Home to the king of rock and roll, the heart of Memphis Soul and birthplace of the blues, Memphis, Tenn., certainly earns its bragging rights. Elvis’ home, Graceland, is the second most-visited house in the country—behind the White House—while Beale Street, the city’s musical core and where a young B.B. King used his guitar to rocket to fame, last year was the most visited tourist attraction in the state.
“For a small city, the impact Memphis has had on the world music scene is pretty phenomenal,” says John Vergos, co-owner of Memphis family restaurant Rendezvous, started by his father Charlie Vergos in 1948.
On the culinary front, the city is renowned for its barbecue. Rendezvous is one of the city’s most star-studded eateries and has hosted presidents and royalty, rock stars and authors—Al Gore, Bill Clinton, George Bush, Mick Jagger and Prince Albert of Monaco, as well as native sons author John Grisham and Justin Timberlake, to name a few. Rendezvous also catered President Clinton’s inaugural gala in 1992, as well as a lunch for President Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi in 2006.
Though barbecue is still the city’s signature dish, Vergos notes a shift in recent years to more diverse cuisine, which he attributes to the city’s port town status. “We’re an immigrant city,” Vergos says, who is of Greek origin himself. Many of the top restaurants are located in the Cooper Young area.
More than the changes on the culinary front, Memphis has weathered storms on the urban front.
“The major event in my life in Memphis was the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968,” Vergos recalls. “That culminated in urban sprawl and increased deterioration of downtown areas. By the mid ’70s The Peabody hotel, which was the main social center of the Delta, closed and there were just two restaurants open after 6 p.m. in downtown Memphis; we were one. We used to say, ‘If you were in downtown Memphis you were either lost or looking for Rendezvous.’”
But much has changed since then.
“In the last 20 years downtown has undergone a complete resurgence,” Vergos says. “There are condos on the river and Beale Street is as active as always with clubs and great music. The Peabody Memphis was renovated and it’s again the social and cultural center of the Delta.”
The Peabody also retains its time-honored tradition of the Peabody Ducks, who march twice a day to the hotel’s historic fountain.
Another tradition, the Memphis in May International Festival includes the Beale Street Music Festival, the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest and the Sunset Symphony. The city also offers its share of pop culture with music venues like Sun Studio, where Elvis first recorded That's When Your Heartaches Begin, and which was the recording home of Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash.
The Stax Museum of American Soul Music is a pean to a true, smooth American art form, with memorabilia that includes an authentic 100-year-old Mississippi Delta church and a Soul Train dance floor. For fine art buffs, the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, founded in 1916, is the oldest and largest fine art museum in the state of Tennessee, while history aficionados can explore the National Civil Rights Museum, located in the former Lorraine Motel, where King was assassinated.
Groups can also get a taste of the outdoors at Mud Island River Park, with its half-mile Riverwalk model and canoeing or kayaking options into the Wolf River Harbor.
“Mud Allen is a great park,” Vergos says. “For not having a beach or being on a great lake, I’d rather be in downtown Memphis.”
