Center For Southern Folklore

SO GOOD! My friend and I visited this place for lunch today and the food was delicious and home-​cooked. I got the lemon baked chicken and she got the southern meatloaf. I LOVED the mac & cheese. The greens needed some hot sauce, but were good. The chicken fell off of the bone and was so savory. The sweet lady who cooks the food (I forgot her name) makes you feel very welcome. Needless to say we will be back for lunch again. soon!

Great place with great food, music, art and people. We happened to walk by as we had just left our hotel to walk around and explore the city and as a fan if the arts, I decided to walk in to check it out. They gave us plenty of tips on where to go and what to do to. They also host music nights there with local musicians and serve food and drinks. That was an amazing experience!

Where do I even start with the Center for Southern Folklore? For starters, they are a museum, a gift shop, restaurant (with REALLY good food), a spectacular venue for parties, a music hall, and they host an annual festival… they seriously do it all. And they do it well.
Oh, and they’re a non-​profit. So yeah, y’all should stop by sometime.

What a great place. Get a beer, great Southern Comfort Food, music and culture all in one place.
I had the meatloaf plate. The meatloaf was great, the turnip greens and the mac-​n-​cheese were out of this world. And for $ 9 you can’t beat it. The peach cobbler was perfect.
Great night with the food, the warm hospitality and the music. Stop in and stay a while and soak it all in.

Our next door neighbor owns Center for Southern Folklore. Judy has the most INTERESTING things in her attraction! It’s a great area of downtown. She has bands on the weekends! Definitely stop in and take a look at her awesome things!

I’ve been here a couple of times over the last few years, and it’s a great place to rendezvous with friends or colleagues if you’re in the mood for some great southern fare. There is a full service bar with a relatively weak selection of beer, but visitors don’t go here for the beer or the alcohol; rather, visitors are here to see the live bands. If you’re interested in anything Southern, check out this fine establishment!

We were visiting from out of town, and were really amazed at 1) how cool, authentic, and necessary this place is, and 2) how inviting and warm Judy was. She not only made us feel at home, but she literally walked us over to her favorite restaurant a few blocks away when we were clearly fumbling with the directions.

I recently went back to the Center for a concert and I had a blast. The Center does live concerts every Friday and Saturday and the talent never ceases to amaze. I think the gentleman we saw was Vic Reid, and he was outstanding; a serious virtuoso on the guitar. I frequent this place quite often and Judy, the co-​founder, has become a friend. She invited us on a private tour of the back of the museum, and you cannot help but be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of history in the store. The back of the store is spacious and wide and filled with memorabilia and culture and can also be rented out for different events.
Judy has done a great job chronicling the lives and times of local residents, and you will be staggered by her passion and dedication to this cause. After we returned from the tour, we sat at the table in awe of how studiously and arduously Judy has taken on this awesome responsibility. She has a slew of activities that she’d like to or is implementing, all of which are important to our local heritage.
You should engage Judy in a conversation about any of the pictures or art on the wall and she will tell you the story behind it. If you go once, you will share in Judy’s passion and dedication for the rest of your life.

Reading Kyle’s five-​star review months ago was the first time I knew about the Center For Southern Folklore and I was intrigued, but for some reason it was put on the back burner, until I realized the Mayan Apocalypse is approaching.
From their website, I found out a girls Jookin’ contest would be held at the center one Friday evening and decided to see it for myself, having heard about the style from a dance show (no, it’s not Dancing With The Stars). I didn’t realize Jookin’ was Memphis-​born and most dancers are males. Despite starting almost an hour later than scheduled and being slightly disorganized (understandably, as an amateur contest), it was a fun event with a great community feel. As far as my inexperienced eyes could tell, some girls have the potential to «make it» in the Jookin’ world.
As a first-​timer, I found the layout of this place a little confusing. The Jookin’ contest was held in the hall, which is at the end of the hallway if you enter from the Belz Museum (another gem!) entrance off Main Street and you will also find a refreshment concession there, but that’s not where they sell the peach cobbler raved by a previous reviewer, at least not that evening. The peach cobbler (which unfortunately did not impress me), along with gifts, works of art, a limited selection of food and drinks (including beers), is sold at the store off Main Street two doors down from the Belz entrance. The store is also where they normally host live-​music events.
As soon as I stepped inside the colorful, funky store, I was sold, so I dragged the hubby there the very next evening for the Deering & Down performance, despite knowing very little about them (yes, we had been living under a rock).
As a music venue the store holds about 40 seats — including a few tables and a few rows of seats — plus some standing room. It’s casual and intimate, setting the stage for an enjoyable evening. But it turned out to be more than enjoyable. It was exhilarating thanks to the knockout performance by the duo (plus special guests) who rocked their hearts out for almost three hours non-​stop. Live music doesn’t get much better than this!
The ticket prices are very very affordable (a mere $ 5 for Deering & Down!). The crowd is a mix of locals and out-​of-​towners. In fact, a business woman from NYC at the table next to ours also went to see the Jookin’ contest like I did the night before and was thoroughly impressed.
In short, you owe yourself a visit! If the world still stands after tomorrow.

Always has amazing things going on, and even if you don’t catch an event, just wandering around and looking here is great!

Today was not my first time at the Center for Southern Folklore. I love their music festival. It’s free and features a ton of local talent. Actually, I saw John Paul Keith & the 145’s for the first time there & feel in love with their music, instantly. In addition to the festival, the Center has some unique gifts. They sell everything from t-​shirts, postors, local art, local food (Rendezvous spicy popcorn, ugly mug coffee & sometimes — when you’re lucky — local honey), and random, quirky souvenirs.
I ventured to here for their brown bag lunch & music today. It’s a great opportunity to check out someone new (to me). The inside of the store has a funky design; plenty of bright colors. There’s a stage with colorful screen doors as a backdrop. It gives the audience a feeling of watching someone strumming the guitar on their front porch. It’s just missing the rocking chairs. They sell beer, so you can have a cold one while listening to some down home music. Also, they have cobbler & a couple of southern inspired sundaes, like pecan pie. Yum!

I loved this place! Someone has dedicated many years building its stature and depth of collections. Our visit here deepened our understanding of Memphis and the Mid-​South culture. Plus, for tourists it is centrally located and easy to find in downtown Memphis, with many choices for lunch nearby. A unique experience well worth your time.

There are many facets of the non-​profit Center for Southern Folklore, whose main objective is to preserve and present the traditions of the South: music, food, dance and art. The Center’s retail store, the Folklore Store is at 123 S. Main, and offers gifts, books, and regional folk art, as well as southern favorites like turnip greens, corn bread and peach cobbler. The venue seats about 50 for small regular concerts. The Folklore Hall is a much larger room, and is used for larger concerts, and private events. The Center is an integral part of Memphis life and a true asset for the region. Your support is appreciated.

I recently celebrated my 20 year high school reunion at the Center for the Southern Folklore, and the venue was perfect. There was plenty of room to dance, reconnect with old friends, chill at the table or bar or sample foods from the buffet.
The décor is very Memphis and very funky. Lots of cool photos blown up and hung on the walls contrasting with the colorful atmosphere.
The shop is also folksy and cute, stocking items reflective of Memphis or the southern way of life. Pick up some CDs of local musicians that have played the Center, or grab a souvenir to take home to Mom.

I’ve not experienced a live show here yet, so I am simply reviewing the store portion of this place. We took my mom here on her first visit to Memphis as she was trying to find some local art to take home with her. This place has some amazing gifts and souvenirs and some of them will set you back a pretty penny. Typical of any Memphis store, there is plenty of Elvis stuff, but they also have some really awesome trinkets and artwork by Memphis locals (which makes it totally acceptable to drop some extra cash on those particular pieces).
I did see that they offer up some choices in the way of food, and had I not just eaten lunch on this particular day, I would have gladly chowed down on some of their grub. I did purchase a jar of Wickles Pickles to take home with me, which we devoured entirely that evening. SO GOOD! I do intend on returning and catching a show and a bite to eat. It’s such an eclectic, funky, welcoming space.

A colorful, funky place hailing Southern culture and music. I spotted a great Ray Charles picture and, of course, Moon Pies. Not just any Moon Pies, mini Moon Pies. There are lots of photographs of respected local musicians along the walls, and they even sell t-​shirts emblazoned with their promise to protect the culture and rhythm of the South. We mainly spent time in the shop, however there is a café that we plan on trying in the future.

As Porko already stated, all we did here was listen to some jazz, and nom on peach cobbler, but the cobbler was ex-​cell-​ent. Warm, topped with vanilla ice cream, served in a paper Dixie bowl… THIS is what peach cobbler should taste like!

Peach Cobbler!
During a music festival on Labor Day Weekend 2008, the Squab and I went to the Center for Southern Folkmore to listen to some live music.
We were hungry, so we ordered a peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream on top. To our surprise, it was the best peach cobbler we’ve had to this day!

The Center for Southern Folklore is a single entity spread over two separate spaces: a shop, selling memorabilia related to Delta music and culture, with an entrance off Main St.; and a café and performance space located upstairs and down several hallways in the same downtown building.
We didn’t really have time to peruse the shop’s offerings since we were on our way to see an acoustic show at the café. That space continues the funky décor of the shop and features old photographs of not only Memphis and Delta musicians (black and white) but also of farmers, artisans, and other Southerners at work at their respective crafts.
And as a listening space, the café is fantastic: good acoustics and decent sight lines to the stage, plus (best for us) it’s a nonsmoking venue (still rare here). We ate dinner beforehand, so we didn’t sample from the small but intriguing menu of Southern specialties – though my mom did score a bite of a stranger’s peach cobbler (she said it was excellent, btw).