If you've lived in Germantown long enough, you remember Carrefour at Kirby Woods when it still had tenants. You also remember watching it empty out, then sit behind chain-link fencing as a demolition site once crews finally moved in during September 2025. Less than a year later, the same corner has a reservation line for the ground floor and a rooftop bar upstairs, and the chefs behind it are two of the most recognized names in Memphis kitchens.
That whiplash, from demolition dust to a wait for a table, is worth pausing on. It says something about how fast this stretch of Poplar is turning over, and it's not the only change on the map this month.
What was actually sitting there
Carrefour at Kirby Woods was an upscale shopping center that had been losing tenants for years before it closed for good. A group of investors led by Tower Ventures president Billy Orgel, operating as CRE Devco Germantown, bought the ten-acre parcel at Poplar and Kirby Parkway for $17 million in January 2022 and started planning a mixed-use replacement called The Standard Germantown.
The full build-out is a six-phase project the city has pegged at $300 to $500 million once it's finished, likely sometime between 2030 and 2032. Phase one was smaller and more manageable: a $5 million, two-story building at 6695 Poplar Avenue. By the time the city reviewed plans for phase two in March 2026, phase one was already complete. Phase two is bigger money and bigger ambition, a $35.5 million project that includes a six-story building with 320 apartment units and 27,000 square feet of commercial space, backed by Germantown's first-ever tax increment financing arrangement and a $14.5 million TIF application the Industrial Development Board approved that same month.
None of that would matter much to a resident's actual week if the anchor tenant in that first building were a bank branch or a nail salon. It isn't.
The restaurant everyone's talking about
Josephine Estelle and Rosie's Tavern moved into 6695 Poplar this year from the team behind some of Memphis's better-known restaurants: Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen, Hog & Hominy, and Catherine & Mary's. Chefs Andy Ticer and Michael Hudman built the concept around a seasonally driven Italian-American menu rooted in Southern ingredients, with fresh pasta made daily in a glass-fronted room diners can watch from their table. The name comes from their daughters, Josephine and Estelle. It's not a new idea for them either. The original Josephine Estelle opened in New Orleans back in 2016, and this is its next chapter.
Rosie's Tavern occupies the upper level, a cocktail-forward space named for partner Benjamin Orgel's daughter, and it revives a few dishes from the team's earlier restaurant Bishop, including a raw bar with oysters. The whole building debuted over Memorial Day weekend in 2026, and it's already become the kind of place WREG covered as local news rather than a routine opening.
If you've been meaning to try it, know that a two-restaurant building with a glass pasta room and a rooftop bar in the same footprint didn't happen by accident. It happened because a developer spent four years on this corner, from the 2022 purchase through demolition and construction, waiting for tenants with a real track record instead of filling the space with whatever showed up first.
It's not the only new stop on this stretch
A few minutes away, Bain Barbecue opened its second Germantown location in late May 2026 at 2016 South Germantown Road, just north of Poplar. The original Bain Barbecue already had a following for its Texas-style brisket and ribs. The new location adds something the first one doesn't have: a drive-thru, which matters more than it sounds like it should on a weeknight when you don't want to find parking or wait on a table.
Two new restaurant openings in the same season, on the same general corridor, coming from two different ownership groups with two different track records, is a pattern rather than a coincidence. It suggests operators with real reputations are betting that this part of Germantown can support them, not just survive them.
Thursday nights got a free option
If dinner reservations aren't your speed, Germantown Performing Arts Center runs a summer series called Concerts in the Grove on select Thursday evenings, 6:30 to 8:00 p.m., on the TruGreen Lawn at 1801 Exeter Road. Gates open at 5:30, food trucks and corn hole are part of the setup, and cocktails are available on the First Horizon Foundation Plaza if you want one without hauling a cooler. Outside food and drinks are allowed, so bringing your own picnic is fine too. GPAC also has more outdoor programming on the books at The Grove through early September, including shows on August 28 and September 4.
It's a low-effort answer to the question every household with kids or a dog eventually asks on a Thursday in August: is there anywhere close by to just go sit outside.
The one thing on the calendar that hasn't changed
While the restaurant scene shifts block by block, one fixture on the Germantown calendar hasn't moved in over five decades. The 53rd Annual Germantown Festival runs September 12 and 13, 2026, at the Germantown Civic Club Complex, 7745 Poplar Pike. Admission is free, and so are the bus shuttles that run continuously between two parking lots and the festival grounds all weekend.
The festival still does what it's always done: arts and crafts vendors, live stage entertainment both days, a car exhibit from local dealerships, and the Running of the Weenies, a dachshund race sponsored by the Germantown Animal Shelter that kicks off Saturday morning at 11:30, right after an 11:00 Best Dressed Contest. If you've never gone, it's worth knowing that this is the rare Germantown institution that has outlasted the shopping centers, restaurants, and developments that have opened and closed around it since the first one ran in the 1970s.
Quick reference if you're planning your month:
- Josephine Estelle + Rosie's Tavern — 6695 Poplar Avenue, open now
- Bain Barbecue (second location) — 2016 S. Germantown Road, drive-thru available
- Concerts in the Grove — 1801 Exeter Road, select Thursday evenings through summer, gates at 5:30 p.m.
- More Grove shows — August 28 and September 4
- Germantown Festival — 7745 Poplar Pike, September 12 to 13, free admission and shuttles
What the corner actually tells you
The lesson from the Poplar and Kirby redevelopment isn't really about restaurants. It's about what happens when a slow-moving project finally lands its first real tenant. Years of permitting, fencing, and empty pavement can make a corner feel like it's stalled out for good. Then a developer with real financing behind it, backed by the city's first tax increment deal, brings in operators who've already proven themselves elsewhere in Memphis, and the wait suddenly looks less like inertia and more like patience.
If you've been driving past that corner wondering when something would finally open, the answer arrived, and it came with a pasta room you can watch through glass. Worth keeping an eye on what phase two brings when that six-story building starts leasing.
If you're curious about how changes like this ripple through property values in Germantown, or you just want a neighbor's read on what's coming next, Christopher Farm is easy to reach and always happy to talk shop about the area. Let's Connect.
