Sunday, December 12, 2010
Lost Memphis Al's Golfdom on WKNO's "Southern Routes"
Posted by Vance Lauderdale on Sun, Dec 12, 2010 at 4:44 PM
The sprawling place on South Perkins (just about where the Mall of Memphis stood for years) was so popular that owners Al and Susie Fister opened another one on Raines Road, called Al's Golfhaven.
I've previously told the story of Al's Golfdom in the pages of Memphis magazine, and I sure hope you read that. But now you can learn even more about Al's, and see tons of vintage photos and old TV commercial's, on the December edition of the WKNO-TV (Channel 10) show Southern Routes, hosted by my good pal, Bonnie Kourvelas.
It airs Monday, December 13th, at 6:30 pm on Channel 10. If you miss it (or just want to watch it again and again) the show repeats on Saturday, December 18th, at 2:30 pm and again on Sunday, December 19th at 12 noon.
Here are a few shots of Al and Susie, taken in the 1980s at Al's Golfhaven. It was quite a place.
PHOTOS COURTESY AL AND SUSIE FISTER
Comments (4)
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Definitely showing my age here......but I remember the Al's on South Perkins as I lived a few streets away and passed it everyday.....and also visited there quite often...until this article, I had forgotten all about the place....it was THE place to go back in the day.......
Too bad it went the way other great places of the day left us such as Shakey's Pizza, Bellevue Drive Inn, and the old Skateland on Summer Ave.
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We used to get our trees there until my Dad had the bright idea that it would be less expensive and more fun to lug us kids out to the country and murder a tree ourselves.
Speaking of Shakey's, Danny59, I remember it as the coolest place on EARTH. Those guys in red and white striped shirts throwing dough in the air! Kids nowadays with their plastic germ-ridden playlands at McDonald's don't know what fun is.
I have fond memories of Al's on S. Perkins too! For kids in Fox Meadows, Parkway Village, and parts of East Memphis, it was about the ONLY place to go for entertainment. I remember trying to hit golfballs into the Cottonwood Cabana Apartments that bordered the south side of the property, as well as the tractor driver picking up golfballs. Remember the "Suislide"? A great fiberglass slide that you rode down on burlap bags. The go-karts were great too. A Shakey's pizza parlor was on the west side of Perkins just south of Nonconnah Creek, and was a great family place to go with a live piano player on weekend nights.
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