Graceland is quietly turning up the volume on its food scene with a new dinner-and-show setup inside The Guest House, where multi-course, spirit-paired menus riff on Elvis-inspired Southern comfort favorites. Mario Torres, food-and-beverage director for Elvis Presley Enterprises, is using the concept to stage themed meals and pop-up collaborations that give visitors a reason to stick around after touring the mansion. The plan repurposes part of The Guest House theater as a smaller, more theatrical dining room that blends live music with polished, crowd-pleasing plates.
Torres told Memphis Flyer that The Showroom at Graceland quietly debuted with a soft launch on January 1, after his team pulled out the first 20 rows of theater seats and swapped them for dining tables to create a full dinner-and-stage format. "We removed the first 20 rows of theater seating and added tables. We're doing a dinner and a stage show," he said, describing the overhaul as a way to directly pair food with performance. The Showroom joins The Guest House's existing food-and-drink outlets under Torres's watch and is designed to host special events and tasting menus alongside the resort's more casual spots.
On April 24, Torres built a bourbon dinner around four Old Forester expressions, and the menu for the night featured bourbon-poached shrimp with sweet corn puree, buttermilk-fried Muscovy duck with a maple biscuit, and beef-Wellington pot stickers, the chef told Memphis Flyer. He also outlined a six-course "Moonshine Over Memphis" dinner that spotlighted Master Distiller Big Nick Calo's peanut-butter-banana "Hunka Hunka Burning Love" moonshine, and said he is lining up a spirits dinner with Old Dominick Distillery on May 23. Torres told the paper he leans into "local ingredients" and plans frequent menu changes so the lineup stays rooted in Memphis and the Delta.
Delta's Kitchen and the King's Cut
Delta's Kitchen, the full-service restaurant at The Guest House, lists "The King's Cut," a 32-ounce tomahawk steak, on its dinner menu, according to OpenTable. The Guest House's dining pages group Delta's Kitchen with EP's Bar & Grill, Gladys' Diner, Minnie's Sweets, and Vernon's Smokehouse, according to the Guest House at Graceland, giving Torres multiple outlets where dishes can move between day-to-day service and special-event menus.
Spirits Partnerships and What's Next
The TCB Showroom's bar already leans heavily on local distillers, with cocktails like the "Blue Suede Shoes" and a "Pink Cadillac" built with Old Dominick spirits, according to the Guest House at Graceland. Old Dominick itself operates as a downtown Memphis distillery with a tasting room, tours, and an event space, and the existing collaboration hints at more distillery-paired dinners on the horizon.
Torres's mix of theatrical service, rotating menus, and regional bottles is a clear play to make The Guest House a place where visitors can taste Memphis as much as they can see it. For now, the Showroom gives fans one more excuse to book an overnight in Elvis country, and for the city's restaurant scene, it marks another thread in a slowly widening culinary map.
