Extended Weekend Getaways 
By Kathleen Walls
Travel Writer, author and publisher
It was a thrill when I dined at the Arcade Restaurant in Memphis. I was sitting in the same booth Elvis sat in when he ate at his favorite restaurant.
I came for breakfast, so Elvis’s favorite peanut butter and banana dishes didn’t appeal. Even Samantha Brown’s choice on the travel Channel show of their Eggs Redneck didn’t pique my interest. It is a combination of sausage, chicken, or bacon and biscuits soaked in gravy with eggs and hash browns. However, it couldn’t beat out their French Toast. Made The Arcade Way with two eggs any style, hash browns or grits, bacon or sausage was the choice for me.
I did not regret my choice. I had the eggs over-easy, bacon for my meat, and grits. All items were perfect, especially the French Toast, one of my favorite things to fix for breakfast at home. “The Arcade Way” for the French toast uses baguette bread and deep fry it.
Elvis was not the only celebrity who regularly dined here. Rufus Thomas, perhaps best known for his song, “Do the Funky Chicken,” loved the Arcade. He was also a DJ, dancer, and vaudeville performer. His booth is next to Elvis’s.
Kelsie Zepatos is a fourth-generation co-owner with her husband Jeff, who is the great-grandson of the founder of Arcade. While telling me a little about the Arcade’s history, she pointed out the pictures on the opposite wall of the three preceding generations of Zepatos. It’s the oldest restaurant in Memphis. Speros Zepatos immigrated from Cephalonia, Greece. He had an uncle here and worked in restaurants and then fought in World War I and got his citizenship.
Speros opened a small, one-story, wood-framed diner in 1919 where he cooked on potbelly stoves. The restaurant prospered, and in 1925, he tore down the wood structure and built the present-day Arcade building. It was a Greek revival style building with retail stores which accounted for the “Arcade” name. The Zepatos family still own the building which had several other shops beside the restaurant. In the days before malls, arcades were places for people to meet, eat and drink, and shop.
In the 1950s, there was a fire and his son, Harry Zepatos, needed to repair and redo the arcade. He added the booths and lowered the ceiling. The restaurant is still the way he remodeled. All the buildings around here are about 100 years old. That is the reason so many movies have been filmed, like The Rainmaker, Elizabethtown, My Blueberry Night, and many others.
In case you can’t make it to the Arcade to try their French toast, here’s my favorite recipe for it.
French Toast
Use slightly stale French bread
1 large egg
About ½ cup of cream or condensed milk
½ stick butter
¼ cup sugar
pinch of cinnamon
Half stick of margarine for frying
Half cup of powdered sugar to sprinkle on toast.
Some people prefer syrup, your choice.
Put the butter, sugar, and cinnamon in a bowl and grind them together until it is all mixed into tiny grains, add egg and cream and beat thoroughly, slice French bread into four slices about an inch and a quarter thick,
dip each slice into mixture.
Meantime heat frying pan (preferably cast iron) on medium heat and melt margarine.
Add each slice and let them brown slightly, then turn and brown the other side.
Put on plate and coat both sides with the sugar.
It’s one of the easiest and most delicious breakfasts you will ever enjoy.
