Gussied Up, a new nighttime bar/restaurant, will soon open as the other half of what’s so far been known as Hard Times Deli, a sandwich shop at 655 Marshall Avenue in the Edge District. The two establishments, both owned by Harrison Downing, Cole Jeanes, and Schuyler O’Brien, are in the same building. They’ll share the same kitchen, but will be open at different hours.
Hard Times Deli is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. Gussied Up will be open from 5 until 11 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Sunday with a 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. brunch.
Simply put, “Lunch is Hard Times. Dinner is Gussied Up,” Jeanes says.
Opening Gussied Up in the rear of Hard Times Deli is “a way to utilize this space for 40 more hours a week,” Downing says. Meanwhile, Hard Times will soon begin serving beer and drinks for the first time. Gussied Up will serve beer, cocktails, frozen drinks, and wine.
Gussied Up will be an “elevated neighborhood bar,” Downing says, that will serve “more refined bar food,” Jeanes adds.
Artist renderings of Gussied Up (Photo: cnct. design)
It’s aimed at the people of the Edge District, at the intersection of Marshall Avenue and Monroe Avenue. “We want people where our neighborhood is,” Downing says. That means everybody from lawyers to construction workers. “We want a dude in a suit sitting next to a guy covered in grease having a beer and a shot before going home.”
“Gussied Up” was chosen as the name because Downing’s mother used to say she was going to get “gussied up” when she was going out with the girls. “We’re big on Southern hospitality,” Downing says. “And ‘gussied up’ is a very Southern term.”
Also, Jeanes says, “I don’t think you can say those words without having a Southern accent.”
Hard Times Deli opened in February 2025. It was always the plan to expand in the back, Downing says. “We think the neighborhood needs something like that.”
Gussied Up will have its own menu. “Really, all of our thoughts are into it, but Harrison is the operator and he’s driving the menu,” Jeanes says. “That’s his personality.”
The menu also will include Hard Times Deli sandwiches, which are gussied-up takes on familiar drive-through classics. “We give nods to nostalgic fast-food we grew up eating,” Downing says.
Jeanes describes the fare as “things that we would love to eat at a bar.” For instance, “Ourby’s” is their version of the Arby’s roast beef sandwich. Their Filet O’ Phish sandwich is their take on McDonald’s Filet O’ Fish, but they’re using a six-ounce piece of panko fried cod, and a tartar sauce made out of green tomato chow chow instead of the standard pickle relish. It also includes a Kraft cheese single and is enclosed in a Martin’s potato bun.
They also will serve their Smashburger, which was made popular at pop-ups held by the owners’ Secret Smash Society. All of their beef and pork is from Home Place Pastures in Como, Mississippi.
Gussied Up’s “Kinfolk Sunday brunch” will feature items from Jeanes’ soon-to-be-relocated Kinfolk restaurant, and their cocktails will be created by bar/general manager Max Braverman.
The drink menu is geared toward what people in the restaurant industry tend to favor, Braverman says, like using Fernet-Branca, an Italian digestif that restaurant workers use in mixed drinks. “The idea is to be really playful with it. I think about these cocktails in the way these guys have thought so deeply about making [the food]. Really well executed, but very accessible,” Braverman says.
The drinks are “for everybody,” he says, but they’re also “the things we want to drink.”
Braverman was working for chef Lucas McKinney at Josephine’s Gulf Coast Tradition in Houston, Texas, before he moved to Memphis and sought out Downing. “He just walked in one day and asked for Harrison,” Downing says. “He had his resume with him.”
And, Downing adds, “His style is a lot like ours. We’re throwing these crazy ideas at him and he’s bringing them to life.”
Collums Construction is doing the build-out of Gussied Up, which will include a wrap-around bar with booth seats in the middle. Patrick Brown from cnct. design did the interior design. Red will be the primary decor color, including red neon lights and chairs with tufted lipstick-red leather.
The flooring tile will be black, blue, and white like at Hard Times Deli, but the back bar tile will also include yellow, the color of the deli’s walls.
When it gets dark, they’ll turn on the ceiling neon lights as well as their collection of neon beer signs. “Old, wavy glass blocks” will be used to separate the booths, Downing says. “When neon hits that, that will be crazy looking.”
Pizza Hut-inspired chandeliers will hang over the booths. All the wooden bar tops will be made from old bowling lanes.
Gussied Up also includes a patio with more seating. And the owners plan to hold parking lot parties with live music. Hard Times Deli is definitely a “neighborhood spot” in the Edge District, O’Brien says. And Gussied Up “seemed like a natural progression.”
As for the bar’s growing neighborhood, O’Brien says, “I’m excited to see what it’s going to become in five or 10 years.” The Edge District is hot, Jeanes says. “A lot of activity happening within the next year or two. If you think about a date night or something like that there will be so many great places to go to — walkable — once they do everything.”
They’re looking forward to when the Edge District will be “a place you can come spend the whole day,” Downing says, adding that, while the Edge isn’t just one place, “we want it to be a unity.”
