Central BBQ expands its Midtown footprint with breakfast service after reopening from multi-year renovation

A Midtown institution reopens, then adds a new daypart

Central BBQ’s original Midtown location on Central Avenue has returned to full operations after a shutdown of more than two years tied to a rebuild and renovation of the site. The reopening restored a key outpost for a brand that has become one of Memphis’ best-known barbecue operators, with additional locations across the area.

Now, the Midtown restaurant is testing a significant shift in how it uses the space: breakfast. For a restaurant best known for lunch-and-dinner barbecue staples, the move places Central BBQ into a category more common for diners, cafes and bakeries than smokehouses.

What the breakfast move signals for the business

Adding breakfast typically aims to increase utilization of kitchens and dining rooms during hours that would otherwise sit idle. In Midtown, where weekday foot traffic and weekend neighborhood dining are both important, breakfast can also broaden the customer base beyond traditional barbecue occasions.

For Central BBQ, the timing matters. The reopening follows a period when the Midtown location was absent from the daily rotation for many regulars, potentially shifting some demand to other neighborhood restaurants and to Central’s other locations. Breakfast offers a way to reintroduce the rebuilt Midtown site with a new reason to visit—particularly for nearby residents, office workers, and visitors moving between cultural attractions and the Medical District.

How this fits Memphis’ broader restaurant landscape

Memphis has seen continued experimentation with operating hours and formats as restaurants balance labor availability, food costs, and customer demand. Breakfast and brunch, in particular, can provide steadier volume for concepts that already have strong brand recognition and operational capacity.

Central BBQ’s broader business also includes a separate breakfast-focused concept in the market, suggesting that leadership has been studying morning demand and the operational requirements of breakfast service. Extending breakfast into a flagship barbecue location leverages that experience while keeping the core brand anchored in smoked meats and Memphis-style barbecue.

What diners should watch for next

The key questions are operational and strategic: whether breakfast becomes a permanent, daily offering; how it integrates with the existing menu; and whether it expands beyond Midtown. Early-stage breakfast programs often begin with limited hours or a compact menu designed to test demand without disrupting core lunch-and-dinner production.

• Hours and frequency: whether breakfast runs daily or only on select days.
• Menu scope: whether it remains simple and fast-casual or grows into a fuller sit-down format.
• Rollout potential: whether breakfast appears at additional Central BBQ locations if Midtown demand is strong.

In a neighborhood where competition is dense and customer routines are varied, the addition of breakfast is a notable change in how a long-running barbecue restaurant positions itself day to day.

For Midtown, the development marks a new chapter for a well-established name: a rebuilt restaurant seeking not only to regain its former place, but to add a new meal period to its identity.