A new Old Zinnie’s will aim to stay the same
Come Spring, Midtowners will have another resurrection to celebrate — Old Zinnie’s will open it’s doors once again to welcome in the old bar’s faithful patrons, owner Tony Westmoreland confirmed.
A casual note taped to the front door of the bar, located on Madison Avenue at Belvedere, announced the restaurant’s closure in late November.
“I got a call about Zinnie’s just as soon as they put the note on the door,” Westmoreland said.
The closure announcement came shortly after another nightlife spot, Amurica, announced they would be closing their doors to the public, and prior to the announcement that another storied Midtown spot, Fino’s, would also be closing.
Because of the quickly turning landscape of Midtown, the Memphis restaurateur decided his best course for reopening Zinnie’s was to keep everything as close to the original as possible.
“Midtown has lost a lot of its places over the years,” said Westmoreland. “We used to have Neils and Fantasia. Plus, there’s so much new development going on in the area. I’m just trying to keep as much Midtown nostalgia as possible.”
In keeping with his pursuit of nostalgia, Westmoreland decided to keep one feature of Zinnie’s the same.
“We will be a 21 and up smoking establishment,” Westmoreland said. “I don’t think I could change that with the regulars.”
In addition to smoking, other Zinnie’s fixtures will either make a comeback or be revamped.
The northwest corner of the bar will
still hold a popcorn machine. Televisions will still light up with Memphis basketball during the season. Old menu favorites will still make the roster alongside new items.
Westmoreland is only changing what is necessary.
The kitchen, for example, will need to be renovated. The bathrooms will be revived — as much as the decades-old building will allow, anyway.
“We’re working with code enforcement to see what all can be done with the restrooms, but it’s very limited,” Westmoreland said.
Details about the main bar area — one row of booths and a dozen tables prone to frequent rearrangement on busy nights with shifting crowds — still remain to be seen.
“I haven’t had a chance to really assess how the furniture has held up over the years,” Westmoreland said, “but we’re going to try and keep that as close to the original as possible.”
And though Zinnie’s isn’t known as a music venue, Westmoreland says they are considering doing small-scale acoustic sets from time to time, but not often.
After all, Westmoreland said, it’s about keeping this one element the same while everything else is changing.
“We need to keep some of what made Midtown, Midtown.”