The spacious patio on the south side of The Lobbyist restaurant was where the Donahues used to swim back in the 1960s. My parents were members of The Variety Club, which was housed at the old Chisca Hotel, where the restaurant is now located. Members could use the hotel pool.
The Lobbyist’s chef/owner Jimmy Gentry has now added an impressive-looking outdoor bar to that beautiful patio at The Chisca on Main. “It can seat eight at the bar, but it’s capable of handling that whole patio area,” Gentry says.
As for patio seating, he says, “Depending on configuration I can put almost 70 people out there.”
Gentry says he built it so servers wouldn’t be “running cocktails from the main bar to the patio. You can have a bar outside and not worry about how long it takes or anything like that.”
The bar is slated to officially open probably in about two weeks, he says. “It has been open, but we haven’t necessarily officially opened the patio this season.”
Gentry showed me the bar when I ate at The Lobbyist last week. Red fish with greens, couscous, and pot liquor was my dinner choice. It was so delicious. I wish I had another one right now. And I can’t get enough of the yams Gentry serves.
But after eating at the restaurant many times, I never knew why the restaurant was called “The Lobbyist.” I thought it had something to do with politics. But, Gentry says, “That whole space used to lead into what was the lobby.”
So, he did what he did with his former restaurant P. O. Press in Collierville. “I tried to tie the restaurant into the space like I did the P.O., which originally was the post office in Collierville and then turned into the newspaper, P. O. Press. Paying homage to the space itself.”
Hence, The Lobbyist. “Instead of calling it ‘The Lobby,’” he says, adding, “‘The Lobbyist’ makes you think twice about it.”
But Gentry says he still gets people coming in the restaurant thinking it’s the “lobby of the hotel.”
The Lobbyist is at 272 South Main, Suite 101, in The Chisca on Main