You might remember Tim Quinn when he was a server at Pete & Sam’s. Or maybe when he was waiting tables at Perkins Restaurant & Bakery. Or Molly’s La Casita.
Well, he now owns two restaurants: Memphis Clover Club at Hotel Indigo and Local on Main Street. He bought both of them in 2021.
“I wanted to own a restaurant and a bar by the time I was 35,” says Quinn, 39. “I figured I was four years late and I had to double up one year.”
He took over the lease of Local from Jeff Johnson, who still owns Local on the Square. Quinn put in a downstairs bar and plans on doing “a rebrand at some time,” but, he says, “It was already an existing business. It had been there almost 15 years, going well, made money. I didn’t have to change much at all.”
Quinn overheard Indigo’s manager and the former manager of the hotel’s restaurant/bar talking one afternoon at Local. “I heard them say they needed someone to fill the spot where 3rd & Court had been.” After looking at the place, Quinn said, “I’m sold. I can definitely do something with this.”
The manager didn’t want the new place to look like a diner, but he wanted “something retro, mid-century, ’50s, ’60s, ’70s to go along with the theme of the hotel.”
Quinn was surprised to discover the basement area, which had been The Lounge and, earlier, Memphis Sounds: “Holy shit! There’s a whole other place down there!”
Quinn, his wife Tarrah, and his brother Jason Quinn went into partnership.
Memphis Clover Club, which opened October 8th, focuses on craft cocktails, particularly gin drinks. The food is “from all over the world. Different street foods or small plates you might see Downtown in large cities where you’re grabbing a bite to eat.
“We cut our own fries and all that stuff. As much as we can, everything is from scratch. We don’t order anything in a number 10 can. We make our own sauces, all our syrups for the bar.”
They feature live music upstairs and downstairs. The decor still has “that same retro feel. Just a different color scheme, different furniture.” Quinn’s using a “burnt orange,” which he describes as “almost reminiscent of the GE appliance color,” and a turquoise “like you would have seen in the interior of a car in the ’70s.”
Quinn began working in restaurants in high school when he realized Jason, who was working at a Perkins, made more money than he did. “He was making as much on a Sunday morning as I was making in an entire week working at Blockbuster.”
He got a job waiting tables at Perkins, but a week later he began cooking.
Three years later, Quinn went to work at the old Pete & Sam’s on Appling Road and, later, at the Park location. He also worked at Molly’s La Casita, Club 152, and TJ Mulligans, where he met his wife. And he worked for a brief time for Steve Cooper at the old City Hall nightspot in Cordova. In late 2017, Johnson asked Quinn to manage Local on the Square.
Quinn took over the lease of the Downtown Local in January 2021. “A blizzard hit the week after we bought it and all the places Downtown started closing and all the water pipes started busting. We bought that thing at the worst time possible. My wife and I had to stay at a hotel for a week so we could make it to work ’cause the roads weren’t predictable.”
He spent his free time helping people whose cars were stranded in the snow and ice. “I took my four-wheeler Downtown with an axe and a shovel and pulled them out when they were stuck and handed them business cards.”
Quinn told them, “I’m the new guy at Local. Come and have a drink.”
Memphis Clover Club is at 24 N. B.B. King; Local on Main Street is at 95 S. Main.
