36 hours: Walking (and eating) in Memphis
Visit civil rights museum, tour a recording studio and discover local grub and brews
Blues, Elvis and barbecue tend to dominate popular perceptions of Tennessee’s second-largest city.
But there are plenty of other diversions, including new developments in entertainment: the opening of Ballet Memphis theatre; adaptive reuse projects with significant public art spaces; and an expansion of the museums devoted to Elvis Presley.
A bike share system is set to debut this spring, and there is much to discover in lively art districts such as Broad Avenue.
From April 2 to 4, the city, and specifically the site of the former Lorraine Motel, marked the solemn 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. there with a symposium, day of remembrance and evening of storytelling exploring the question: “Where do we go from here?”
Friday 2 p.m.: Rights in review
After a $27.5-million (U.S.) renovation in 2014, the National Civil Rights Museum, which encompasses the original Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968, was transformed into an immersive, multimedia experience that begins in a replica slave hold on a ship and covers five centuries of oppression and civil-rights struggles. (Admission $16.)
Visitors pass through rooms dedicated to the Jim Crow era; a replica of the Montgomery bus where Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat; and lunch counters where students held sit-ins in the 1960s. Transitioning to King and his civil rights activism, the emotional journey culminates outside room 306, the well-preserved hotel room he occupied before he was shot on the balcony.
5 p.m.: Main Street crawl
The exit from the museum annex across the street delivers visitors to South Main Street, a historic district undergoing renewal, including the transforma-
tion of the former train station into a hotel. On the last Friday of every month, the South Main Trolley Night offers free transit between shops, galleries and restaurants (other times, the fare is $1, or $3.50 for a day pass). The vintage trolleys, temporarily replaced by wheeled versions, are being restored, with operations set to resume this year. Ride or walk to Stock & Belle to browse caps, patches and prints by Rowdy Dept., and geometric patterned Kreep Ceramics, both local lines, then hit the beloved dive bar Earnestine & Hazel’s to play the reportedly haunted jukebox.
7 p.m.: Raw and charred
The celebrated chef duo of Andy Ticer and Michael Hudman have collaborated on several Italian-meets-the-South restaurants, including the popular Hog & Hominy. With downtown’s new Gray Canary, they change the pattern, serving up oysters and wood-grilled dishes — from charred kohlrabi salad ($11) to romesco-sauced pork chop ($24) — in a romantic room overlooking the distant Hernando de Soto Bridge spanning the Mississippi. Start with a rum-ginger Wild Rumpus cocktail ($15) and end with the soft-serve ice cream in red wine ($7) to explore their range.
Diners seeking the partners’ great Italian ragu — actually, David Hudman, Michael’s father, still makes the family recipe for “maw maw’s gravy” at the restaurants — should hit Catherine & Mary’s two blocks away where the rigatoni with meatballs ($17) warrants an encore meal.
Saturday 8 a.m.: Crosstown classic
Restoring buildings, as opposed to demolishing them and starting over, is a point of pride among Memphians (see the former pyramid-shaped sports arena that now houses a swampthemed Bass Pro Shop). Once a substantial block of blight, a former Sears distribution centre has been rebuilt as the vertical village Crosstown Concourse. The new 93,000 square-metre mixed-used development includes apartments, nonprofits, shops and restaurants. Its public art arm sponsors artists in residence and plans to open a performing arts theatre in the fall. Grab a café au lait ($3.75) from French Truck Coffee and take a self-guided tour of the secondfloor gallery including murals, videos and installation artwork.
9:30 a.m.: Great outdoors
One of the nation’s largest urban parks, Shelby Farms Park, on the east side of town, encompasses 1,800 hectares shared with a herd of buffalo. Show up for Saturday’s popular 9:30 a.m. yoga class (free), held on a lake-facing lawn outside the visitor centre on fair days, or indoors if it’s raining. If yoga is not your thing, rent a bike ($10 an hour) and cruise the paths. The park lies along the 17-kilometre Greenline, a railsto-trails conversion that leads back to midtown Memphis.
12:30 p.m.: Po’boy fix
Having worked up an appetite, sate it with a generous New Orleans-style sandwich at The Second Line in Overton Square, where the popular chef Kelly English pays homage to his Louisiana roots. It resides next to his more formal Restaurant Iris and aims to channel the spirit of musical processions in a destination where, the menu notes, “every day is a party.” Lodged in an intimate bungalow with exposed brick walls and black-and-white photos, the convivial quarters draw fans from around the city for his substantial po’boys made with braised chicken thighs and Swiss cheese ($12) or fried oysters ($16), including savoury sides such as red beans and rice.
2 p.m.: Recording session
For music fans, touring Sun Studio (admission $14) is a Memphis pilgrimage. In this modest two-storey brick building, the sound engineer Sam Phillips — or, as tour guides like to tell it, his secretary Marion Keisker — discovered a young Elvis Presley. Phillips recorded the future King of rock ’n’ roll’s first single, “That’s All Right,” in 1954 but he was a blues fan prior and recorded other legends, including Howlin’ Wolf and the Prisonaires, whose musical clips are played during the tour. In the actual studio, an unglamorous work room where more recent acts such as U2 and Bonnie Raitt have recorded, guides invite tourgoers to pose holding the original Shure 55 microphone used by Elvis and other legends.
3:30 p.m.: Shopping and beer
Memphis’s growing microbrewery scene positions beer as shopping break conveniences in a couple of emerging neighbourhoods. Near Sun Studio in the Edge District, High Cotton Brewing Co. adjoins Edge Alley, home to a few intriguing shops, including B. Collective, selling artist-made housewares, and Paulette’s Closet, a retailer of fine-condition vintage clothing. Roughly 8 kilometres east on an industrial corner next to some train tracks, Wiseacre Brewing Co. anchors the shop-filled Broad Avenue Arts District. Pick up some arty accessories at Falling Into Place then grab a Tiny Bomb Pilsner ($5) and hit Wiseacre’s outdoor bocce court and music stage in the shade of a pair of grain silos.
7:30 p.m.: Showtime
New and expanding performing arts venues have concentrated around Overton Square, making the entertainment district a magnet for culture seekers. In August, Ballet Memphis, known for its regionally themed works alongside dance classics, opened a new 38,000-square-foot headquarters here. Glass walls invite onlookers to peer into rehearsals, even when no performances are scheduled. A few blocks away, the acclaimed African-American repertory company Hattiloo Theatre recently cast the awardwinning playwright Katori Hall as its artistic director.
10 p.m.: Music for every mood
Memphis music resounds from downtown’s Beale St., lined with blues clubs, to venues across town devoted to diverse genres. Begin a progressive listening tour in Overton Square, where Lafayette’s Music Room stages shows from bluegrass to soul in a bi-level room with a raised stage. The retro-furnished Mollie Fontaine Lounge occupies one of the original mansions on Millionaire’s Row downtown, now known as Victorian Village, with music ranging from jazz crooners to DJ-spun house. Catch boogie fever on the lighted dance floor of the late-night, weekendsonly club Paula & Raiford’s Disco downtown.
Sunday 9 a.m.: King & Co.
Touring Elvis Presley’s estate, Graceland, home to the kitschy Jungle Room with a carpeted ceiling, remains a bucket-list trip for music fans the world over. As of last spring, there’s much more to see in the new $45-million Elvis Presley’s Memphis, a 16-hectare complex of museums, shops and restaurants across the street that aims to cement his place in pop culture history and extend his musical appeal to the next generation of rock ’n’ roll fans.
Tours (from $59) begin at the mansion, where home movies and artifacts such as his and her wedding attire focus on Elvis’s personal life. Tour buses bring fans back across the street where a series of exhibits survey the King’s service in the U.S. army, his influence on entertainers such as Elton John and Bruce Springsteen, and his collections of showy cars and spangled jumpsuits. A diner named for his mother, Gladys, serves the fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches ($4.49) he loved.
Noon: Backyard barbecue
Head back downtown to the sprawling outdoor compound Loflin Yard. The site encompasses a cocktail bar specializing in barrel-aged drinks in a former locksmith’s shop, a coach houseturned-bar and a sun-dappled yard between them scattered with colourful lawn chairs. Grab a plate of house-smoked brisket hash ($10) and an aged Tennessee whiskey Old-Fashioned ($10), play a round of corn hole and pretend it’s your own Sunday backyard barbecue.