As favorite restaurants have reopened during the past year, it’s felt like visiting old friends when you walk back through the doors.

The move will give the local Memphis bakery’s cakes a national audience.

Yes, there’s COVID, but you don’t want to forget Valentine’s Day; local restaurateurs make it easy for you. And Beauty Shop reopens for lunch Feb. 8.

The potatoes are coming to your mailbox soon, if you haven’t already gotten them, and the question is: How are you going to use them?

There’s still a pandemic, but that’s not stopping new restaurants and breweries from opening, and one local business owner has gotten so busy, he’s had to beef up his staff.

A Nashville export gets a warm welcome in Memphis. A stainless steel screen that dominates the counter at the restaurant on Union delivers the message: Pizza Rules Everything Around Me.

Should the cans of Tiger Tail — the first official beer of the Memphis Tigers — be blue, black or gray? Fans can vote this month in the taproom of Grind City Brewing.

Phillip Ashley Rix literally had a dream that he would be a chocolatier, so then he made it happen. More than 10 years later, Oprah gave her seal of approval and sales skyrocketed.

The going got tough in 2019 and 2020 started with promise followed by disappointment. Then a pivot, a plan, a little luck and well, Oprah, made things happen. But success comes with a cost, too.

Hampline Brewing had reinvent early in COVID, before it even opened, and it gave the principals a way to get through the pandemic. It wasn’t just a new business for them; it became a passion project.

When Ben Colar was envisioning his new cocktail bar, what sprung up was the idea of “rest.”

Fans of the Sanderlin Centre’s City Silo won’t have to adapt to the new spot in Saddle Creek. The menu is intact and the environment is just as simple and light.

It’s cold, it’s dreary, the days are short and dark. Soup might not cure COVID and it won’t make winter go away, but it’ll help get us through these last weeks.

We’re talking food on our Table Talk group on Facebook, soup on Sound Bites and eating new burgers in East Memphis.

Cream of mushroom soup is easy to make and the heavy cream makes it a luxurious cold weather treat.

Belly Acres brings a menu of grass-fed burger choices and plenty of other options to the popular corner of Poplar and Ridgeway.

Jennifer and Chris talk about some of the soup they tasted for a tour of some of the best the city has to offer; listen today and read more on Thursday.

Our new Table Talk Facebook group is ready for you to join so we can start dishing about good food and drink we’ve enjoyed and what’s still to come.

Batesville is just an hour’s drive south of town and offers up a gem of a breakfast and lunch spot with Bread & Butter Bistro; it even has a dog.

Jennifer and Chris remember some of their favorite sandwiches from an epic sandwich tour and talk about dining out during COVID.

Memphis Sandwich Clique has set up Clique HQ and is serving sandwiches in East Memphis. But you have to order online, show up on time, and pay attention: There are processes.