumpling’ dumpling. It’s incredible.”

There are talks of doing a dim sum brunch on Sundays, but offering it between noon and 6 p.m. instead of earlier in the day.

But Salt/Soy isn’t going to limit itself to serving one type of food, Scott says. “We’re not pigeonholing ourselves to only doing Japanese. It will be Asian-inspired; pulling from all cultures and melding them together.”

And, he says, “I’m also looking for some Pacific inspiration there. We might throw in some tiki stuff. We may do some riffs on classic tiki drinks. We’ve talked about that. The overall menu — the food menu, the sushi menu, and the cocktail menu — is going to be really fun, exciting, different.”

Salt/Soy began as a pop-up in 2018 at Puck Food Hall. The idea was “sushi and seafood with ceviches and different types of crudos,” Scott says. And “market-style fish and seafood by the pound.

“The next stage we started looking for brick and mortar. We looked at a lot of places. We knew Lucky Cat [Ramen] went out of business, unfortunately. And there was a lot of talk about it within the industry, a lot of people who wanted to get in there. I had some real estate contacts who lead me in the right direction, and it kind of fell in my lap.

“It was a no-brainer,” he adds. “They had everything built out and ready to go. We changed a few things, but not a lot. That happened in October.”

The concept for the new location is “less of a market concept and more of an izakaya sushi concept,” Scott says. “A Japanese drinking establishment, with Japanese tapas, serving small plates. People come in and have drinks and cocktails.”

Downstairs will be “a little more upper-scale dining,” he says. “We’ll have the patio, which will evolve over spring and summer — a massive patio. And then upstairs will be more of a late-night, rock-and-roll situation. Kind of a little more gritty than downstairs. We’ve talked about getting a Bluetooth record player up there and playing only vinyl.”

Bar manager Alex Moseley came over from Alchemy. McKenzie Nelson, who was at Lucky Cat and High Noon, also will be behind the bar. Both bartenders are “very creative,” Scott says.

The restaurant has been given an artful makeover. They repainted the interiors and brought in an artist, David Johnson, to survey the space to determine how he could bring his own creative vision into the mix.

Scott says Johnson outfitted some of the downstairs spaces with paintings that work with the restaurant’s new color scheme. “His artwork is black and white with pops of color — and [the pieces] will be for sale.”

The restaurant’s name already adorns the front door. Scott can’t wait for that door to open to the public. “It’s going to be a fun place.”