Just a few short years ago, no coffees were being roasted in Memphis. All of sudden, there is seemingly an endless array of locally-based coffee brands, and most of them of very high quality. One can imagine my surprise when yet another new one appeared on my Facebook timeline recently, Ethnos Coffee. Ethnos specializes in roasts of beans from various parts of the world….they recently got acclaim for the cleverly-named Guji Mane Ethiopian coffee, and have coffees from Nicaragua, Brazil and many other parts of the world. Locally, they can be purchased at Cool Beans Coffee Shop, a new coffee bar inside the Cordova Farmer’s Market. Prices are reasonable, and the coffee is really good. For those who don’t live in the Memphis area, their coffees can be ordered from their website, and they ship.
Any day that I am leaving New Orleans tends to be depressing, and Ash Wednesday always seems doubly so. Perhaps it is supposed to be depressing, or at least sobering. It starts the penitential season of Lent, when we are supposed to focus on our own sinfulness, and the monumental nature of what Christ did for us. But knowing that the fun times of Mardi Gras are over for another year is just a little saddening.
Most years, a good breakfast helps cheer me up before I get on the road. This year, my friend Darren Towns of the TBC Brass Band and his four daughters joined me at Polly’s Bywater Cafe, one of my favorite breakfast places in New Orleans. The place is usually not all that busy, particularly on the average weekday, but this particular day was an exception. The place was packed, the kitchen and waitstaff way behind. We ultimately got our food, and it was as good as ever, but it took awhile.
I chose to leave the city on the Causeway, going across the lake to the north shore. I was in the mood for some coffee, so instead of going to a Starbucks or another chain, I ventured off the main road into the small town of Madisonville where there was a place called Abita Coffee Roasters.
As I have noted on a previous visit, Madisonville is one of the most beautiful towns in Louisiana. North of Lake Pontchartrain, its historic downtown along Water Street fronts on the Tchefuncte River, which is navigable down to the lake, by which boats can make their way to the Gulf of Mexico. There are a number of waterfront houses, and several marinas, as well as a handful of restaurants. But Abita Coffee Roasters is by far the most beautiful building in downtown Madisonville, with the look of an old creole home, surrounded by towering mossy oaks. Its front porch faces the river, and in back is a lovely patio/courtyard.
Of course people go to a coffee house for the coffee, and that is excellent too. Not only does Abita have espresso-based coffee drinks, but they also do their own coffee roasting, and have plenty of bags of different varieties of whole bean coffees for purchase. I was actually tempted to buy some, but I already had a lot of bean coffee at home waiting to be brewed. So I contented myself with a breve latte and a chocolate brownie, and then continued on my way toward Memphis. Although nothing could completely cure my sadness, the beauty of Madisonville was comforting.
By the end of the TBC Brass Band show at Kermit’s Mother in Law Lounge in Treme, I was at the end of my endurance, running on fumes. I had been awake for more than twelve hours, and on my feet for the bulk of them. I had, since Sunday night, taken more than five hundred photos and videos! In addition, I had not eaten anything since the early morning breakfast at Coffee & in Marrero.
When planning my trip to Mardi Gras, I had seen Tommy G’s Coal-Fired Pizza on my Yelp app. It was not a place I had noticed before, so I assumed it had opened rather recently. I had hoped to go there Monday night, but Jarday Towns, Darren’s wife, had warned me that we would not be able to get anywhere near it on Lundi Gras because it is located near the convention center, and the parades end there during Mardi Gras. She was undoubtedly right.
But fortunately, on Mardi Gras Day, by the evening, the parades are largely over, and it was very easy for us to get to the area. In addition, there was street parking, and it was free because the day was a holiday and the meters had been turned off. However, from the street, it seemed that Tommy G’s was closed, even though I had called them earlier and they said they would be open normal hours, from 11 AM to 4 in the morning. The interior looked fairly dark, and nobody was sitting in the chairs. However, when Darren and I tried the door, it opened. We soon found that the street address really reflects the back of the restaurant, and on the front side, there were a number of people at the bar and some of the tables. That number grew as we enjoyed our dinner.
While a number of restaurants offer coal-fired pizza, Tommy G’s was impressive. First of all, the pizzas were delicious, as good as any I have ever had (mine was made with capricola and pancetta), but it also needs to be pointed out that the menu includes many other options, including wings, roasted shrimp, Italian sandwiches and pasta specialties. Then Tommy G’s also has a full espresso bar and an exquisite selection of Italian pastry desserts and gelatos.
As Darren and I talked over the events of the day, we decided to order gelatos, and they were delicious as well. Suddenly, it was 2 AM, and we decided it was best to head to bed!
Not the least attraction of Tommy G’s is the hours. They are open from 11 AM to 4 AM, seven days a week. When other places are closed, they are a great option.
Lundi Gras is really a holiday in New Orleans, with schools and some businesses closed, and a lot of people off work. My friend Darren Towns, his wife, his four daughters and I all headed across the Huey P. Long bridge fairly early in the morning to the Elmwood neighborhood in Jefferson Parish to a new restaurant called Sunny Side Up. It wasn’t a fancy place, but it had really good food, and the kids particularly enjoyed it.
The parades were not until the evening, and we missed the first one, but Orpheus started later, and we managed to find parking south of St. Charles Avenue near Sixth Street. I had heard a great marching band as I walked up to the parade route, but I didn’t know who it was. When I caught up with Darren and his dad at the parade route, I learned I had missed Jackson State’s Sonic Boom of the South. Stillman College and Coahoma Community College bands were two of the first to go past after I arrived, and the darkness was illuminated by brilliant-lit and colored floats, as well as the traditional flambeaux carried by young men which used to be part of all Mardi Gras parades. While the floats interested the younger kids, the interest for Darren, his dad and myself were the marching bands. Despite the obvious differences between marching band and brass band styles and cultures, New Orleans is a city of serious “band heads,” as they are known, and most of the city’s better brass band musicians began their musical careers in school bands, some of which are now famous. Bands from St. Augustine, Marion Abramson, Edna Karr and Landry Walker were among those marching in Orpheus on Monday night. Despite being focused on the bands, I managed to catch some beads, but one thing that was not very much fun was getting hit below the left eye by a cup thrown from a float. Even though I was standing a considerable distance from the float, the cup struck me hard, and led to soreness and swelling below the eye. Darren managed to get the cup, which was emblazoned with Orpheus 2020, and gave it to me, even though I was not at all sure that I wanted it! I later learned that float riders were supposed to hand the cups to people, not throw them.
All too soon, the parade was over, and although we had talked about going down to the Central Business District for pizza at Tommy G’s Coal-Fired Pizza, that was near the end of the parade route, and we thought better of it. Instead, we headed the opposite direction to Pizza Domenica, way uptown on Magazine Street, arriving just before they were scheduled to close. This restaurant makes a good mainstay during the Mardi Gras holidays, as they remain open normal hours, and cheerfully serve people coming from the parades. And the pizza is outstanding as well.
Afterwards, I had suggested to Darren that we go to Cafe du Monde in the Quarter for coffee and beignets, but he was tired. Instead, he informed me that a place called Coffee & in Marrero was open 24 hours a day and had coffee and beignets. So I stopped there and got a cafe au lait and an order of beignets. If they weren’t quite as good as the Cafe du Monde, they were certainly good enough, cost less, and were more convenient. I was surprised at how crowded the place was on the night before Mardi Gras, and it was nearly midnight, at which time Mardi Gras day would begin.
We were all thoroughly exhausted. Even after drinking cafe au lait, I had no problem drifting off to sleep.
After a long drive across Mississippi through drizzly, wet weather, I was late getting into New Orleans, and thought I might actually miss the start of the To Be Continued Brass Band‘s weekly Sunday night gig at Kermit’s Treme Mother-in-Law Lounge. But Darren Towns, the bass drummer for TBC told me they might not get started until 9 PM, so I decided to try to grab a dinner before heading to the venue. I got off on Veterans Boulevard in Metairie because I knew they had every kind of restaurant along that route, but I forgot that there could be parades in Jefferson Parish too. When I got to Clearview Parkway, the police had the road completely closed due to a parade, and there were only two restaurants in the area, Don’s Seafood and Saltgrass Steakhouse. I like Saltgrass, but was more in the mood for seafood, so I chose Don’s and it was quite good, and rather crowded, to my surprise. From its parking lot I could hear the music, yelling and laughter from the parade to the east on Veterans.
I feared that the Sunday parades could cause traffic gridlock in getting to Kermit’s, which is on North Claiborne Avenue, but the journey was remarkably uneventful. I parked under the I-10 overpass, walked into the lounge, and found to my surprise that TBC was just setting up and had not started playing yet. Their weekly Sunday night gigs often attract crowds, but with so many people off work on the following day, Lundi Gras, the crowd was the largest I had seen at Kermit’s. The band played a number of its newest songs, including “I Heard Ya Been Talking” which was aimed at the Big 6 Brass Band after members of that band had been allegedly talking down on TBC. As is always the case at Kermit’s, at a certain point during the night, a female dancer appeared on the roof of the lounge, and Kermit Ruffins himself came outside to shoot off fireworks over the patio. The weather was warm, and with its banana trees and tin-roofed outdoor bar, the patio had the ambiance of Jamaica or somewhere else in the Caribbean.
However, the biggest surprise of the night was after the TBC Brass Band had played their final tune and were putting their instruments away. The crowd, as usual, begged for one more tune. To oblige them, Brenard “Bunny” Adams started a tuba bass line which Darren Towns picked up on the bass drum, and soon the whole band joined in. The unfamiliar tune proved to be the Meters’ “Fiya on the Bayou,” a tune I had never heard TBC play before, and a fitting way to close out a Sunday night before Mardi Gras.
Later Bunny, Darren and myself met up at the Cafe du Monde in the Quarter for some coffee and beignets, since my old favorite spot in City Park is no longer a 24-hour establishment. There was a fairly big crowd in the Quarter too, but it was late and I was tired. As is so often the case in New Orleans, the next day offered endless possibilities.
In 1963, the owners of the Sterick Building added a north parking garage on top of which was a new Holiday Inn with a pool deck. It was the talk of Memphis that summer, but eventually it fell on hard times, as did the Sterick Building a block to the south. But in 2019, the building was renovated as the upscale Hotel Indigo, and the restaurant space, which had last been a location of A & R Bar-B-Que, opened as 3rd and Court Diner , an upscale gourmet take on the classic American diner, owned by the good folks who own Sunrise Memphis. On a Sunday afternoon, the bright white-and-glass ambiance is cheerful, and unlike their sister restaurant, there is generally no wait to get a table or bar seat. The menu, while not as extensive as Sunrise Memphis, does have the same sausage, bacon and eggs, and some different items as well. Food and service were great, and there are flat-screen TVs if you want to watch ball games. The downstairs, which was formerly Memphis Sounds, a jazz, blues and soul lounge, has become simply The Lounge, and features live music on weekends.
Unfortunately, after several positive experiences with 3rd and Court, the owners made a decision to curtail its hours. It is no longer open at night (despite the lounge downstairs being open), and closes at 2 PM. Since Sunrise Memphis closes at 3 PM, that makes both restaurants breakfast and lunch only establishments, and limits my opportunity to get there. Here is hoping that the owners will eventually decide to restore the original hours.
Fans of great pizza will be thrilled to learn that the former Fuel Cafe location in Midtown Memphis has become an upscale Italian restaurant called Tamboli’s Pizza and Pasta. The warm and inviting interior is the site of some of Memphis’ best wood-fired pizzas, including the Meat Board Pizza, a delicacy that involves the meats from the restaurant’s Meat Board appetizer. Somewhat oddly for a pizza place, Tamboli’s only features four varieties of pizza, but then they only feature four varieties of pasta on their dinner menu. The main course dishes include such unusual concepts as crispy fried chicken parmesan, lasagna and slow-braised beef.
Being a meat lover, on my visit, I tried the Meat Board pizza. I loved the fact that you can watch the pizzas being made over the wood fire, and when mine was ready, it was indeed delicious and filling. Prices seem remarkably reasonable, considering the higher-end look and feel of the establishment. A decent selection of wines and beers rounds out the menu. Tamboli’s is definitely not your average pizza place, but worth a visit.
The actual day of my birthday was much colder than the day before, but my friend Darren Towns of TBC Brass Band and I headed out to Polly’s Bywater Cafe, which is just about my favorite breakfast spot in New Orleans, for omelettes, biscuits and coffee. Then I stopped by Aunt Sally’s Pralines in the French Quarter to pick up a box of pralines to take home to Memphis. Actually, Decatur Street is a bewildering array of different praline shops, and figuring out which one to choose is not easy, but a waiter at the Cafe du Monde the night before had told me to pick a shop where the pralines were being made in house. It proved to be great advice. Although Aunt Sally’s pralines were outrageously expensive, they were just about the best I had ever had.
Darren had a busy day of things to do, so I dropped him off and headed by a Rouse’s supermarket to get the French Market coffee varieties that I cannot find in Memphis, and then headed across the Causeway to the Northshore on my way back to Memphis.
At Jackson, I headed to the District at Eastover to have lunch at Fine and Dandy, the upscale burger and sandwich restaurant which I had seen on my Grambling trip. Fine and Dandy is something of an enigma, with the high-end ambiance of a steakhouse, but an emphasis on burgers and other sandwiches. Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and other jazz vocalists comprise the soundtrack, giving the place a sort of “Oceans Eleven” vibe, but prices are reasonable, and the food is very good. I learned from my server that Fine and Dandy and its sister restaurant nearby, Sophomore Spanish Club, are locally-owned, one-of-a-kind restaurants. However, they are concepts that I could imagine working well in other cities.
After grabbing a latte at il Lupo coffee across the parking lot, I got back on the road north toward Como, Mississippi, where the bluesman R. L. Boyce was to be the Grand Marshal of the annual Christmas parade. With each mile northward the weather seemed to get colder, and by the time I arrived in Como, it was almost time for the parade, and extremely chilly.
Presumably the freezing weather and Monday night timeframe combined to keep the crowds to a minimum, but there were handfuls of parents and kids along Main Street, where some Black equestrians with their horses were riding up and down the street ahead of the parade’s start.
As I expected, Como’s parade was fairly small, some fire trucks, some cars with the mayor and other city officials, a few mayors from other towns, a Corvette car club, the bands from Rosa Fort High School in Tunica and the North Panola High School in Sardis, and the horsemen. R. L. was riding in a truck that had been emblazoned with the words, “Grand Marshal R. L. Boyce” and waved to me when he recognized me.
The parade u-turned north of the business district and headed back down the other side of Main Street, but the whole event only took about twenty minutes.
When it was all over, thoroughly frozen, I headed into Windy City Grill for my birthday dinner. Windy City is not a fancy restaurant, but it was bright, warm and cheerful inside, and fairly crowded for a Monday night. After a small pepperoni and bacon pizza, then I got back on the road to head home to Memphis. Although it was cold, it was a thoroughly enjoyable birthday. And I was so happy for the great honor showed to R. L. Boyce by his hometown.
With my birthday falling on Monday December 2, I decided to celebrate a day early by going to New Orleans for the Dumaine Street Gang second-line, since I knew that the To Be Continued Brass Band would be playing in it.
The TBC Brass Band, as it is usually called, is one of the bands that first attracted me to New Orleans’ street brass band culture, and is the band that most typifies the modern brass band sound and style. Although the band has a youthful, defiant hip-hop swagger, its music is firmly rooted in both the brass band tradition and the standard soul tunes of the Black community.
Waking up at 8 AM in Jackson, Mississippi, I had to stop for breakfast, which I did at Cultivation Food Hall, where I had chicken and waffles at a place called Fete au Fete, which I didn’t realize was a branch of a New Orleans restaurant chain. However the food was great, and with a cup of coffee from Il Lupo Coffee I got back on the road headed for New Orleans. Unfortunately, the parade was set to begin in the Treme neighborhood at noon, and I only made it across the causeway at 11:45, and by the time I made it to Treme and found a place to park (under the I-10 overpass on Claiborne), the parade was already underway. However the weather was a pleasant 70 degrees, and the sun was out, and as a result, crowds were everywhere. The club members and bands were just coming out of the Treme Community Center when I arrived, and although I would have liked to have grabbed a coffee at the Treme Coffeehouse before following the bands into the parade, I decided it was better not to be left behind.
As it turned out, TBC had not yet come out of the community center, and they were marching behind the Divine Ladies, a social aid and pleasure club that apparently parades with the Dumaine Street Gang every year. This year’s parade actually featured no less than five bands, and as we headed out Orleans Avenue, with the sun beaming, I felt the wave of exhilaration that I always feel when starting out on a second-line. At first there were fewer onlookers along the sidewalks, but eventually the crowds picked up, including those on horseback that always seem to appear at any downtown second-line. One difference with this particular second-line was that there were almost no route stops at all, and the bands and marchers had little time to rest. One exception was a brief stop along Broad Street, where a group of Mardi Gras Indians began setting up a chant “They got to sew, sew, sew” with tambourines, which Brenard “Bunny” Adams, the tuba player for TBC, ended up picking up, and soon the whole band was playing their brass band version of it. Not long afterward, the Divine Ladies instructed their members to move forward, and we were soon on the march again.
Walking down Esplanade, I noticed the ruins of Le Palm Ballroom, at which once I had seen TBC play at a funeral. Now the roof had caved in, and the building seemed destined for demolition. Heading up Claiborne Avenue, past Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge, we came to St. Bernard Avenue and headed up it past Celebration Hall and the Autocrat Club, where a lot of motorcycle clubs had posted up with their bikes. The parade went as far as the Dollar General and T-Mobile stores, and then u-turned to head back down toward Treme, with TBC breaking into a joyful and upbeat song that I had heard them play before but which I didn’t know the name of.
However, I was filming video footage with my iPhone 7, and it soon ran out of battery life, so when the second-line started down the final push along Claiborne, I fell out of the line and went to my car, in order to begin charging the phone. I had thought that I could grab a coffee at Treme Coffeehouse, and meet up with Darren Towns, the bass drummer for TBC, but I was frustrated on both counts. About 5000 or so people were at the second-line, and the resulting gridlock and chaos made getting anywhere impossible. The police had the whole area around the community center and coffeehouse blocked off, and not only could I not get into the area, but Darren could not get out. The end result was that he could not go with me for my birthday dinner in New Orleans.
Instead, I headed across the river to Gretna to the Liberty Kitchen Steak and Chop House, which was one of the few steakhouses open in New Orleans on a Sunday afternoon. Darren and I had eaten at one of their sister restaurants in Metairie a few years ago; that location had closed, but we had been impressed with the food. I was impressed again on this particular evening; my filet mignon was delicious, as were the sides. The food was not cheap, but I have had inferior meals at higher prices, and the easy access and free parking were an added benefit.
After dinner, I wanted dessert, so I headed over to Freret Street to a place called Piccola Gelateria, where I had a peanut butter and fudge gelato in a cup, and by then, it was time to head back over to Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge, where the TBC Brass Band was playing their weekly Sunday night gig.
The Mother-in-Law Lounge was founded by the late Ernie “K-Doe” Kador, who named the place for his biggest recorded hit ever, “Mother in Law.” After he passed away, his widow had kept it open until she also passed away. Kermit Ruffins, the world-famous trumpet player who is also well-regarded as a chef, had closed his jazz lounge in the Treme neighborhood, but when the Mother-In-Law Lounge closed, he acquired it, restored it and soon had it back open. There was already a significant crowd in and around the lounge when I got there, despite the fact that the live music had not yet started. Somewhat incongruously, the center of attraction was at first a DJ playing New Orleans rap and bounce. But it was the older, classic stuff and contributed to the feel-good vibe of the place, which was painted in vibrant colors and with numerous slogans and quotes from the late K-Doe.
Although I feared that the weather would turn colder, at least when I arrived, it was still fairly warm and pleasant out on the patio where the stage was located. The TBC members had largely stayed in the area, as they could not get out of the massive traffic jam that had accompanied the end of the second-line, and they soon began trickling into the club and setting things up on the patio. There was a large television screen outside with the Sunday night NFL game on, but most of the attention was focused on the stage once the To Be Continued Brass Band started playing. Ruffins’ love of marijuana is no secret, and when the TBC band played a new song about “getting so high,” Kermit suddenly appeared on the roof and shot off fireworks, to the thrill of the patio crowd. The band also broke out with a new song, “I Heard Ya Been Talking,” which is aimed at the Big 6 Brass Band, a newer band that has allegedly been talking smack against TBC. Such rivalries, which resemble rap group rivalries, are a usual thing in the New Orleans brass band culture.
As the night progressed, things got chillier on the patio, and TBC broke out with some smoother sounds, a pleasant reading of the Temptations’ “Just My Imagination” and Smokey Robinson’s “Quiet Storm.” Then they closed out, all too soon, with a funky version of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas” that seemed to owe something to the Jackson 5’s “The Love You Save.” It was a great way to end the evening.
But by now, it was fairly chilly indeed, and fog was developing. I met Darren Towns in Marrero, and we headed back over to the French Quarter in New Orleans to the Cafe du Monde for cafe au lait and beignets. In previous years, my move would have been to the Morning Call at the Casino in City Park, but the City of New Orleans had evicted Morning Call in favor of the Cafe du Monde, but the latter had decided to not be open 24 hours a day in City Park, and the location had already closed for the night. Fortunately, we were able to find a free parking place along Decatur Street, and we sat at the table enjoying our beignets and coffee. Bunny had called Darren from Frenchmen Street, but he didn’t come through where we were, and so when we left, we drove down Frenchmen Street to see if anything was going on, but there really wasn’t much of anything, and the fog and chill were in the air. Ultimately, we headed back across the bridge to Marrero. But it had been a great day to celebrate my birthday with my favorite brass band in New Orleans.
On a recent Sunday afternoon, I headed down to the South Main Arts District in Memphis in search of brunch. The old Central Station has been turned into a hotel, and I wanted to see if there was a restaurant in it. Ultimately, I found that the restaurants in the Central Station Hotel were not open yet, and would not open until later in November, but I wasn’t disappointed, as I got a chance to see the beautiful Eight and Sand Bar, whose theme is Memphis music. Record albums span the shelves from ceiling to floor, along with a number of books about Memphis music and blues, and a permanent DJ booth. The music theme continues throughout the hotel, including beautiful speakers worked into the walls of the lobby.
I had thought that Vice & Virtue Coffee had a coffee bar in the Central Station Hotel, but I was wrong—it turned out to be in a completely different hotel up the street called the Arrive, which I really wasn’t aware of at all. This hotel also has a music theme, with an old gramophone in the lobby, and a cool bakery called Hustle and Dough! A salted caramel cookie from the bakery went perfectly with a cup of Vice and Virtue coffee, and I enjoyed the lively, vibrant atmosphere of the hotel lobby and bar.
Unfortunately, a cookie and coffee is not brunch, and the old brunch spot at Earnestine and Hazel’s called The Five Spot is apparently closed for good, so I ended up at The Arcade for breakfast, a reasonable stand-by in the area. While it will take more than cool hotels, bars, coffee and bakeries to rejuvenate Memphis, I like the trends I am seeing.
Central Station Hotel and Eight & Sand Bar
545 S Main St
Memphis, TN 38103
(901) 524-5247
ARRIVE Hotel, Hustle and Dough and Vice & Virtue Coffee
