Savor Scout › Cities › Tennessee › Memphis, TN
Where to eat in Memphis, TN
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A few places to eat in Memphis
- The Genre Memphis American · 0.1 miles
200 Poplar Ave, Memphis - Wrapzody Gourmet Wrapz Deli --Memphis TN Delicatessen · 0.2 miles
99 N Main St, Memphis - Quintessential Sweets Ice Cream Shop · 0.2 miles
97 N Main St, Memphis - Regina's Cajun Kitchen Cajun and Creole · 0.3 miles
60 N Main St, Memphis - WONKY’S BNotSo Famous Treats Dessert Shop · 0.3 miles
315 N Main St, Memphis
The closest few by distance from central Memphis, not a ranking — local places listed ahead of chains. Listings from Overture Maps open data (September 2026); hours and openings change, so check before you go. Want one picked for what you're craving instead? Ask Savor Scout in Memphis.
The food scene in Memphis
Open listings put 280 places to eat within 2 miles of central Memphis, 57 within a ten-minute walk (half a mile). The most common: American (27), burgers (12) and bakery (12). 15 are fast-food counters; the rest are sit-down restaurants, cafés, bakeries and takeaway spots.
What stands out in Memphis is Southern, soul food and Cajun & Creole — types that are listed here at 5 to 11 times the national rate.
By type of food — tap one for what to order and how to spot a good one:
American 27 Burgers 12 Bakery 12 Southern 12 Bar & grill 10 Sandwiches 10 Barbecue 10 Deli 9 Breakfast & brunch 9 Coffee 9
The food in Memphis
Memphis barbecue is pork, and the argument here is dry versus wet — ribs rubbed with spice and served without sauce, or ribs mopped and glazed. Both are defensible, both are available, and ordering a half-and-half rack is a normal thing to do.
Beneath the barbecue is one of the strongest soul food traditions in the country, shaped by the Mississippi Delta an hour south and considerably less marketed than the ribs.
What to eat in Memphis
- Dry-rub ribs — Spice rub, no sauce, and the style that made the city's name.
- Pulled pork sandwich with slaw — Slaw on the sandwich, not beside it. This is not optional here.
- Barbecue spaghetti — Spaghetti in barbecue sauce with chopped pork. A genuine Memphis invention and better than it sounds.
- Soul food — Fried catfish, greens, cornbread, candied yams. The everyday cooking of the city.
- Hot wings and Delta tamales — Memphis-style hot wings, and the Delta hot tamale tradition from just downriver.
Where to look
- South Memphis and Orange Mound — Long-running barbecue and soul food.
- Cooper-Young — Most of the newer independent restaurants.
Neighbourhoods and regional dishes, not restaurant recommendations. We have not eaten in Memphis, and a page claiming the best taco in a city it has never visited is worth nothing. Savor Scout reads menus and reviews when you search, and shows why it picked what it picked.
Read up first
barbecue, fried chicken, wings, seafood — what separates a good one from an average one, and what to order.
Memphis has a population of about 653,450. Enough choice to argue about for twenty minutes, which is usually what happens. Savor Scout searches up to 35 miles around Memphis, so places just outside the city are still on the table when they are worth the drive.
Memphis is a little thinner on options than average
Memphis sits in Shelby County, where the Census counts 652 full-service restaurants, 776 limited-service places, 141 cafés and snack bars and 47 bars — 1,616 places to eat or drink in all. Memphis makes up about 71% of the county's population.
That is 17.4 per 10,000 residents, a little under the national median of 19.4. Fewer options than average, which makes picking the right one matter more. Counter service edges out sit-down, which is the national norm.
Those county figures also cover Bartlett, Collierville, Germantown, all within Savor Scout's search radius from Memphis.
County-level counts from the US Census (2022) — how we got these numbers.
What are you craving in Memphis?
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- barbecue in Memphis — what separates a good one from an average one
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Near Memphis
- Bartlett, TN — about 11 miles away
- Southaven, MS — about 11 miles away
- Germantown, TN — about 14 miles away
- Collierville, TN — about 23 miles away
- Jonesboro, AR — about 60 miles away
- Jackson, TN — about 77 miles away
Campuses in and near Memphis
Each has its own page: what is within walking distance and a few places to start with.
How this differs from Google Maps and Yelp
Maps and Yelp are directories: they rank everything nearby and leave the deciding to you. Savor Scout makes the call and shows its reasoning — the match score, what it beat, and the evidence behind the pick. The underlying place data comes from the same public sources, so the difference is the selection, not the data.
Guides
- What to eat when… — 30 guides by situation, from a first date to a hangover to a group of twelve.
- Food guides — what separates a good taco, ramen or pizza from an average one.
- Eating out with a restriction — allergies, halal, kosher, vegan and more.
- Near a campus? — food around 637 US universities.