On Wednesday, November 25, Incoming President Mike Miller sent an open letter to the Health Department. Current President Ernie Mellor and current Board Member and incoming VP Shawn Danko helped with composing the letter. You can read it in English and Spanish here. (Thank you to Marco Puerto of Cocina Mexicana for the translation.)
We had 169 signatures from restaurant employees and vendors on that letter. You can still sign the letter here. We are adding signatures daily and would still love to have the signatures of any restaurant employees or restaurant vendors.
After that letter was published, an anonymous group created a Change.org petition. The MRA was not involved in this petition in any way, however, we were made aware of it soon after publishing and many MRA members have signed it. You can see and sign that petition here. This petition is collecting signatures of anyone in the public, not just those in the restaurant industry.
The following are press pieces that have been published in the past week regarding the MRA and restaurants in Memphis:
Commercial Appeal: Memphis Restaurant Association to Health Department: Improve communication, share data link
Daily Memphian: Memphis Restaurant Association seeks answers from Health Department link
Daily Memphian: Health Dept. unresponsive to restaurant complaints link
Daily Memphian: Restaurateurs seek data and dialogue from Health Department link
Fox 13: Memphis Restaurant Association responds to new health directives link
Fox 13: Memphians start petition urging SCHD to share restaurant-related COVID-19 case data link
Fox 13: Memphis Restaurant Association asks health department to reconsider recent restrictions link
Mike Miller, Ernie Mellor, Shawn Danko, and Steve Voss have a meeting with Dr. Alisa Haushalter this afternoon, Thursday, December 3 and we will send out a summary of the conversation and any results that come from it.
2021 MRA Board
Elected Members (Already Announced)
Mike Miller, Patrick’s, President
Shawn Danko, Kooky Canuck – VP & PAC
Jeff Zepatos, Arcade – Communications (Previously called Secretary)
Terry Trim, Tops – Treasurer
Eric Vernon, BBQ Shop – will support Communications
Steve Voss, Huey’s – will support Treasurer
Lynde Sumrall Tacket, Half Shell – will support VP & PAC
Announcing Appointed Positions
Restaurateurs
Michelle Tavares, Peabody
Marco Puerto, Cocina Mexicana
Jeff Dunham, Magnolia & May
Vendors
Jimmy Kiser, US Foods
Louis Costabile, Sysco
Wayne Tabor, MMHLA
Mary Schmitz, Welcome To Memphis
Jay Hoffman, Tradebank
Lee Raney, Tiger Promotions
Pat Taylor, Cleaner Solutions
Shawn Massey, TSCG
Chris Green, Athens
All the appointed positions, and the officer positions of the elected members were voted on and confirmed at the Wednesday, Nov 18 BOD meeting.
