Graceland and The Majestic Grille

We had set Sunday aside for Corey and I to do some sightseeing on our own. I tried to make plans to have lunch with my friend, Shelley Hargraves, from high school, but she couldn't wing it. We had a nice talk on the phone, though.

Corey and I wanted to see Graceland before leaving Memphis. We took a shuttle there and our driver was pretty informative. He dropped us off and we took another shuttle up to the residence. It was so different than I expected it to be. I thought it would be more lavish, but it was an older home, and looked pretty understated to me. I was kind of shocked, for some reason, at the 70's decor! It was amazing how well preserved it was! It was literally like walking into a time capsule of the 1970's! Elvis didn't live super lavishly at all. At least not from what I can see in his house. I mean, he liked the flamboyant outfits and stuff, but you can tell that he was a total family man. It was pretty emotional for me. I really am glad we had a chance to do this....even if we were still sore from the race and had a hard time getting up and down the steps.

After Graceland, we took a tour of Sun Studios downtown. It was full of history and the supposed birthplace of American rock and roll. Its where Elivs Presley and Johnny Cash signed on, as well as Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. I enjoyed the studio portion of the tour, but I was a little bit bored in the beginning. Overall, I'm glad we went. I was really hungry by this point and was ready for some dinner!

I don't have many nice things to say about The Majestic Grille in downtown Memphis. One thing I thought was cool was that it was in an old historic movie theater and there was an old film playing on the wall: The Holiday Inn with Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby. I thought it was cool until the music/song/dancing part started every 5 minutes and the volume went up 25 notches.

We were greeted and seated immediately, but it took forever for our waiter to greet us. We ordered a cocktail and waited at least 10 minutes before he finally came out...empty handed...to see if we were ready to order. We only knew that we wanted to start with the onion rings and horseradish sauce (terrible! Greasy, batter kept falling off, and it was just tasteless!). Our drinks finally came, we ordered, and we waited quite a while for our dinner to arrive. I had the New York Strip steak with mashed potatoes and a side of spinach. Corey had the same, except with the market vegetables. The food was good, but our steaks were really fatty and gristly. I was overall pretty disappointed in the Majestic. Our poor waiter was so slammed and the bad service was not his fault at all and we told him that we understood when he apologized. Its not that the place was packed, but they only had 2 waiters and they had ours going from the back of the restaurant to the front, etc. He was literally sweating when he first approached us. I overheard another party complain.

I wish we had gone to Circa by John Bragg instead. I loved the menu, but when we got there it was dead, and Corey had said he walked into the Majestic the night before and thought it looked good, so we tried that instead. Kristin, if you're reading, I was so convinced that we went to Circa, that I told all of you (on Facebook) that that is where we went. I was wrong. It was not Circa, it was The Majestic. Oops. Next time in Memphis, I will try Circa instead! :)