East Memphis's New Restaurants Are Moving Into Addresses You Already Know

Darrell Horn named his next restaurant after a phone call, a story he told in the project announcement Gill Properties published. When the whole family was in town, his father would call a day or so before Sunday and say two words, "the tradition." That meant Horn was to book a 1 o'clock table for six for lunch after church. They kept that habit for years.

The Tradition is the restaurant now going up at 5000 Poplar Avenue, on the lot where Houston's sat for more than 40 years. East Memphis has had a lot of food news since summer, and nearly all of it follows the same pattern. The new places are moving into buildings people already know by an old name. If you drive Poplar, Erin Drive or Black Road, you'll find the new dining map sitting right on top of the old one.

The Old Name, the New Name

Here is how the fall's openings and announcements line up against the businesses that came before them.

Six of the seven rows sit at an address that already had an identity, and in most of them it was a name people used when giving directions. Only one row starts on ground with no old name attached, and that one comes last.

At Poplar and Mendenhall, Even the Kitchen Comes Back

The Houston's corner shows this pattern most clearly. Hillstone Restaurant Group closed Houston's in December 2024 and put the property up for sale in February 2025. Its replacement is more than a new tenant in an old shell.

Action News 5 reported in February that Gill Properties and Horn Ventures plan to redevelop 4990 and 5000 Poplar Avenue as a $25 million mixed-use project. It includes a two-story building of about 50,000 square feet, split roughly evenly between office and retail, plus a 6,300-square-foot, 170-seat restaurant called The Tradition. Brown Gill told the station, "We are building this as a legacy investment." The plan also calls for about 60 underground parking spaces and more than 130 surface spaces.

What ties the corner to its past is who is running the kitchen. The Tradition is the second concept from the restaurant group behind Briza. That group includes Darrell and Betsy Horn along with Moises Hernandez, the former executive chef at Houston's, and his wife, Maggie Murphy-Hernandez. The team behind the new restaurant on the Houston's lot includes the man who once ran that kitchen. The Tradition will also have about twice the space Briza works with, and the group gets to design it from scratch instead of fitting into an existing buildout.

On Aug. 5, the Daily Memphian reported that crews were tearing down the First Horizon building while the restaurant took shape on the Houston's site. The whole project is still aimed at late 2027, so you'll be watching construction fences at this intersection through next year. The Tradition's menu hasn't been announced.

Two Swaps That Already Happened

At smaller addresses, the handoff has already happened.

Hive Bagel & Deli, 585 Erin Drive. For years, this was the Holiday Deli & Ham Co. spot. The Commercial Appeal toured it in late August, before the doors opened, and found plenty of excitement already building. The Daily Memphian reported that the grand opening was set for Sunday, Aug. 30. So the one deli on Erin Drive has become another deli. The building's use stayed the same and only the name on the sign changed. Hours and the menu are on Hive's website.

El Agave, 5007 Black Road. The two-story building near Malco Paradiso was supposed to become San Diego Cantina, but that restaurant never opened. According to the Daily Memphian, the building had no customers for almost a decade until El Agave quietly opened there in July. El Agave is a Mississippi-based Mexican chain that started 13 years ago in New Albany, and this is its seventh location. Moises Lemus and Juan Leon own it. Even so, the building still went by the name of a restaurant that never served a meal there, and El Agave is the first to give it a working kitchen.

So far, the pattern holds whether the operator is local or from out of state. The new businesses chose buildings East Memphis already knows by name.

The Chains Are Following the Same Map

The next wave is mostly national brands, and they are going after familiar spots too.

• Flying Biscuit Cafe, Regalia. A permit pointed to the brunch chain moving into the former Belly Acres space at Regalia Shopping Center, according to the Daily Memphian's early October food coverage. The Memphis Business Journal's headline sounds more certain than the Daily Memphian's "could." Neither has published an opening date.
• Dave's Hot Chicken, Poplar Plaza. The Commercial Appeal reported in August that the chain is building at 3484 Poplar Ave., next to Petco. The Daily Memphian put the target at the end of the year.
• In-N-Out Burger, 5341 Poplar Ave. This is the one swap that doesn't follow the pattern. The site was a gas station and convenience store when WREG reported on the filed plans in August 2025. In July 2026, the company confirmed it had bought the Poplar Avenue properties. It told the Commercial Appeal that building would likely take eight to nine months once construction starts. No start date has been announced, so that eight-to-nine-month clock hasn't started yet.

Each of these sits in an established shopping center or on a busy Poplar address. That's the same playbook Hive and El Agave used, only with bigger brands.

The One Place Starting From Nothing

Breadie's Cafe is the exception. It sits at 120 N. East Yates Road, next to One City Church Memphis, which the Daily Memphian described as tucked away in a neighborhood. It's an artisan bakery and coffee shop, and it was scheduled to open Friday, Oct. 16.

Breadie's didn't inherit a well-known sign or a busy corner, so its backstory is in the name. Founders Chris and Karin Conlee named the cafe after Chris's late father, who spent 40 years getting up before sunrise to deliver bread to restaurants and grocery stores around Memphis. Chris often rode along as a kid. His father's nickname was "Bread Man," or "Breadie," and his grandchildren called him Breadie too.

The Tradition and Breadie's are both named for a parent's habit. Both are local projects in a fall when most of the other new arrivals are chains. The Tradition is still more than a year away on a corner Horn calls one of the most important in the city. Breadie's was set to open its doors on a side street this month.

If one of these old addresses means something to you, whether it's Houston's, Holiday Deli or San Diego Cantina, I'd love to hear what you remember about it. When you're ready to talk about the buildings you'd like to call home, Christina Morris knows East Memphis one corner at a time. Let's Connect.