Cleveland, Mississippi

Crawdad’s
Twenty or so years ago it was virtually impossible to get a guaranteed supply of crawfish in the Mississippi Delta. Andrew Westerfield found a solution when he opened Crawdad’s in 1984. Seating six people at a time and cooking crawfish on the front porch, Crawdad’s became increasingly popular and soon needed more and more space. Fourteen renovations, one building move, and one fire later, Crawdad’s is now a 20,000 square foot establishment seating around 350 people.

Crawdad’s might have started out as strictly a crawfish restaurant, but now it is known more as a steakhouse serving between 400 and 500 filets and ribeyes a month in addition to fresh seafood. Located in Merigold, Miss., about seven miles north of Cleveland, Crawdad’s draws in patrons from far and wide, some coming from as far as 100 miles away. On a busy weekend night Crawdad’s can bring in around 800 people; that’s double the town’s population.

No one involved in Crawdad’s had any restaurant experience until David Crews signed on as general manager and chef. Crews grew up going to Crawdad’s with his own family. “I’ve been frequenting the establishment since I was about five years old,” said Crews. “We used to come here at least once a weekend before I took over as chef.” After serving as the original chef at the Alluvian Hotel in Greenwood, Miss., Crews took some time away from the culinary world to get married and start a family. After about a year of begging from Westerfield, Crew joined Crawdad’s in 2006. by Katherine Sands

KC’s Restaurant
The only Four Star-rated restaurant in Mississippi, KC’s in Cleveland, Miss., offers a taste of the South in an elegant atmosphere. When owners Don and Wally Joe’s father opened the original KC’s in 1974, it was a primarily a Chinese restaurant. When it burned down in 1992, it reopened a year later with an emphasis in American fine dining, serving steaks and fresh fish with hints of Southern and Asian flavor.

KC’s was rated Four Stars from both the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, and the Commercial Appeal in Memphis, and is the only restaurant in Mississippi to be inducted into the Fine Dining Hall of Fame. Stars such as Faye Dunaway, Gene Hackman, and Chris O’Donnell have taken in the KC’s experience. Wally Joe is a renowned chef who also owns Wally Joe’s in Memphis and was named one of 28 “Rising Star Chefs of the 21st Century” by the James Beard Foundation. by Katherine Sands

Airport Grocery
In 1992, when Jonathan Vance opened Airport Grocery in Cleveland, Miss. he wanted to celebrate the Delta’s culture of Blues, barbecue, and of course, hot tamales. “Our hot tamales in the Delta are more of a soul food than a Mexican food,” Vance says. Vance’s father learned the art of making them from the Delta’s godfather of hot tamales himself, Joe Pope of Joe’s Hot Tamale Place–also known as the White Front Café in Rosedale.

Airport Grocery may be known for their tamales and barbecue, but they also serve steaks and crawfish when they’re in season. Blues is another big part of the landmark, and the restaurant offers live music on occasion. Harmonica player Willie Foster recorded an album there in 1999 called Live At Airport Grocery. Blues players don’t just come to perform though; they also come to eat. This Southern eatery has also drawn in such names as Delbert McClinton and Frank Frost. by Katherine Sands

Nesbit, Mississippi

Bonne Terre
Just south of the Tennessee state line in Desoto County, Miss., sits one of Mississippi’s most bustling areas. Cities like Southaven and Olive Branch have just about everything a person could look for to enjoy life next to the big city. Travel just a few more miles south of Memphis and you will find the gentle wooded areas of North Mississippi and quaint Southern towns. One of the great escapes from the traffic lights and shopping malls is Bonne Terre, a bed & breakfast showplace in Nesbit, Miss.

With a 15-room inn located on 120 acres of majestic trees and rolling green landscaping, Bonne Terre offers a full array of amenities that keeps guests impressed and loyal. All rooms in the inn are decorated with antique furniture; some feature classic balconies, and others have king-size feather beds. Upon arriving you can arrange for chocolate-covered strawberries, a wine and cheese presentation, or a dozen roses to be in your room timed perfectly with your arrival. You can even schedule a Swedish massage during your stay.

The grounds of Bonne Terre are a popular destination for country weddings. With a New England-style wedding chapel and gazebo as well as classically inspired ballrooms, Bonne Terre provides an enjoyable and memorable experience for wedding guests.

Even with the elaborate décor of the inn and the backdrop of pristine gardens and natural landscaping, the most impressive part of this resort-like getaway is the Bonne Terre Restaurant. A menu of French country cuisine prepared by award-wining chefs creates the area’s most impressive dining experience. The ambiance of the European setting is only matched by the quality of its menu items. Selections like jumbo lump crab cakes and She-Crab Soup provide a level of expectation at the beginning of the meal that is carried forward to the many popular entrée selections. Roasted rack of lamb, grilled Black Angus filet, pecan dusted free range chicken and Charleston shrimp and grits are among the favorites at Bonne Terre.

This secluded inn is just a few miles out of town, but its restaurant coupled with the bed and breakfast and wedding chapel make you feel like you have escaped the Mid-South for the classic European countryside, even if only for a few hours. by Tahlor Wade

Hattiesburg, Mississippi

206 Front & Bianchi’s Pizzeria
Until recently, the downtown area of Hattiesburg, Miss., was not able to compete with the offerings of the city’s main drag, Hardy Street, on the west side of town. Apartment complexes and dorm rooms that house students at the University of Southern Mississippi are only a walking distance or a short drive to Hardy Street and its new commercial developments. A change slowly began to happen about six years ago, however, and downtown Hattiesburg began to see a resurgence. Now, thanks to the efforts of one local restaurant owner, downtown is becoming one of the city’s marquee destinations.

Restaurant owner and executive chef Tom White humbly takes no credit for bringing traffic back to downtown for dining and entertainment, but it was the opening of his first restaurant, 206 Front, that showed people you can make an investment in downtown and be successful.

206 Front sits in an old downtown building that White totally gutted, leaving only the flooring for the second level, exterior walls and roof. The renovations resulted in a classy casual fine dining restaurant equaling the area’s best dining experience.
“Our menu is a little different,” White says. “We have a rabbit dish, we serve duck, lamb, seasonal options and fine steaks, but we have become most known for our selection of fresh seafood-our most popular dish is the Parmesan-crusted salmon with horseradish caper sauce.” White explains that these dishes are inspired by his grandparents’ traditional family recipes mixed with concepts that he has learned from working in restaurants across the country.

Now that we are in the age of the celebrity chef, restaurant owners like White are getting harder to come by. He didn’t attend a culinary institute, but rather learned the old fashioned the way. “I worked in Philadelphia (Penn.), and then bounced around the Southeast—Nashville, Atlanta, Jackson (Miss.), and Hammond (La.). I always worked in restaurants—my education was that of an apprenticeship.”
When 206 Front first opened its doors in 2002, there was only a small beer bar that was open in the downtown area; now, there are about six different eateries comprised of a couple of breakfast and lunch-only places and a few nightspots that are open late. One of those new eateries is White’s second restaurant concept, Bianchi’s Pizzeria.

Bianchi’s Pizzeria is based on the Italian side of his family, with specialty pizzas bearing the names of ancestors and old family friends that White’s dad has picked out. Like his first restaurant, White says that Bianchi’s was another total renovation project–but he didn’t want to lose the historic significance of the building. “We tried to stay true to the original design of the building,” says White.
The two restaurants share something else in common: White’s watchful eye. With a fully-trained staff in both locations, White is not tied to one particular restaurant; instead he spends most of his day bouncing between the two and greeting the guests.

Bianchi’s Pizzeria is bringing people back to downtown for a style of pizza that locals are loving. The gourmet pizzeria brings what White calls “St. Louis-style” (thin and crispy) pizza to the Hub City. All pizzas are made to order in a wood-fire brick oven and the favorite specialty pizza on the menu is the Spataro, which has Alfredo, blackened chicken, caramelized onion, mushrooms and cheeses.

With the development of two high-end successful restaurants in downtown Hattiesburg, the White family may one day try to expand their concept to other Mississippi downtown areas. “I would like to have more of them [Bianchi’s Pizzerias] in Mississippi and be part of the revitalization of so many Mississippi downtown districts,” shares White.

He credits the launch of his successful restaurants to the support of his father, Joe, whom White affectionately refers to as his “not-so-silent partner.” When White’s dad rolled over his lifelong savings and investments to allow for enough capital for his son to open a restaurant, he wasn’t just investing in his family’s future…he was investing in the future of a community. And it looks as if both of those investments will continue to pay off for generations to come.

Oxford, Mississippi

Ajax Diner
A decade ago, the Oxford Square was a good bit different than today’s bustling, vibrant (yet quaint) town center. Mom and pop diners have given way to swanky high-end restaurants, and small town staples like a family-owned grocery store and neighborhood pharmacy have been replaced with new office space and boutique gift stores. Randy Yates had an idea for a restaurant that would blend a traditional diner concept that you expect in a small town with the kind of fine dining for which Oxford was becoming known. The result: Ajax Diner.

Yates classifies the cuisine at Ajax as “upscale-down home.” Every weekday Ajax features the town’s most popular lunch specials. Chicken spaghetti, fried quail, and jambalaya are among a few of the items that rotate on a daily schedule. Each lunch is served with a side of two vegetables—and many people order just the sides. “Our vegetable plate offers a choice of three or four vegetables and is our best seller,” says Yates, who has spent most of his life in a restaurant.

Unique twists on down home favorites such as macaroni and cheese and cheese grits make for popular menu items, as well as Ajax originals like the tamale pie. The menu hasn’t changed much in the last decade, something that Randy credits to the many popular dishes that people expect to see on the menu. “We have maybe two or three items that we can rotate on and off and experiment with new selections, but the customers just won’t stand for us changing the menu too much.”

The warm and inviting atmosphere of this Oxford original is appealing to both locals and those who visit the area for the first time. Its “upscale-down home” menu items and experienced service staff (some of whom have been there since the beginning) keep people coming back.

The Windsor
When Southaven, Miss., native James Gross graduated high school and moved to Oxford, Miss., to attend the University of Mississippi, he didn’t realize that a part-time job at a popular downtown restaurant would ultimately change his life, but that’s exactly what happened. Gross began as a server and was ultimately thrown into the kitchen for one reason or another. Little by little, Gross was becoming interested in culinary arts. He wanted be a chef and operate his own restaurant.
After graduating with a business degree from Ole Miss, Gross applied and was accepted to one of the most prestigious culinary schools in the entire world, The Culinary Institute of America in New York City.

After completing an advanced program and training with the world’s finest master chefs, Gross brings his knowledge and passion back to Oxford as the executive chef of The Windsor, a new restaurant located inside Colonel’s Quarters at Oxford’s Castle Hill resort.

As the first executive chef of the new restaurant Gross has been involved with everything from arranging the décor to ordering china, but the biggest challenge of all is developing The Windsor’s first menu. “I want people to be surprised… I want people to expect to be surprised,” explained Gross of his menu. “It will be service-oriented fine dining at its best.”

In creating a menu from scratch, Gross started with a few ideas that he has collected over the years. “I’ve known that I wanted to do this, so I just kept a mental list of things I wanted to see on the menu.”

Gross hopes to add a few twists to some Southern staples, like fried green tomatoes, which will be served as a layered crab cake dish with an untraditional Southern remoulade. Entrees will include wild game, seafood and steaks as well as custom dishes to meet special dietary needs customers. “We will have vegetarian and vegan offerings, but our chefs will also come to the table and talk with the customer in order to prepare the meal exactly to the customer’s expectation,” Gross says.

Eating at The Windsor will be an interactive and enjoyable experience for the customer. The restaurant will offer tableside service for parts of the meal, including a Bananas Foster live cooking presentation. The restaurant itself sits in an antebellum style home atop one of Oxford’s highest peaks. Chef Gross says of his first restaurant, “It’s a venue unlike anything I’ve seen anywhere.”
The Windsor at Castle Hill is scheduled to open early summer 2008.

Jackson, Mississippi

Bravo, Broad Street, Sal & Mookie’s
When the National Cash Register Company sold to AT&T in 1991, Jeff Good knew that his job of selling computer systems in Jackson, Miss., would be coming to an end. Technology sales jobs in Central Mississippi were not easy to come by in the early ‘90s. Frustrated with his failing job search (and perhaps to talk to someone whose life may be a little worse), Good called his high school buddy Dan Blumenthal, who had left Mississippi years earlier to attend college at UC-Santa Cruz, and then went on to the California Culinary Academy. Blumenthal graduated from cooking school and had worked for a few chef-owned restaurants in San Francisco. Frustrated in his own right, he knew he couldn’t advance at the restaurants when the head chef is the guy whose name is on the wall. Good recalls that during this conversation, “It was like a light bulb went off. The conversation went real quiet and then it was obvious--we should open a restaurant together.”

Both Good and Blumenthal put their undergraduate business degrees to work and began developing a business plan for a simple coffee shop. The coffee shop idea quickly went by the wayside and the concept for Jackson’s only upscale Italian-Tuscan restaurant was born. “We realized that with Dan’s education and skill set, we had the opportunity to do something great,” Good recalls. “Two hundred five pages of business plan later, we were ready.” They planned on everything-every cost down to each fork, knife and spoon. What they didn’t plan on was the difficulty in finding money.

Both were in their late twenties, they weren’t wealthy, had no real family money to speak of, and they needed about a half million dollars to get started. Good called one of his college friends from Millsaps College who was a commercial banker. After meeting for lunch and hearing their restaurant idea, the banker spent the rest of the day trying to talk Good out of such a risky venture.

Without financing from a lending institution (and with no lottery in Mississippi), the only way to raise enough money to launch the restaurant would be to solicit investors. They developed a shareholder-based plan in which interested investors would pledge $10,000 apiece for one unit of ownership. “This was the hardest thing I have ever had to do; after that, running a restaurant would be easy,” recalls Good, who at the time still had a day job with National Cash Register, helping them close the Jackson office. “I would work for them during the day and then solicit investors at night.”

Good called 750 people to be potential investors, and of those, he invited 250 of them to his home for a cooking demonstration and presentation of the business plan. “My wife put up with this every Tuesday and Thursday night. We would have three, four, five if we were lucky even seven people over for dinner.” Good, Blumenthal and Blumenthal’s brother, David (who would become a managing partner in the beginning, as well) would basically set up a buffet of all the different foods that were demonstrative of the menu they would have. David would pair the foods with a variety of wine, as well- “Fifteen years ago wine was still a mystery to a lot of Mississippians,” explains Good. After dinner and during dessert and coffee they would present their business plan. Of the 250 people who sat in Jeff’s house for the proposal, 44 of them said yes, and the legendary Jackson restaurant Bravo was born.

Long before the capital was in place, they had a location in mind: a boarded-up location in Jackson’s Highland Village that had been the ruin of four previous restaurant concepts. The last failed restaurant had left behind a décor of mounted, stuffed animals on the walls and Florida-style patio furniture. “We took over the lease on a Halloween and immediately preformed an exorcism to remove all the bad luck of the previous restaurants and the ghost of any animal that was mounted on the walls,”says Good. They took all of the animal heads and old furniture to auction and raised an additional $30,000.

Bravo opened its doors in 1993. Good says that the three managing partners had to learn how to manage a restaurant as they went. “Dan was a chef, I had waited tables in college, and David used to be a bartender; other than that, we had to learn everything else. It was literally 18-hour days when we first started.”
Residents of Jackson were not quick to embrace Bravo; in fact, customers seemed to be disappointed. The meals were not like anything they had ever experienced and people would regularly complain. The partners believed in what they were doing, though, and felt that if they stuck with it things would get better…and they did. “After being open about five months, it was like somebody flipped a switch. We found our core group of loyal customers who liked what we were doing and they brought their friends,” explains Good.

Bravo was a success. Each of the investors received their initial investment back and things were running smoothly, which prompted the partners to muse, “Let’s open another restaurant.” Good calls it a manic decision in which ego took over: “Other people have two restaurants; why can’t we?”

The second restaurant was to follow the same business plan as the first. They went back to their original 44 investors and all but two put money in for the new concept, which was to be Jackson’s only European-style bakery paired with a gourmet deli.

Jackson had a multipurpose development that was in need of an anchor restaurant to pull foot traffic to the retailers within the location. A bakery and deli open all day would be perfect. The plans for Broad Street Bakery to open inside Banner Hall quickly developed.

The baking business requires expensive equipment and demands long hours. It’s tedious work and requires great knowledge and skill. Good explains that they did have an inside track on the knowledge and skill: “Dan and David’s great-grandfather immigrated into America and became a master baker in the Northeast. Their great-grandfather taught his son (their grandfather) all about baking European-style breads and pastries.” Broad Street opened to great success in December ‘98, and has become Jackson’s most popular meeting place for breakfast and lunch.

With two successful restaurants, why not try for one more? “This is it, the last one, we are too old to do this,” says the 44-year-old Good, about the launch of their third restaurant in the Jackson area.

Good has twin 11-year-old girls and ice cream is a big deal with their family, as it is with any family with kids. He thought that Jackson had been “under ice creamed” and wanted to open a really good gourmet ice cream place. Dan had a dream of opening a gourmet New York-style pizzeria. The two concepts merged to form Sal & Mookies Pizzeria and Ice Cream Joint.

Plans for this restaurant were different than those for the first two. The bankers that would not finance Bravo when Good and Blumenthal were 29 years of age were now more than willing to help out. They completely renovated a building in Jackson’s popular and swanky Fondren district and opened a fun, family-friendly Italian pizzeria complete with red and white-checkered table-cloths and an open kitchen where you can watch the dough being tossed.

“We wanted to create a place were parents could enjoy a gourmet pizza, a glass of wine, a martini or quality beer while the kids got to eat their favorite type of pizza, eat good ice cream and even order a ‘mocktail,’” says Good. He goes on to explain that the menu features one full page of mock cocktails, or “mocktails,” for the kids. “They love it. The most popular are the Apple Berry Punch and the Citrus Bite.”
Adjacent to Sal & Mookie’s they opened Pi(e), a funky new hip bar that features low, upholstered seating, a custom sound-scape and old black and white movies that play on large TV monitors.

Good has stated that he and (Dan) Blumenthal (David left the business a few years ago) have no intentions of adding a new restaurant to the mix; however, he does admit that down the road they would like to explore franchising Sal & Mookie’s. “It’s a great concept…it can work anywhere. Parents get it and kids like it.” by Keith Sisson

Starkville, Mississippi

The Little Dooey
The Little Dooey barbecue restaurant is a legendary hangout in Starkville, Miss.
It’s synonymous with Mississippi State Bulldog sports, as broadcasters such as ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit tailgate here every football season. In fact, Herbstreit has given the 23-year-old establishment a Herbie Award for best ‘cue.

Owner Barry Wood and his staff have earned national acclaim by featuring his family recipes and sauces. The pulled pork is The Little Dooey’s signature item, but there’s a lot more cooking in the kitchen. Catfish, ribs, hamburgers and tamales fresh from the Mississippi Delta are also served up.

You can wash it all down with some of the best sweet tea this side of the Tombigbee. And for dessert check out the mouth-watering pecan pie, coconut cream pie, or the Heath Bar Crunch pie.

On Tuesday nights, Mississippi State fans enjoy the “Bully BarkLine” statewide radio show, broadcasting live from the Dooey’s porch.

The Veranda
When deciding on a restaurant there always seems to be a choice whether to enjoy fine dining or to relax in a laid-back neighborhood restaurant. When dining at The Veranda restaurant in Starkville, Miss., you can do both. The eclectic Veranda restaurant has everything from a blue plate special straight from grandma’s kitchen all the way to fresh fish flown in from Hawaii, plus a top of the line steak. Patrons of The Veranda restaurant’s diversely pleasing food and atmosphere can give homage to Jay Yates, the owner and head chef. Yates had not always been involved in the culinary arts, nor was he a Starkville local. His father played football for Mississippi State and he wanted to follow in his footsteps but was unable to due to a knee surgery. Since he couldn’t play football, Yates had no intention of living in Starkville, but when renovating a Harvey’s restaurant, he fell in love with the town and community and has been there 11 years and counting.

Chef Yates’ expertise did not come from formal culinary education but from trial and error, eating out, and cookbooks. This very easygoing mentality is what makes The Veranda so special. He wanted his restaurant to have both great food and a great atmosphere that is fun and upbeat. “We have nice tablecloths but we’re also fun,” says Yates. “Our staff does a lot of laughing with people. I try to develop a culture like when I was growing up with my friends.”

Some of the signature dishes prepared are The Veranda’s steak and seafood selections as well as the blue plate lunch items. Steaks can be stuffed or topped with things like shrimp or spinach, and are paired with side items that best complement each dish. Even though The Veranda offers lavish additions to the steaks, Yates prepares the steaks as natural as possible, seasoned with a little salt, pepper, and a dash of oil; “No sauce because we want the steaks to speak for themselves.”

Other favorites include game selections such as duck, fresh seafood and different variations on ethnic dishes. With all the excitement and experience of working and creating dishes in The Veranda, making dinner at home must be a breeze, right? Yates confesses, “I’ve been known to put something in the microwave,” although he most enjoys going out to eat, seeing his friends and family and what his fellow culinary peers are doing. In fact, as a special treat for his staff to re-group and relax at the end of a busy year, Yates is taking them on a vacation to Florida. While in the Mecca of seafood cuisine he hopes to meet up with local chefs from that area to see what new seafood dishes are in the works. “We’re going to see what they’re doing with the high end seafood, it’s wide-open down there…they have many great ideas. We’re not above stealing,” Yates says with a laugh.

Yates came to Starkville for what was supposed to be a temporary job, but Starkville’s most popular restaurant, a wife and a decade later, Yates would never consider leaving. “This is home to me now, I love this place.” And for people in the Golden Triangle looking for casual fine dining and the popular blue plate lunch special, The Veranda will continue to be the place they love.