Honorees from two local restaurants and one bakery made the prestigious semifinalists list. 

Jason Gardner’s Whitehaven restaurant, Trap Fusion, had a line of people waiting to order food, while visitors filled most of the tables inside the dining room.

Ecco Lounge is fitted with couches, chairs, tables and wall accents, including the signage Ecco Sala, meaning lounge in Italian. 

The vacant Chili’s restaurant near Poplar Avenue and Exeter Road could soon be home to a restaurant with a niche for breakfast, brunch and lunch.

“One thing we’ve all learned since the pandemic is that change is the only constant,” restaurateur Deni Reilly said.

“We are being asked to be present so that these court justices can ... put faces to creators and stop seeing this as so much of a battle about data breaches of state information,” said Chloe Sexton of Chloe’s Giant Cookies. 

Two Downtown restaurants welcoming customers, a new Scooter’s coffee and a Waffle House one step closer to construction on Forest Hill Irene Road.

James Beard and Webby Award-winning host Dan Pashman will be taping “The Sporkful” — with a local, special guest chef — in front of a live studio audience at the Buckman. 

The Memphis Restaurant Association is looking to the past, roughly 100 years to the past, for its annual February food festival.

The restaurant’s original location Downtown at 87 S. Second St., however, remains open.

In other food news: Whataburger, Tops and Pizza Hut are all adding new locations.

Fine dining, fried chicken and a new deli are among the types of restaurants opening or expanding in the coming year. 

Petals of a Peony and RockHouse Live will both introduce drive-thru concepts and Wing House will soon open in the former Nothing Bundt Cakes in East Memphis.

“We hear a lot about restaurants closing here in Memphis, and they just leave, but this is one that we should say, ‘Thank you for all the things you have done for us. After 40 years, this family deserves all the flowers.”

Petra Cafe is looking for a new location, Guthrie’s Chicken will open, Wendy’s on Covington will be torn down and rebuilt, and Catherine & Mary’s will be renovated. 

“Kate (Ashby) and Kyle (Bankston, the owners of Knifebird and The Public Bistro) are like-minded people. We are good friends, and we want to do their legacy justice,” one of the restaurateurs taking over the spaces said. 

Cafe Keough was Kevin Keough’s modern spin on a traditional European cafe, but, he said, the location has always been a little difficult. 

The owners of two popular Cooper-Young restaurants are closing them within a week of each other. Here’s why they think “it’s OK for this chapter to be over.” 

A dish from The Lobbyist has made The New York Times’ list of “The 26 Best Dishes We Ate Across the U.S. in 2024.”

“I wanted to create a little neighborhood restaurant you would find in New Orleans or Baton Rouge,” said Mason Jambon. 

The marketplace has taken root in a beloved landmark in the Uptown community — Roxie’s Grocery, a former corner store by the Greenlaw Community Center well-known for its burgers. 

Aided by more than 130 volunteers, Team Max distributes 6,000 large food baskets to those in need, including 3,000 handed out on a chilly Saturday morning at the Mid-South Food Bank in South Memphis.

People familiar with the restaurant said the concept could be an upscale steakhouse similar to the Tekila location at the Nineteenth Century Club building at 1433 Union Ave. 

City Silo reopens in East Memphis with a new look and a new location. Plus, a Bartlett bakery has closed its storefront. 

Nashville-based Buds & Brews is opening its first restaurant in Memphis, its third in Tennessee.