Jackson Jambalaya

Wow, some happy news! I am really excited about a Bravo re-do.

Will Kennuf Stokes be there ?

No, but John Hohrn will be front and center.

Meanwhile, two major restaurants in Washington County closed suddenly (with no notice other than Facebook posts on the last nites of operation) in the past four days. Don't care one way or the other about Bravo. Where is it?

Othor's horrible acting makes Juanita look like an academy award winning star

There were major restaurants in Washington County?

This is all a ruse ..... Bravo is being converted a real Eyetalian restaurant ..... OLIVE GARDEN!

"This is all a ruse ..... Bravo is being converted a real Eyetalian restaurant ..... OLIVE GARDEN!"
July 25, 2017 at 5:47 PM

Mi piace MOLTO! This will be a much better fit, within Highland Village's new owners' Victoria-Gotti-style "Tasteful in White" theme.

6:54, You think the Highland Village Yankees made 'em change so they could meet their high standards?

What an embarrassment. But what do they care, having gotten rich slinging mediocre food.

@ 9:07 - true and the folks who think they have culture here in the 'Sipp don't know any better.

I hope they change the tires menu along with the barstools

For many years, my family went to Bravo! at least once a week. However, in the last 3-4 years, we don't go at all. The menu hasn't been updated in a decade, the food is no longer high quality, and it isn't Italian food in any way.

I hope the "re-do" involves a completely new menu dedicated to high quality food.

What have these guys been doing?

These guys started 2 new restaurants (one of which is now a chain) and also are spear heading an effort to get quality vegetables from farmers to restaurants (helping both) all the while keeping Bravo customers happy for 20 plus years.....

Is jeff smoozy? Yes.

Is Dan a hard case, ego driven car nut? Sure.

They work their asses off.

I say congrats and I look forward to their new look and new items.

Jeff needs to get out of the restaurant biz and become a politician.

Good for Jeff!

Let's get real - Aplos is moving into HV in early January and the District is coming on line (all that spells direct competition for Bravo and Char) and I mean HV is tired (forget about the lipstick on the pig - some white paint and new hot concrete on the courtyard - they jerked out everything that was classic). Amazon is buying Whole Foods and the parking lot is certainly not busting over there.

Jeff used his rent money leverage to get building improvements while he refurbishes. Smart guy. 8:03 if you think there are only "yankee" investors in WS Development you might want to do some deep corporate research. Only deep pockets (oil) would not care if a large part of HV was empty.

In 1970, there were three decent restaurants in metro Jackson: Mayflower, Crechale's and Dennery's. Three. (That was on the white side of town, when there was still a hard border between the two races. Gray neck that I was, I did not know about food places across the divide.) Now we have dozens of good choices in three counties. (Rankin has Jerry's and the Half Shell.) Which means intense competition, which means that you have to refurbish and freshen up if you're going to compete. The Mayflower did it right when it closed for renovations some years ago, making it new by keeping it old but a better, sprightlier kind of old. To the probable dismay of the trollers, Bravo is now a Jackson institution. So, I'm good to go with the renovation, but please, guys, don't let it get out of control.

"6:54, You think the Highland Village Yankees made 'em change so they could meet their high standards?"
July 25, 2017 at 8:03 PM

Well, 5:47 and I were just being playful. There's been a huge amount of negative buzz about HV's "New look". It's become a running joke (a way of coping with the sadness of the reality that one of the few good places remaining in Jackson, is being ruined).

But truly: anybody who'd whitewash over Highland Village's beautiful, expensive brick, and that beautiful, expensive colored mortar (and consider themselves as having made an IMPROVEMENT), probably WOULD be the sort who'd consider an Olive Garden to be an improvement over 'Bravo!'. Obviously HV's new owners value the bland and generic, over the colorful and unique.

Highland Village DID need some upgrading. Facing Frontage Road, it needed parapets and trees, to hide its unattractive rooftop clutter from autos on the nearby elevated expressway (something which did not exist, when the center was built). The landscaping needed upgrading, with mature shrubbery limbed-up, and new plants added. Abundant Greenery attracts the 'Carriage Trade' - something which HV always DID attract - particularly in pre-Boyle days, when it was planted-out like a botanical garden. And the boring grey of the wooden trim, needed to be much darker and less neutral - a deep grey/green/brown, instead of the cheap, boring grey that was being used. This would have deepened the 'English Village' theme, and would have made those beautiful bricks really 'pop'.

Instead, somebody spent a lot of money, making the newly neutralized-&-neutered HV quietly say to passersby, "Dead Mall, Anywhere-USA".

"Major" is relative. God knows Vince's and Kepler's were major in the Greenville market compared to a damned pizza joint in Jacktown.

4:42

You seem quite knowledgeable about CAM issues and you've got some good ideas.

However....your age is showing a little.

The brown brick used by HV was tired....no....it was 1974 and hideous.

The color upgrade to white/gray was superb for anyone under 40.....anything but Shit brown everywhere.

Your other ideas are spot on.

I hope they have the good sense, and taste, and respect for the arts to save the late Lynn Green Root's delightful mural, the removed all of the fabric she designed.

"The color upgrade to white/gray was superb for anyone under 40.....anything but Shit brown everywhere.

Your other ideas are spot on."
July 26, 2017 at 9:03 PM

The 'Sensory Deprivation Grey' was already there, before the Jersey Kid Makeover, and had been there, presumably, for decades. As for the brick, it was not "Shit Brown", but a beautiful, soft coral - the very orange MOST desired, by people building luxury homes, RIGHT NOW. It's a premium brick - handmade, and still available, for people who can spend that kind of money. Most people buy brick in that color, IF they can buy it, from people demolishing antebellum structures in Louisiana. Salvaged antique is a bit cheaper than the stratospheric prices for new handmade brick.

Coral is a 'hot' color, right now. And it's permanently within the narrow color range tolerated by Mississippians. Too, any color psychologist will tell you, it's a welcoming, INCLUSIVE color, which stimulates the brain in ways ideal for retail.

As I said, if a very dark and complex near-neutral had replaced the Battleship Gray of Highland Village's wooden elements, and if the exterior appointments had been upgraded in a way on-theme with the center's name, the place would have retained its cachet. It would have remained a shopping ADVENTURE.

As it is, the center just now looks like every tired old shopping center, everywhere in America. It WAS unique. Now, it's mind-numbingly GENERIC. Highland Village NOW shares the color palette of Jackson Mall and Deville Plaza, and most every dead and struggling mall and strip center built since 1965. It WAS special and unique. Now, it simply CONFORMS.

And if you think that neutrals are "new and hot", where have you been, for the last twenty years? Even Ariel Castro's sister's living room is newly painted with dead-grey walls. That fashion trend has percolated down to the bottom rungs of society. It's not sophisticated, anymore. It hasn't been new, since American Express began its aspirational ads, in the late NINETIES, depicting affluent minorities, dressed all in neutrals, in all-neutral interiors. That trend's days are numbered. Neutrals' associations with exclusivity are being replaced with less desirable associations.

When Highland Village's now-prohibitively-expensive brick (and pricey colored mortar) was "washed" over with white, the baby got thrown out with the bathwater. The one timeless element of the center, is now GONE: K A P U T !!!!

Oh, and by the way, the building housing 'The Rogue', next door on Frontage Road, has had the same 'whitewashed' treatment on its brick, since before I was born. It was new, back when my parents were discovering those kicky new little BMW import cars, and memorizing 'The Preppy Handbook'.

I agree with 2:50. Terracotta and coral are class. Greyscale reeks of New Money and ankle tattoos.

They could have kept the older trees and planters, too. Now it's just a hot tarmac in the summer. Too damn bright, to boot.