The Mississippi Delta begins in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis and ends on Catfish Row in Vicksburg. The Peabody is the Paris Ritz, the Cairo Shepheard’s, the London Savoy of this section. If you stand near its fountain in the middle of the lobby, where ducks waddle and turtles drowse, ultimately you will see everybody who is anybody in the Delta and many who are on the make.
–David Cohn, in Where I was Born and Raised
It’s true. And there is no better place to while away time, especially with a cocktail in hand, than the lobby of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis.
Shugie has a thing for ducks, so we decided on our last big Memphis trip to stay at the Peabody.
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In fact, Av went off to work for a little while and the boys and I came out of our rooms, relaxed in the lobby, and he could have been gone for hours with us happy as little clams. Another adorable thing about the hotel is that you can explore it — up on the second floor balcony, there’s a Frances Scott Key square grand
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a menu from when the hotel hosted Charles Lindbergh in 1927
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and other beautiful touches
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Our room was so much nicer than the last time we stayed, which was before the latest renovations ~2012
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For the boys, one special highlight was meeting the duckmaster:
and getting to watch the procession of the ducks from the elevator to the fountain
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Just outside
For whatever reason, we’d never gone to the Rendezvous, so we walked over — not even half a block, really
It had tons of barbecue charm
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…but no matter how much seasoning they poured on the sausage
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or the ribs, the food was…boring. And barbecue should never be boring. Those ribs were tough and dry. I guess we can check it off our list of Memphis barbecue places but that’s the best we can go for. Not going back.
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Better, though, we took the boys to Lansky Brothers and A. Schwab, visited the Belz Museum of Asian and Judaic Art, and soaked up more Peabody lobby.