Le Tour de South Avenue

South Avenue is the heartland of the South Wedge neighborhood. For a good six blocks, it houses a collection of restaurants and bars on both sides of the street. Among those are Equal Grounds (an LGBT coffeehouse), Mise en Place (a gourmet grocery store), Open Face sandwich eatery, Solera wine bar, Coffee Connection, Hedonist chocolates, and further down-- Cheesy Eddie's cheesecakes. If you slightly veer off South onto Gregory, there is also the Keg, the German House (a concert venue), the Mez (a coffeehouse), Small World bakery, and Tap and Mallet. The whole tour is a short walk, if you're lucky enough to find a parking space.

My personal favorites on the tour would have to be Cheesy Eddie's and Lux. Lux is at 666 South Avenue, and they have embraced their address, featuring bold red walls and devilish decor. They have a large backyard with picnic tables and a fire pit. You can find people back there pretty much year-round. They also have $1.50 PBRs and $3 Pabst Smears (a PBR and a shot of well liquor). On many nights they have specials like free peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or pizza, grill your own burger, arts and crafts, or they show movies. They also have an extensive board game collection. And a cigarette machine that dispenses candy. And chalkboard walls in the restrooms so you can grafitti without the guilt. There's also a pool table. They pretty much thought of everything.

But before you plunk down a $10 to go wild on the PBRs at Lux, you should probably have some dinner. Especially since Lux doesn't open until 9 on the weekends. On the other side of the major intersection with Gregory is Beale Street Cafe, a restaurant decorated like Mardi Gras, but slightly less cheesily than Bennigan's. I always try mightily to ignore the flaw in logic that Beale Street is a street of blues bars in Memphis, not in New Orleans. They serve Cajun food and pit-smoked barbeque. I am continually disappointed in po' boys outside of Louisiana, and Beale Street is no exception. And since I was spoiled on my daddy's barbeque growing up in South Carolina, I don't even bother to try Beale's. So I had long ago dismissed Beale Street's food, though I liked their laid-back atmosphere, their classic rock soundtrack, and their extensive cocktail selection. However, I recently had a slight reversal. The wings at Beale Street are quite phenomenal.

As pictured above, you can see that our waiter, be it out of confusion or love, sprinkled some of their Cajun dry rub on our medium wings. They usually just use a slightly sweet buffalo sauce, and they have dry wings with the Cajun seasonings as well. But when those forces combine-- it's the Captain Planet of chicken wings. It makes me hopeful that other places where I've had blah experiences can also redeem themselves (I'm looking at you Little Venice).