Welcome to our Best of Memphis issue! This annual special edition includes the city’s favorite restaurants, shops, services, venues, and more — all chosen by you! Nominations for this year’s Best of Memphis ballot were open between May and June. Voting ran July through August, with more than 19,000 voters participating. Within these pages — and at tonight’s BOM event (September 24th) — we share those results and celebrate the people, places, and things that make the Bluff City so special. Memphis would not be the thriving, cultured, cool place it is without each and every one of you. We submit a heartfelt thank you to the winners, voters, our sponsors, and readers for your parts in making Best of Memphis possible.
Deep thanks also, from me, to our dedicated team of brilliant minds. A lot of work goes on behind the scenes on this issue and its coinciding party (open to the public this year!). From careful category selection to final designed pages, our small staff is all-hands-on-deck in the run-up to BOM. It’s our busiest time of year. Within recent weeks, we’ve carefully combed through everyone who placed in every section, spread out responsibility on writing the many winners’ blurbs you’ll see here, and took a lot of crap from a few folks wondering why so-and-so did or did not make the ballot (they have to be nominated!). And that’s just the editorial side — ad sales, art, email newsletters, social media, marketing, and lots of important decisions by the bosses support these efforts. We’ve been hosting Best of Memphis since 1994, and we’ll continue to do it as long as we’re here.
And I want to talk about that a little, too, while I’ve got you. I was thinking the other day, during an email exchange with Bruce V. about life stuff, that I truly have grown up with this paper. I was in my mid-20s when I walked through the doors of the then-office Downtown on Tennessee Street, nervous about meeting the coolest people ever and possibly getting to write for the coolest paper ever! Now here I am, in my early 40s (don’t tell anyone!), still here, the same but different. A lot of growth and change have happened in my life, as one might expect in nearly 20 years. And I’ve had the opportunity to learn and grow with the Flyer, also the same but different. I’ve been right here to see it through many shifts in the ways we consume and disseminate news, and through a rough decline in print media.
What happened in 2020 as a result of the pandemic was said to be an “exinction-level” event that fueled the fall of alternative newsweeklies — a fall that began nearly a decade earlier with the internet boom. What had already been a hard market for us free, independent, fully ad-supported papers — with many businesses choosing to advertise online, on radio, billboards, or TV over print — became nearly impossible when our current and potential advertisers all shut down. The Flyer stayed afloat, barely, with a print edition only every other week and alternating online-only issues (remember that?). We had to cut the number of papers printed (for cost and) because there weren’t many places open to deliver them to. When the world finally bounced back, ours may have been more of a scoot than a bounce.
I’ve worked with most of the people whose names you see on this masthead for almost half my life, and for almost half of the Flyer’s. The rest have been here probably five, 10-plus. I’ve been to weddings, showers, and house parties with them; celebrated births and mourned deaths with them; and with them welcomed and bid farewell to dozens of talented people who’ve graced our staff through these years. The people who bring the Flyer to you — from the sales team who bust butt to get advertisers in these pages and on our website, to the writers whose unique voices bring you news, snark, and insight week in and week out — are people just like you. We’re passionate about this paper and this city. And we want to keep doing this for us, for you, and for Memphis as long as we can.
Yes, a lot has changed. One thing that has not is that the Flyer is free for everyone — in print and online, always. If you want to see us forge on for another 35+ years — an institution right alongside the Huey’s and Raiford’s — please point a friend to a print copy of the paper, share our news articles online, or consider becoming a Frequent Flyer with a one-time or monthly monetary contribution.
AI and misinformation are aimed at destroying real journalism. Well-researched, fact-checked content is no longer the norm. Support our continued work in being an honest, human voice for our city when it needs it the most by visiting memphisflyer.com/page/FrequentFlyer. And while you’re on the site, get your tickets for the BOM bash.
Tonight, we celebrate, as long as we’re here.