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A Broad Avenue Art Walk and Coffee Cupping at Vice and Virtue

    It was one of the first warm Friday evenings of the year, and the first Broad Avenue Art Walk of the year, so when I saw that there was to be a special coffee cupping event at Vice and Virtue Coffee, I decided to head down to the Broad Avenue Arts District for the evening.

    My first stop was The Liquor Store, a favorite diner/bar in the area, which serves excellent breakfasts all day as well as excellent burgers. I had their superb bacon and bleu cheese burger, and then ventured out to the rest of the district.

    Although rain was predicted, the sun was out, and people had come out to walk around and check out the various shops and boutiques. I love art, and I poked my head in several galleries, but art is so expensive. If I could afford it, I would love to fill my home with it.

    Down toward Hollywood, I came to the main bakery for Muddy’s, which is usually not open to the public, but which had opened for the art walk and was selling some of their exquisite cupcakes. I bought one, and then continued around the corner to Vice and Virtue Coffee, where the cupping was to be held.

    I had never attended a cupping before, so I did not know exactly what to expect. I learned that cuppings are the way that various coffees and roasts are evaluated, so I found that quite interesting, but I cannot say that I particularly enjoyed the process, as cuppings involve drinking coffee without cream or sweetener. I also found it hard to understand the various categories of evaluation, which involve categories on an elaborate wheel of particular flavors and aromas within individual categories. What I did learn however, is that this is how roasters arrive at the “flavor notes” that they place on coffees, such as “notes of chocolate and citrus” or what have you.

    I have to say however that Vice and Virtue is a welcome addition to the city of Memphis, and produces some excellent coffee. I was most impressed with the owner and his commitment to quality coffee, and look forward to what the company will be offering in the future.

    Unfortunately, while I had been in the cupping event, it had begun raining, and only with great difficulty did I manage to make it back to my car, thoroughly wet.

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    Find Your Place In Society…Society Memphis, That Is

      I am old enough to remember when Memphis did not have even so much as one coffee bar. Now there is actually a bewildering array of coffee options in numerous neighborhoods around the city, but one of the newest coffee bars in Memphis is also one of the most unique. Society Memphis is a coffee bar, a skateboard store, a skateboard park, and occasionally a venue for hip-hop cyphers, and as such is a welcome addition to the developing arts community in Binghampton.

      Given that there are many points of contact between the hip-hop culture and the skateboarding culture, and given my love of great coffee, I was already eager to try the place when I heard about it, but upon my first visit, I was even more thrilled when I walked in and heard music of the Hill Country blues great Junior Kimbrough. I quickly learned that this was indeed my kind of place.

      Society Memphis serves Vice and Virtue Coffee, made by a local roastery around the corner in the same neighborhood, and also offers delectable baked goods, including brownies and cookies. In addition, they sell skateboards and T-shirts, and have admission prices to the skatepark, one for spectators, and one for participants.

      Follow them on Facebook here to see special events and shows.

      Society Memphis

      583 Scott Street

      Memphis, TN 38112

      (901) 218-1882

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      A Rainy Night in the New Nashville

        I drove up to Nashville on a Thursday night so that I could spend Friday in the Tennessee State Archives doing research for my masters’ thesis, but the weather was a complete wash-out, with rain that would not stop all the way from Memphis to Nashville.

        Tennessee’s capital is in the middle of an unprecedented growth spurt, and its downtown in particular is becoming a city that I hardly recognize anymore. The rain was making things particularly difficult, but I recalled reading about a place that served Detroit-style pizza in Nashville, so I looked it up on my phone, and found it. The little bar was in a neighborhood called the Gulch, and was called Emmy Squared. It proved to be a Nashville branch of a New York City chain, and although I was wet and chilled after running from the parking garage to the bar, the interior was cozy, warm and inviting. The pizza proved to be quite expensive, but very delicious, and worth the cost.

        Afterwards, I wanted dessert, and to my surprise, I saw on my phone that Nashville has gotten a location of Cafe Intermezzo, my favorite dessert place in Atlanta. Getting there was difficult to say the least, but after running in the rain, I came to a place with a huge Lavazza Coffee sign, but that turned out to be a completely different place, a late-night eatery called The Diner, which looked inviting. The Nashville location of Intermezzo turned out to be in the next block of Demonbreun Street, and was slightly smaller than its Atlanta counterparts, but it had the same excellent desserts and coffees. Being a huge Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup fan, I chose a chocolate and peanut butter cheesecake, and had a chocolate peanut butter latte as well! It was the perfect follow-up to my dinner. Then, with the rain continuing, I headed back to my Air BnB to call it a night. This is certainly not the Nashville I knew in my younger days!

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        The Zulus and Rex Uptown on Mardi Gras Morning


        I was exhausted enough that I didn’t wake up early on Mardi Gras morning, and I barely stirred when my friend’s wife got the kids dressed to take them to her mother’s condo uptown so they could watch the parades. I had hoped to go to breakfast with Darren, assuming we could find a place open, which is not easy to do on Mardi Gras Day, but when I saw that he was not going to wake up any time soon, I got dressed and headed down the road to an IHOP that was open near the Oakwood Mall at the border between New Orleans and Gretna. I felt sorry for the people there having to work, but it was nice to be able to get some coffee and a good bacon and cheese omelette. After breakfast, I called Darren and found that he had woken up, but the price I paid for my breakfast was missing the Zulu Parade. But Darren and I headed across the bridge and uptown, and on Washington Avenue, we actually caught up with a portion of the Zulu Parade. Even though rain had been predicted, instead the sun was out, and the temperature was a pleasant 72 degrees. In fact, it seemed as if we had gone from winter to spring in 12 short hours. There were huge crowds along the parade route, and to my disappointment, the float riders in the Zulu parade were quite stingy with their throws, perhaps because they were getting to the end of the parade route. We still managed to catch 30 or so of the Zulu floats, and then we made our way down to the corner of 6th and St. Charles, where we were able to park at Darren’s mother-in-law’s condominium complex in order to catch the Rex parade. Although there were a few bands in the Rex parade, it was less bands and more floats, but the floats were interesting, as they had to do with New Orleans and Louisiana history. It seemed as if there were more beads being thrown in the Rex parade, and eventually, due to the hot weather, I got thirsty, so I walked across the street to the Gracious Bakery and Cafe, which surprisingly was open, and I got an iced coffee. When the Rex parade was over, it was immediately followed by a truck parade sponsored by the Krewe of Elks, but that parade soon came to a halt and stayed stopped for nearly an hour. We didn’t know it at the time, but there had been a shooting along the parade route on St. Charles Avenue, and a teenager had died. But I was not as interested in the truck parade, and hoped to run into the gangs of Mardi Gras Indians, so Darren and I left St. Charles Avenue and headed to the vicinity of Second and Dryades, a known location for the Indian tribes.