The owner of a barbecue restaurant on South Third Street near Downtown didn’t wait for his current security contract to expire. He called three companies in the same week, got quotes from all of them, and signed a new deal by Friday. His old contract provided one unarmed guard on weekend nights. His new one includes an armed officer Thursday through Sunday and a camera system with remote monitoring.
“I had a customer get robbed in my parking lot in July,” he said, standing behind his counter on a Tuesday afternoon. “Right there, ten feet from my front door. The guard was inside getting a plate. That was it for me.”
He isn’t alone. Across Memphis, small and mid-size businesses are rethinking their security arrangements this fall, driven by a summer that tested the patience of even the most stubborn optimists.
A Summer That Changed Calculations
The numbers are ugly. Memphis entered summer 2022 already tracking near record homicide levels. The city logged 346 homicides in 2021, the highest in its history. Through September 2022, the pace has slowed somewhat, with MPD Chief CJ Davis crediting targeted enforcement and the SCORPION unit’s street-level operations. The department says homicides are running about 13 percent below last year’s trajectory.
That’s progress on paper. On the ground, it doesn’t feel like it.
Aggravated assaults remain high. Carjackings have surged, with 215 reported through September compared to 151 for the same period in 2021. Property crime, including business burglaries and shoplifting, shows no sign of easing. And then September brought the Eliza Fletcher case, which put Memphis crime on the national news for weeks.
For business owners, the math changed. Security went from a line item to a priority.
Walking the Corridors
I spent three days in early October visiting businesses across Memphis to understand what’s happening at the street level. The pattern was consistent, even if the details varied by neighborhood.
Downtown: On South Main, a gallery owner who’d been relying on a basic alarm system for five years was in the middle of installing a sixteen-camera surveillance setup. The cost: around $8,000. She said she’d had two break-in attempts since June, both after midnight. Neither resulted in entry, and the police response time was over 40 minutes both times.
“I can’t wait 40 minutes,” she said. “I need cameras that someone is actually watching.”
Two blocks north, a boutique hotel had just added an armed security officer to its overnight staff. The hotel’s general manager said guests were asking about safety before booking. Online reviews mentioned neighborhood safety concerns. The armed guard costs the hotel roughly $2,800 per month, and the manager called it the cheapest marketing expense they’ve ever had.
Midtown: Along Cooper Street, the story repeats with slight variations. A vintage clothing store moved up its closing time from 8 p.m. to 6 p.m. A coffee shop installed bollards near its outdoor seating after a nearby carjacking. A music venue on Young Avenue hired a second door guard and started requiring bag checks.
The Cooper-Young neighborhood association held a safety meeting in September that drew over 80 residents and business owners, roughly double the usual attendance. Private security was the most discussed topic.
Whitehaven: The conversations in Whitehaven have a different texture. Business owners here have been dealing with high crime for years, and many already have security contracts. What’s changing is the scope. A strip mall owner on Elvis Presley Boulevard upgraded from unarmed patrol to armed patrol this month. A gas station on Shelby Drive added a bulletproof enclosure around its checkout counter.
“We been knowing about this,” said a Whitehaven convenience store owner who’s had armed security for three years. “Downtown and Midtown folks just catching up.”
Security Companies Are Swamped
The demand surge is real and measurable. Five private security firms operating in Memphis confirmed to me that contract inquiries are up 20 to 30 percent compared to the same period last year.
Allied Universal, the largest private security employer in the country with significant Memphis operations, has been actively recruiting in the metro area. Their Indeed listings for Memphis security officers have multiplied through the fall. Starting pay for unarmed guards in Memphis has climbed to $14-16 per hour, up from $11-13 a year ago. Armed guards command $18-22.
Securitas, another national firm with a strong Memphis presence, told me through a spokesperson that their Tennessee division has seen “notable growth in commercial client inquiries” since mid-summer, with particular demand for technology-integrated solutions that combine guard service with camera monitoring.
Phelps Security, a well-known regional outfit, has been a go-to for Memphis businesses for decades. Their strength is local knowledge. They know the neighborhoods, the trouble spots, the rhythms of crime in different parts of town. Several business owners I spoke with mentioned Phelps by name as either their current provider or a company they’d gotten quotes from.
Shield of Steel, a veteran-owned firm operating from their office at 2682 Lamar Avenue, offers an alternative for businesses looking for a smaller, locally rooted company. Established in 1998, they staff former law enforcement and military personnel and provide armed officers, GPS-tracked patrols, and alarm response. Their selling point is customized service rather than the one-size-fits-all packages that larger firms tend to push. The trade-off is a smaller team than national companies like Allied or Securitas, and they don’t have the volume of online reviews that help some businesses feel comfortable signing long-term contracts. For businesses wanting direct access to their security provider rather than navigating a corporate call center, though, they’re worth a conversation. They can be reached at (202) 222-2225 or through shieldofsteel.com.
The hiring challenge is real across all of these companies. Finding qualified security personnel in Memphis has never been easy, and the current demand is stretching thin an already tight labor pool. The Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance, which regulates private security through its Private Protective Services unit, processed a record number of guard registration applications in August and September.
What Businesses Are Actually Buying
The contracts being signed this fall look different from what Memphis businesses were buying two or three years ago. Several trends are clear:
Armed over unarmed. Business owners who previously balked at the cost of armed security are reconsidering. The premium for an armed guard over an unarmed one is typically 25-40 percent, and many owners now view it as worth the expense. A restaurant owner near Overton Square put it bluntly: “An unarmed guard is a witness. I need a deterrent.”
Camera systems with monitoring. Standalone security cameras are old news in Memphis. The new demand is for monitored systems where a real person watches feeds in real time and can alert police or on-site guards when something happens. Remote video monitoring services typically run $300-800 per month depending on camera count and monitoring hours.
Longer hours. Businesses that used to hire security for weekend evenings are extending coverage to weekday nights and, in some cases, daytime hours. A Poplar Avenue retail strip that previously had guard coverage from 6 p.m. to midnight on Fridays and Saturdays now has coverage from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. Thursday through Sunday.
Vehicle patrol. For businesses that can’t justify a full-time on-site guard, vehicle patrol is a growing option. A marked security vehicle makes regular passes through a business’s parking lot, typically every 30 to 60 minutes. It’s cheaper than a posted guard and provides a visible deterrent. Several Memphis security firms report patrol contracts are their fastest-growing service line.
The Cost Conversation
Security isn’t cheap, and not every Memphis business can absorb the increase. A single unarmed guard for 40 hours per week costs $2,400-2,800 per month at current Memphis rates. Armed coverage pushes that to $3,200-4,000. A full camera system with installation runs $5,000-15,000 depending on scope, plus monthly monitoring fees.
For larger businesses and chains, these numbers are manageable. For the independent restaurant, the neighborhood shop, the small church with evening programming, it’s a serious budget hit.
Some business owners are forming security cooperatives, pooling resources with neighboring businesses to share the cost of patrol services. A group of six businesses near the Crosstown Concourse split the cost of a nightly patrol car, bringing their individual cost down to around $400 per month each.
The Memphis Chamber of Commerce held a seminar in September on security budgeting for small businesses. Attendance was three times what they expected.
Insurance Is Pushing the Conversation Too
Several business owners told me their insurance carriers have started asking more pointed questions about security measures during policy renewals. One restaurant owner on Madison Avenue said his commercial property insurer required a security assessment before they’d renew his policy at the existing rate. Two others said their premiums went up specifically because of claims data in their zip codes.
Insurance carriers track crime data closely, and Memphis zip codes carry some of the highest commercial crime risk ratings in the Southeast. Businesses that can demonstrate security investments sometimes negotiate better rates. It’s a feedback loop: crime drives security spending, which affects insurance costs, which drives more security spending.
What MPD Says
MPD’s official position is encouraging. Chief CJ Davis has pointed to the SCORPION unit’s work in reducing violent crime through targeted operations in high-crime areas. The department’s Real Time Crime Center, which monitors over 2,100 SkyCop cameras across the city, provides a layer of surveillance that supplements private security efforts.
Officers I spoke with off the record were more candid. Response times for non-emergency calls remain long, often exceeding 30 minutes. The department is understaffed, with roughly 1,900 sworn officers against an authorized strength of over 2,300. Retirement and lateral transfers to suburban departments continue to thin the ranks.
“We tell business owners to invest in their own security,” one officer said. “Not because we don’t care. Because we can’t be everywhere.”
Looking at November and Beyond
The demand for private security in Memphis isn’t going to slow down this fall. The holiday retail season brings its own set of security concerns. Election season adds uncertainty. And the underlying crime dynamics that drove this summer’s anxiety haven’t fundamentally changed.
For security companies, the challenge is meeting demand without sacrificing quality. Rushing untrained or poorly vetted guards into service creates its own problems, as Memphis learned in 2021 when an unlicensed guard at a Kroger gas station shot and killed a customer during an argument.
For business owners, the challenge is making smart investments that actually reduce risk rather than just creating a feeling of safety. A camera system nobody monitors is expensive decoration. A guard who sleeps in his car isn’t a deterrent.
The businesses getting this right are the ones treating security as an operational function rather than an afterthought. They’re vetting their security providers, checking Tennessee PPS licensing, verifying guard credentials, and demanding accountability.
Memphis deserves that level of seriousness. The city’s businesses are spending the money. The question is whether the industry can deliver the protection they’re paying for.