More inside details about No Comment and Fawn
Mary Oglesby and Paul Gilliam opened Cameo cocktail lounge in March 2022 at 1835 Union Ave. and followed with opening tropical bar Mary’s B.O.T.E. at in April 2024 at 588 S. Cooper St. (Holly Whitfield/The Daily Memphian)
Several high-profile Memphis restaurants closed in 2024, leaving some to question the state of the city’s dining scene.
But a pair of restaurateurs have a different message for Mid-Southerners lamenting the loss of places such as Houston’s, Knifebird and Bounty on Broad: It’s going to be fine.
Bar owners Mary Oglesby and Paul Gilliam returned to the “Sound Bites” podcast to talk about the service industry and plans for their upcoming projects No Comment wine bar and Fawn restaurant.
The two opened Cameo cocktail lounge in March 2022 at 1835 Union Ave. and followed that by opening tropical bar Mary’s B.O.T.E. last April at 588 S. Cooper St.
With two more co-owned concepts on the way, they hope to offer variety to the Midtown bar and restaurant scene.
No Comment will open in the spring of 2025 in the former Knifebird location at 2155 Central Ave., and Fawn will take the place of Public Bistro at 927 S Cooper St.
No Comment will remain a wine bar with flights and light bites. They duo plan to keep the bruschetta but will have oysters on the half shell, caviar service and tinned seafood, too.
The name is a nod to sharing secrets over drinks with friends — and then keeping that conversation to yourself.
“We haven’t done any names that were sassy,” Gilliam said on the podcast. “So we wanted one that was … talk-to-the-hand.”
Those who have seen Cameo’s “desecration of grandma’s parlor” decor or Mary’s B.O.T.E.’s tropical aesthetic won’t be surprised to learn Oglesby and Gilliam have big plans for the design of the new spots.
“With No Comment, we wanted to go for this late ’80s, Patrick Nagal-painting power femme,” Gilliam said in the inteview.
As for Fawn, they’ll keep the bones of Public Bistro’s design with added touches of “whimsy” and coziness.
“(He) was picturing ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ in a forest,” Oglesby said, “cozy, mid-century.”
Fawn will be a restaurant with an ever-changing menu of seasonal dishes.
Oglesby and Gilliam also address some questions they’ve received about hiring staff, changes to the locations and why they are growing their restaurant portfolio at “a time like this.”
Spoiler: They don’t see right now as particularly alarming.
“It’s very rare when a restaurant lasts for a long time, for multiple generations,” Oglesby said. “That is the very rare exception to the rule.
“When restaurants close, it’s not a sign of some major horrible thing happening; it’s just the life cycle of how this industry works.”
On the podcast, while we go deep on the topic of closures, what it takes to open a restaurant, we also gab about drink trends, like the rise in the popularity of tequila.
Finally, Gilliam and Oglesby share their plans for incorporating CBD and THC drinks on their menus.
Listen to the whole interview below.
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Topics
Sound Bites Mary Oglesby Paul Gilliam Knifebird Public BistroHolly Whitfield
Holly has more than 13 years of experience in publishing and digital content, including 10 years at the helm of the I Love Memphis Blog. She began her career at The Commercial Appeal and is author of Secret Memphis.
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