The Standard Was Pitched as a District. For Now, It's Two Restaurants in One Building.

The former Carrefour at Kirby Woods, on the southwest corner of Poplar Avenue and Kirby Parkway, now has one named tenant. Josephine Estelle serves dinner downstairs and Rosie's Tavern pours cocktails upstairs, both at 6695 Poplar. The apartments, offices and hotel that once came with the name "The Standard Germantown" are on hold. In March, aldermen voted down the project's tax-increment financing, and since then there has been no public word on a revised plan.

That leaves a building with a lot riding on it. Chefs Andy Ticer and Michael Hudman made this two-floor space work on its own merits, and for the time being it is the only part of The Standard anyone can actually walk into.

Upstairs Was Supposed to Be a Party Room

The chefs moved in with one restaurant in mind. Ticer told the Memphis Flyer that the second floor was first going to be private event space. "It's just so big," he said. "This was going to be some private event space, we were talking about first. But it didn't make sense, the amount of square footage."

Their answer was what Ticer called "another revenue driver." Hudman came up with the idea of a cocktail bar on the second floor, so one address could serve a drink before dinner, a drink after dinner, or a ballgame and a drink with no meal at all. Ticer gave a similar account to Nation's Restaurant News: "After seeing the full potential of the space, we saw the opportunity to transform the upstairs terrace into the cocktail-focused concept we have always dreamed of creating."

That decision matters more today than it did in the spring. A building that pulls people in at lunch, at dinner and late in the evening doesn't need apartments next door to keep it busy. It is also a big commitment from this team. Hudman said this is their first restaurant opening in more than six years, counting from Hog & Hominy's reopening after a fire in 2021, and their first business in Germantown. They had also looked at Birmingham, Nashville and Little Rock.

Two Floors, Two Different Rooms

The restaurant names come from family. Josephine Estelle combines Ticer's daughter Josephine and Hudman's daughter Estelle. Rosie's Tavern is named for the daughter of partner Benjamin Orgel. The menus have family roots too, drawn from restaurants Memphis diners already know.

Some details won't make it onto a menu. Downstairs, an interior window by the entrance looks into the dough room, where the day's pasta is made. "We finally got our dough room after all these years," Ticer said. Hudman describes the focaccia garlic bread as a cross between Parker House rolls and Italian garlic bread.

Upstairs, Hudman said the potato skins nod to O'Charley's, "done differently." He told the Flyer the chain always reminded him of Cheers. The Bishop Burger is coming back too, probably under a new name. The steaks come from Marshall Bartlett's Home Place Pastures.

Karen Billions of Story Interior Design did both floors. Hudman said the brief was "a place like our grandmother's house. You come over on Sunday. You come hungry and you leave full." Murals by Brandon Marshall and Joseph Boyd line the stairwell, along with work by Kyle Taylor. Both floors have west-facing windows. Ticer's description of sunset there is a martini in hand and "this is everything."

How the Rest of the Corner Stalled

The restaurant building opened into a project that had been moving for years and then stopped. Here is the timeline:

• November 26, 2018. Germantown's Board of Mayor and Aldermen approves the original "Carrefour at the Gateway" outline plan for the site.
• 2022. A team from CRE Devco, including Adam Slovis, buys the shopping center.
• January 23, 2023. The board approves an amended plan under The Standard name, including a height warrant for a six-story building with 320 loft apartments.
• June 2024. The two-story, 8,770-square-foot first-phase building at 6695 Poplar has taken shape.
• September 2, 2025. Demolition of the old Carrefour center begins.
• January 2026. Residents speak against the tax incentive at the Industrial Development Board. The board later recommends that aldermen approve it.
• February 2026. A consultant hired by the city says the condo and office plans could change. All five aldermen say this is the first they have heard of it.
• March 9, 2026. Aldermen reject the TIF economic impact plan 3-2.

The request was for $14.5 million. It would have repaid certain infrastructure costs for Phases I and II over 20 years, and Action News 5 reported the project's total estimated budget at about $35.5 million. It would also have been the first TIF in Germantown's history. Aldermen Tony Salvaggio, Scott Sanders and Sherrie Hicks voted no. Vice Mayor Anne Gibson and Alderman Brian Ueleke voted yes.

Both sides explained their reasoning to FOX13 that week.

"Projections are not guarantees. Our responsibility as a governing body is to weigh long-term obligations just as careful as potential returns." Alderman Sherrie Hicks

"With the vote going in the opposite direction of what we were hoping for, we will need to revisit the design elements of what had been approved." Developer Adam Slovis

Slovis said rising construction costs could hit the project without the TIF. He said the team would look for an "affordable" solution that could "still create something great for the city, but have a chance to actually finance it and get it built."

Seven Months Without an Update

Here is where things stand. In March, Action News 5 described Phase I as complete, with about 12,000 square feet of commercial space. The retail, residential, office and hospitality space planned for Phase II was going through a separate review. Since then, local coverage has been about the restaurant. The Daily Memphian's story feed for The Standard jumps from the February financing coverage straight to the May 25 opening story. As of early October, we found no reporting on a resubmitted TIF, a smaller plan, new permits or more tenants.

No update isn't the same as cancellation, and no source says the project is dead. But the numbers the city reviewed in January depended on more than one restaurant. That analysis estimated $2.2 million in taxes and $61.9 million in economic impact once "the new restaurant, 320 apartments, new retail and parking garage are fully operational." Only the first item on that list is open. Everything else depends on a redesign that hasn't been made public.

For people who live near Kirby Woods, this means the corner's identity is set mostly by the building that's already there. The restaurant's own website calls it "the first multi-level concept at The Standard." For now, it is also the only one.

Using the Corner as It Stands

The posted schedule is built for both lunch and evening visits. Lunch runs Tuesday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Dinner runs Sunday and Tuesday through Thursday from 4:30 to 9 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 4:30 to 10 p.m. Monday isn't on the schedule. Walk-ins are welcome when there's room, and Rosie's can be reached by the stairs or an elevator. If you want the sunset Ticer described, those west windows face the evening light on both floors.

If you live near the Poplar and Kirby gateway and want to know how a revised Standard plan could affect your part of Germantown once one is filed, Mia Atkinson tracks these hearings closely. Book a Call and we'll go over what has been approved for the site and what still needs a vote.