DEVELOPMENT

Food 'renaissance' cooking on Highland Strip near U of M

Tom Bailey
USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee
Char Restaurant sous chef Abraham Gomez cooks vegetables with a little flare.

One new restaurant opened this week and three more will soon serve food on the Highland Strip near the University of Memphis.

"Before the renaissance we had the same restaurants for 20 years,'' said Tk Buchanan of the University District. "Food has arrived in abundance.''

Those four new restaurants within Loeb Property's newly renovated Highland Strip are in addition to three restaurants that opened in recent months just a block north in the Highland Row development as well as the debut of a popular new fast-food restaurant a few blocks south of the Strip.

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"The goal when you plan any community is to create opportunities to live, work and play as close to your home as humanly possible,'' said Buchanan, who is community liaison for the University District. "... That yields quality of life. When I have to leave this district for anything I act like it's killing me.''

At the small-hamburger restaurant Burgerim, 569 S. Highland, The Cockerham Company contractors had progressed by Thursday to seeking final inspections for plumbing and gas. "We're down to that point,'' Bob Cockerham said.

In Highland Strip's bay for Petra Cafe, 547 S. Highland, construction workers on Thursday installed the lighting systems and estimated they were about a month away from finishing the build-out.

Petra Cafe coming to Highland Strip

Next door at 545 S. Highland, another construction crew installed wood trim and other finishing touches on the build-out for Insomnia Cookies and estimated completion by next week.

The Bluff at 535 S. Highland opened Monday as a Cajun-inspired restaurant and live-music venue, but workers took time Thursday to pour concrete at the base of the beams supporting the marquee-style sign over the front door.

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Across the tracks to the south at 757 S. Highland, the newly opened Cook Out fast-food restaurant is so popular that cars occasionally back up along Highland to enter the drive-thru.

And to the north of the Strip on the ground floor of the Highland Row mixed-use development at 395 S. Highland, three new food or beverage establishments have opened since the fall: Char steakhouse, Newk's fast-casual restaurant and Casual Pint craft beer market.

The groundwork for the resurgence started nearly 10 years ago when new student apartments started rising next to the University of Memphis, Buchanan said. The district has also set the stage by working to reduce blight and aggressive panhandling, and get zoning in place to create streets that are safer and more appealing to walk.