Tag: Sammy Hagar’s Red Rocker Bar & Grill

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Sacred 8 Dinner Series, and more news

• Friends, this may be the only culinary event in Memphis, if not the world, inspired by the movie Point Break — and not the infamous Patrick Swayze/Keanu Reeves vehicle but the remake. 

Chef Phillip Levy has created a series of eight supper club dinners called Sacred 8, which is a nod to a Japanese philosopher character and his eight feats of nature in Point Break, Levy says.

The dinners will be titled — “Master of Eight Lives,” “Emergence of Ice,” “Illuminating Earth,” “Ultimatum,” etc. Each will have a menu reflective of the season. For example, Levy says he’s considering for the first dinner, held on August 13th, serving as one of the courses a quail egg with the yolk representing the sun. 

The dinners are limited to 35 guests. Location and menu will be revealed on the day of the event.

Levy, who is 27, trained under Andreas Kisler at the Peabody before moving to San Diego and then making his way back to Memphis. He now works as a personal chef.  

The tagline for Sacred 8 is “Are you ready for the challenge?” and the last dinner is called the “Ultimatum.”  It’s at the beginning of the summer, and I’m thinking of serving a tricky dish you don’t want to try.” 

• Attention barbecue lovers, Chef Shuttle announced Tuesday that they are now delivering Rendezvous. 

* Boscos Squared will reopen tomorrow after being closed since July 4th for renovations. A rep calls it a freshening up with new paint for the bar and the floors redone. 

• Picked up this big little cake from Bluff City Coffee. I guess it’s about 3 or four slices. They have chocolate, carrot, and strawberry. Cakes are $10. 

• Y’all must not want Mrs. Winner’s, after all. The crowdfunding campaign has raised only $285 out of its $32,000 goal. Nine days are left in the campaign. 

• Sammy Hagar sighting at Sammy Hagar’s Red Rocker Bar & Grill. (Is that bear Sammy Hagar too????) 

Hagar was in town to present checks, totalling $50,000, to the local charities the Mid-South Food Bank, The Boys and Girls Club of Crittenden County, and the Steudlein Learning Center. 

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Sammy Hagar’s Red Rocker’s BBQ Veggie Burger

Sammy Hagar’s Red Rocker at Southland Park does push the idea that this is place that, indeed, rocks. There’s the cool menu (above) and such menu items as the Red Rocktail (Hagar-branded rum, plus peach schnapps!), Head Banging Shrimp, and the Three Meat Box hamburger. But they’re not particularly obnoxious. And while one might expect it to pretty loud in there, and maybe it is at night, at lunchtime, the scene was chill. 

There’s much to admire about the Red Rocker’s BBQ veggie burger. The presentation, for one, with its fantastic almost-entire pickle garnish. The veggie patty itself is hearty, with just enough sauce for flavor not mess. It’s topped with both pepper jack cheese and haystack onions. Everything works.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Now open: Red Rocker and Belly Acres.

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

“Are you ready to rock?”

That’s the first thing they’ll ask you at Sammy Hagar’s Red Rocker Bar & Grill, the new sports bar inside Southland Park. Here, the servers aren’t servers; they’re rock stars. And you know what, friend? You’re a rock star, too.

The new restaurant was developed as part of a $38 million expansion at Southland that includes a new building, new additional parking, and 500 new slot machines. According to management, that brings the grand total to 1,950 — the most in the area.

As for Red Rocker, it is open, spacious and well-lit, with tall ceilings. Red is everywhere — an obvious nod to Hagar, aka the Red Rocker, who’s best known for his hit “I Can’t Drive 55.” There are 55 flat-screen TVs, too, including a screen at every booth.

“During football season,” says Southland marketing manager Marshall Robertson, “there’s days where you got 10 games going on at one time. And if you come here, you can watch every single one of them.”

When it comes to food, Red Rocker offers its own take on classic pub grub, including finger-licking barbecue nachos ($7.99) and a burger called the Three Meat Box ($11.99), which is slathered with a tasty sweet onion jam. I also enjoyed the meatloaf cupcake ($12.99), a savory treat with an “icing” of garlic mashed potatoes.

“Something we’ve always hung our hat on,” Robertson says, “is the fact that we’re a close, convenient option. If you live downtown, you can be here in 10 minutes. So why not give us a try and come stop in for lunch?”

Justin Fox Burks

Belly Acres

So far, press coverage of Belly Acres — the new farm-to-table burger joint in Overton Square — has tended to focus on the zany décor, which, admittedly, is hard to miss. There’s a bright-red tractor inside the front door and a big yellow crop duster hanging from the ceiling.

“We figure, instead of bringing the farm to your table,” says owner Ben McLean, “we’ll bring your table to the farm.”

But the real story here isn’t the family atmosphere — it’s the menu. As an example, let’s take the Early Riser, a bacon cheeseburger served with a fried egg between waffles. The beef is fresh, thick, and juicy, and for good reason: Nearly all of the ingredients come from within a day’s drive of Memphis.

The beef is grass-fed, from Joyce Farms in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The Bibb lettuce is from Tanimura & Antle Farm in Livingston, Tennessee. And the fried egg is sourced by Bring It Food Hub, right here in Memphis.

Here’s the kicker. The whole thing, including house-made chips and a drink, will run you $15 — the same price you’d pay at so-called premium fast-casual burger joints. Only at Belly Acres, the food is tastier, it’s local, and they’ll bring it to your table.

“We’re a place for families who want to feed their kids responsibly,” McLean says. “Or really, anybody who wants a really good, grass-fed burger.”

It’s an audacious plan, but if it works, you might soon be seeing a lot more of Belly Acres. Over the next five years, depending on the success of the Overton Square restaurant, McLean says he plans to open 15 more like it across the Southeast.

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

About that Sammy Hagar’s Red Rocker Bar & Grill

Sammys_Southland_FINAL_062414_1__2_.jpg

According to Southland Gaming and Racing president and general manager Troy Keeping, Sammy Hagar’s Red Rocker Bar & Grill is just one element of $30-million-plus in improvements. There will also be work done on the exterior of the building, valet parking will be added, and the gaming space will be expanded.

Results from a survey led to the Red Rocker.

“We let our guests tell us what they want,” he says, and what they wanted was a sports bar.

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“When we were creating our concept, we kept coming back to rock-and-roll,” says Keeping.

Southland’s parent company Delaware North Companies Gaming & Entertainment already had a relationship with Hagar, who has lent his name to Cabo Wabo Cantina and Sammy’s Beach Bar & Grills, as well as Cabo Wabo premium tequila and Sammy’s Beach Bar rum.

“Let me give you the tagline,” says Keeping. “It’s a sports bar that rocks!”

The decor will include 55 TVs in a nod to Hagar’s hit “I Can’t Drive 55.” There will be a shuffleboard and dart boards. There will be lots of red accents.

The menu features bar food with a twist — a meatloaf cupcake, a three-meat burger topped in sweet onion jam. There will be a beer tap that will keep beer at 29 degrees, colder than your average tap.

Keeping says that when the news about the Red Rocker was released about 6 weeks ago, his phone blew up. People asked him for tickets. Tickets to a sports bar!

Red Rocker is set to open sometime around the end of the year.

Says Keeping, “There’s a lot of excitement around the brand, which tells me we’re really going to have a winner.”