Yes, you can go home again — if your home away from home was the old Justine’s restaurant.
Dinner will be served again — to an undisclosed party, for one night only — at a private dinner in the historic home that once housed the legendary Justine’s. The dinner was an auction item at the Church Health Wine Experience Auction, held October 8th.
“Robin and I and Scott and Jill Notowich gave it to Church Health,” says Tower Ventures president/CEO Billy Orgel, who now maintains the old home that housed the restaurant.
Justine’s, which closed in 1996, still evokes fond memories for the many, including me, who dined on pompano, escargot, and Baked Alaska in the circa 1834 Italianate structure known as the “Anderson-Coward House” at 919 Coward Place.
I covered my first official party there in 1980 when I was with the old Memphis Press-Scimitar. Guests included Luciano Pavarotti and other Metropolitan Opera stars who’d appeared earlier that night in a Met production at the old Auditorium.
As an item offered in the Wine Experience Auction, Church Health’s dinner for 20 people at Justine’s went for $28,000. The dinner will be held in the spring, Orgel says, “when the people want to do it.” The chef “to be named” will prepare food from Justine’s Memories & Recipes by Janet Stuart Smith, daughter of Justine’s owners, the late Justine and Dayton Smith.
I would expect Crabmeat Justine, the restaurant’s iconic appetizer, to be one of the items served. People still use that recipe and others from Smith’s cookbook.
Orgel’s memory of Justine’s is why he bought the place, which had fallen into disrepair after the restaurant closed and the property was sold.
“Robin and I got engaged here in June of 1990,” Orgel says. “And we came here for dinner.” He proposed in the car, Orgel says. “I asked her outside.”
The couple, who’ve been married 36 years, decided to reenact their engagement 25 years later, but the old Justine’s was literally a shell of what it once was.
“I drove by and the place was filthy. This side was pretty much collapsed. Disrepair. There were homeless people living in it. I called a friend of mine with the county. It was on a tax sale. I bought it for $50,000, $53,000. I think it’s almost two acres.”
Orgel has been keeping the place up since he bought it in 2015. “We just keep doing routine maintenance. Like we fixed the tuckpoint on the bricks. We painted it. We tried to match the brick up.
“It was all brick. There may have been a porch here at some time. I don’t remember. It all got demolished. We put it back. There was a garage and we just hauled it off. It was all rotten. There was a cooler.”
Orgel, who used to “hear stories about it,” just wanted to save Justine’s. “We’ve been a good patron of it.” Licensed contractor Sammy Rosenberg has been maintaining the property. “He’s been invaluable in preserving it.”
Inside, exposed beams, old wallpaper, and faded paint share space with still-beautiful plaster crown molding along the ceiling. Indoor wooden shutters grace the downstairs windows, and within the brick walls of the old wine cellar, shelves stand ready to be stocked with bottles.
Orgel walks in the bathroom and says, “It’s a usable bathroom. We just have to put in a toilet and a sink. It’s got water.”
They’re considering using both upstairs dining rooms, which are missing their fireplace mantels, and the wine cellar. “I think we’re just going to clean it up. Do as little as possible.”
He does plan on adding chandeliers — “temporary ones” — for the dinner.
“If this is successful, I would envision doing more dinners there,” Orgel says. But he doesn’t see the space once again becoming a restaurant. “I wish that someone could buy it as a single-family residence.”
It certainly appears safe, being next door to the Memphis Police Department’s Crump Station. “You’ve got a large contingent of police officers next door, driving by,” observes Orgel.
