Maybe the most awaited restaurant opening is slated to take place Memorial Day weekend.
Josephine Estelle/ Rosie’s Tavern at 6695 Poplar Avenue.
This will be the new two-restaurants-in-one offering from chef/owners Andrew Ticer and Michael Hudman. Josephine Estelle, which was named after Ticer’s daughter, Josephine, and Hudman’s daughter, Estelle, is the first-floor restaurant, where dinner will be served. Rosie’s Tavern, on the second floor, is a cocktail lounge/restaurant named after the daughter of a partner, Benjamin Orgel.
“I think it’s exciting,” Ticer says. “Like stepping into the building and having two totally different vibes that you can do the same night if you wanted to.”
They had other ideas for Rosie’s Tavern when they moved into the new building, Ticer says. “It’s just so big. This was going to be some private event space, we were talking about first. But it didn’t make sense, the amount of square footage.”
He and Hudman realized they needed “another revenue driver” in the building. “Mike had the idea of doing a cocktail lounge/cocktail bar upstairs,” Ticer says. “Going into Josephine Estelle is almost like two experiences. You can come up here and have a drink before dinner, then go downstairs and have your meal. Or come up here afterwards.”
Or just go eat dinner or just have a drink at Rosie’s Tavern and watch a ballgame. “It’s just that more late-night kind of cocktail vibe.”
Ticer and Hudman, whose first restaurant was Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen, also own Hog & Hominy and Catherine and Mary’s. And they own Little Flower, the event space next to Andrew Michael. “It also is where we get to practice recipes,” Hudman says. “Do menu testing. It’s a great space for parties up to 100, but really perfect for anything under 75.”
Their former restaurants include Porcellino’s Craft Butcher, The Gray Canary, and the Josephine Estelle in New Orleans, Louisiana.
They also owned Bishop, the restaurant in Central Station that closed when the pandemic began. Hudman sees a similarity between Bishop and Rosie’s Tavern. “We’re touching on some Bishop vibes upstairs.”
They’re going to feature some Bishop classics, including the raw bar with oysters on the half shell and other seafood.
Food at Rosie’s also will include some O’Charley’s-influenced fare. Like their potato skins, which are “done differently” from O’Charleys, Hudman says. “Re-invented.”
“I always thought O’Charley’s was such a cool vibe,” he says. “It reminded me of Cheers from television.”
They’re going to feature great steaks at Rosie’s. “We’re working with Marshall Bartlett of Home Place Pastures, showcasing their beef.”
“One of our friends from Charleston does these clarified butter French fries. So, we’ll be doing those. It was a life-changer having those.”
Rosie’s will also feature an “awesome burger selection,” including the Bishop Burger. “We’re going to rename it,” Ticer says. The Rosie Burger, perhaps?
They’ll also serve fresh, local vegetables, Hudman says. “We’re really trying to showcase local farmers.”
Downstairs will be a marriage between Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen and Catherine and Mary’s: “An ode to Italian-American cuisine.”
“We’re going to do pastas,” Ticer says.” Our main focus is pastas. We finally got our dough room after all these years, and we’re super excited about that.”
Diners will be able to watch pasta being made through an interior window as they enter the restaurant. “So, the handmade pastas that happen every single day, you’ll get to see the production.”
They’ll also feature small-plate appetizers, antipasto selections, and arrosticini on skewers “to get you started.”
Homemade bread will include focaccia garlic bread. “Which is a mash-up of Parker house rolls and Italian garlic bread. [It’s] going to be extremely decadent,” Hudman says.
Walt Stallings is executive chef at Josephine Estelle and Jaik Hunt is chef de cuisine at Rosie’s Tavern.
Karen Billions with Story Interior Design designed upstairs and downstairs. “Downstairs is so pretty that it gets categorized as fancier, upscale,” Hudman says. “But when we talked to Karen, we said, ‘We want a place like our grandmother’s house. You come over on Sunday. You come hungry and you leave full. And you’re just happy. That’s kind of what we wanted.”
And Billions did it right, he says. “Brought in timeless touches that will never go out of style. Like the wallpaper, the color patterns are absolutely beautiful.
“I really love the tile she picked out downstairs. It has a very rustic feel to it. It’s not perfectly sooth, looks handmade.”
“Old World,” Ticer adds.
“Obviously, we’re in Memphis,” Hudman says. “But we’re Italian. We want it to be like you’re in Tuscany. I think she deep-dove into that and she crushed it.”
As for upstairs in Rosie’s Tavern, Hudman says, “[It’s] like you’re in a speakeasy without saying the word ‘speakeasy.’ It’s a place where you want to sit and hang out.”
Artwork on the stairwell includes striking murals by graffiti artists Brandon Marshall and Joseph Boyd.
And looking out the West windows in both restaurants, you feel “this is everything” when “the sun is setting right here and you’re sitting over there, having a martini,” Ticer says.
Josephine Estelle/Rosie’s Tavern is the first restaurant they’ve opened since Bishop closed in November of 2019. Covid killed that restaurant, which was doing 300 cover a night before it closed, Ticer says.
“We reopened Hog [& Hominy] after the fire, but this is the first restaurant opening in over six years,” Hudman says.
This is also their first Germantown enterprise. “I think we have what we feel might be missing in Germantown,” Hudman says.
“We were talking about expanding in different areas. We even looked at what it would be like to open up in Birmingham or Nashville or Little Rock.”
But, he says, Josephine Estelle/ Rosie’s Tavern will not be their last restaurant. They plan to open more.
