Here it is, January 2012, marking 24 years that I have been reviewing restaurants and writing about the dining business in Memphis. Forgive me if I wax nostalgic.

Fredric Koeppel has collected menus from local restaurants for 24 years as part of his reporting. (Photo: Fredric Koeppel)

I began saving menus from the restaurants I reviewed for The Commercial Appeal sometime in 1988; it took me a few months for me to understand that saving menus would provide reference points for restaurants that I might review in the future and, perhaps more vaguely then, that such a collection would amount to a history of my experiences, if not a narrative of the dining community and its transformations over time, not to put it too grandiosely.

Twenty-four years later, I have two banker’s cartons of menus, not just from Memphis and the region (though they are the preponderance) but from all over the country and even from some European trips. I am donating these artifacts to the Memphis/Shelby County Room at the public library, where they will be available for scholars, historians and the generally curious interested in the cultural and culinary lineage of the city. The menus are the first step in what will eventually be a collection at the library of all of my papers and notes reflecting my life as a teacher, journalist, writer and traveler.

Looking through the menus recently, I was struck by the number of restaurants I wrote about that no longer exist, many, even, that closed their doors years ago. The restaurant business is, as you suspect, a difficult endeavor, fraught with hardship and pitfall, as well, of course, as the myriad joys of creating fine food and making customers happy. The bottom line, however, is the bottom line, and many a restaurant has foundered on the shoals of undercapitalization, inconsistent product and service and bad location. And then there’s the economy.

As a neophyte “food critic,” among the restaurants I reviewed in 1988 and ’89 – at least those I remember and have menus for – were the first two places I evaluated, the Luau at Memphis International Airport (I know, the concept boggles the mind) and the legendary Justine’s, followed by, not in order, Handy Stop Deli, Owen Brennan’s, Palm Court, Le Chardonnay, Siam Cuisine, Silver Spoon, Riverside Restaurant, Mostly Greek, Café Max, King Cotton, King’s Palace Café, Grisanti’s, Sun Studio Café, Bluff City Diner and La Tourelle, after Erling Jensen became chef.

In 1990 came – again, taking account of my erratic menu-gathering; I became more thorough – Monte-Chez, Café Roux, Canepa’s of San Francisco, Gridiron, the Brushmark, Anthony’s, Mabuhay (Filipino), Melos Taverna, Wonder City (in West Memphis), H.R.H. Dumplin’s (me tryin’ to be all things to all people), Rampage Bar and Grill, T.J. Mulligan’s, Molly’s La Casita, Poplar Court, Downtown Grill (in Oxford, Miss.), Latham’s Restaurant, Café Society (when Linda Waller was chef).

Look at that list and pick out the establishments that are still open. Owen Brennan’s, Le Chardonnay (in a different location), King’s Palace, Sun Studio Café, Brushmark, Molly’s, Café Society, all deserving badges for determination and longevity, if not necessarily for great food and service.

I promise that I’m not going to list every menu in every folder up to when I stopped reviewing early in 2008.

I kept the menus in folders by year, except for outsized menus that don’t fit in the standard format. I also kept separate folders for a group of restaurants that I considered significant in terms of reputation and achievement and that I assumed I would need for comparison in future reviews. What restaurants did I sequester, each in its own folder?

Aubergine. Automatic Slim’s. Bari. Ben’s. A folder simply labeled “Bernard,” for Bernard Chang, who died in 1995 after being stabbed by an employee. Bistro 122. Café Society. Chez Phillipe. Cielo. Dux. Erling Jensen. Felicia Suzanne’s. Grill 83. Grisanti’s. Grove Grill. Hemmings/Bistro Hemmings. Jarrett’s. K.C.s (the Joe brothers’ restaurant in Cleveland, Miss.). KoTo. La Tourelle. Marena’s. McEwen’s on Monroe. Midtown (oh, I’m testing your memories!). La Patisserie Bistro. Puck’s. Restaurant Raji. River Terrace (one kept hoping). Sekisui/Sekisui Pacific Rim. Tsumani. 25 Belvedere, Wally Joe.

Have mercy, this list is as much memorial as celebration! And I assume that for some, if not many, of my readers the names of a portion of these restaurants will have as much meaning as Druidic runes. The point is, if I were still reviewing restaurants and went to review, say, Erling Jensen, I would have a folder that held menus all the way back to when the restaurant opened late in 2006. And if a question ever came up, from me of necessity or a reader’s curiosity, something like, What kind of food did Linda Waller serve at Puck’s? Or, How did Raji’s menu change over the years? Well, there would be a folder of menus. Soon, after the library staff goes through the folders and menus and puts them in order – better order than I am capable of – those questions can be answered in the Memphis/Shelby County Room.

You may by now understand that reviewing and writing about restaurants is an activity fraught with as much sorrow as pleasure. The discovery of a great new restaurant, the savoring of wonderful food, the comfort of excellent service are the qualities that excite and soothe, but the expense, the waste, the shame that attend upon the decline and fall of a restaurant, for whatever reason it fails, manifest great sadness, for the failure of a restaurant marks the destruction of a community.

Darn it, now I’m hungry. We had better go out to eat tonight.