Jackson Jambalaya

I heard that Joker's was a reliable source of drugs back in the day.

Wow. Advertising for "White" and "Colored" employees. Hard to believe there was a time where this was normal.

Al's Half Shell had a great menu 50 years ago. And back then I wondered how they made a profit in that small dining room.

Never knew about the "other" Crechale's". Jokers was one of those infamous places I never went. Guess I wasn't really sure if it was still around or not, even though I don't live far from it. Archestratus was a place I used to hear ads for on Super Talk (only when I needed entertainment!). Went once near its end, but have no recollection of that Sunday noon visit other than finding out the son of some friends, whom we'd known since birth, worked there though we hadn't seen him in years. Not sure we even ate vs. just visiting with him, then changed our minds. Many fond memories of Al's, but not at that location. Wasn't it on Roach St. (ironic!) around the corner from the Mayflower in the 1970s, then down on Terry Road for a while. Seems like Al's closed/reopened in more places than Roosters!

I remember Al's Half Shell on Lamar Street - seems like it was right around the corner from Hale & Jones, a sporting goods store. Al's had great red beans and rice, served with plenty of onions and big link of spicy sausage. Great po-boys, too. I had many a lunch there in the 1970s.

They later moved out to Terry Road, to a location that later became Angelo's.

Upstairs from Al's Half Shell in that block of Lamar was WRBC Radio.....Rebel Radio. Through the 60s I listened to WRBC and WWUN.......

Al's Half Shell, on Lamar St., between Pearl and Pascagoula Streets, enlarged their dining room into and adjacent building and lost a whole lot of business. He returned to the original size and is quoted as having said "I don't care if the rats run over their shoes, just so they come and eat." Actually, it was a good and clean place, but when he tried to spiff it up, his regular customers didn't like it.

As far as Crechale's on Old Canton Road, the building was recently torn down. It became the King's Inn after Crechale's. Morrison's Cafeteria was just
north in the Woodland Hills Building. I tend to remember the current Crechale's owner's mother, Carolyn (?), running it. Perhaps my memory is not correct?

Crechales, Morrison cafeteria and dr kitchens office were right there. Later came the X-ray room which was straight then gay and Xanadu.
Gibbs and shakeys ( post office now) all were real close by through the ages.

And there was LeFluers.

Old man Paul Crechale was a friend of my Daddy's. When Crechale was the maitre'd at the Rotisserie at 5 Points(?), he would serve my Daddy beer in a teapot on Sundays when it was illegal to serve alcohol on Sunday. I remember as a kid (I am 70 now) going with my parents to eat at Crechale's on Hiway 80. When Daddy was dying of cancer in 1965 Paul Crechale would send him one of his house salads to Daddy at the VA Hospital. The Crechales are good people.

Daddy also loved to go to Al's Half Shell on Lamar Street. I was in high school then and remember the good gumbo he served.

The good old days were never that good, believe me. The good new days are today, and better days are coming tomorrow. Our greatest songs are still unsung.

Yea: 526 I remember Rebel Radio (Soooo non-pc) today, it was up a creepy & tall wood stairway, right above Al's. Someway I new "jocky jim"then&h was real big at the time, along with Colonel Radio too, 1450 as I recall. All of em gone now (no fm's when I was in HS @ Provine)

I wish we had some good history sources on old Jackson radio stations. Speaking of WRBC AM, I think the final studios were in a building that fronted North State St. just above Briarwood. It had to be tough to bang out a living in commercial broadcasting back in those days.

Ironically, WRBC-AM became what is now WOAD-AM 1300. The studio and transmitter site was near the corner of State St. and Beasley Rd. A tornado took down the original tower in the mid-late 70's and the operation was moved to the other side of State & Beasley. There is a book written by Bob McRaney called "The History of Radio in Mississippi" that covers the really early days thru the mid 1070's. It's hard to find, but gives an accurate history of early radio in the state. I've heard many of the old time radio guys from WRBC, WWUN, WJQS and WJXN talk about Al's Half Shell.

I still miss Jokers. Ate lunch there about three times a week from about 1992 until they closed. I still find myself thinking "I would like a Jokers turkey sandwich and cup of gumbo." KF, thanks for the memories.

I must have been incorrect about Al's ever being around the corner from The Mayflower on Roach given no one else remembering that. Must have been the original south Lamar location and I'm just confused from age, the passing of time, and downtown looking completely different back then. When it moved to Terry Road, however, it was not in the " location that later became Angelo's". It was closer to the corner of Hwy 80 in a building that later became a soul food restaurant. Angelo's was already there and had been for a long time. (Unless my memory really is that faulty, which I'm doubting less and less these days).

Oh, and I wonder when WRBC moved out on State near Beasley because I remember riding my bike to that location to watch the DJ behind a big "picture window" as a pre-teen in the mid 1960's.

The location at the corner of State and Beasley where the old Sound and Communications building stands was the original location of WJDX, the first radio station in Mississippi. The location of the S&C building and the mini-storage on the corner was a field where two broadcast towers stood with a wire strung between them.

Even more interesting is that the original WJDX building still stands there just to the south of the S&C building. You can see it from State Street. There is an ugly cinder block front that was added to the building some years later, but if you look at the original structure, you can see that it was built to look like the chassis of an old floor-standing console radio. There are three vertical windows on the front that look like the three band tuner windows (old radios would switch between two shortwave bands and the AM band).

That building really is a piece of history and should be preserved before it falls to ruin. I know the guy who owned S&C years ago was planning on restoring it, but I guess that never happened.

12:39
was that "Algie Broome" ???

Yep, Algie Broome was one of the the founders/owners of Sound & Communications and, if memory serves, the reason he located S&C next to the old WJDX/WRBC building was that he wanted to restore it, either as a museum or incorporated into part of S&C. Don't know if that S&C building is still in use since they advertise a Flowood address now. Don't know if I should say that Algie "was"... he'd be in his mid-80's now and for all I know could still be active in the business.

Yes, it was Algie Broome. That's a hard name to forget! I had a conversation with him many years ago about the history of the site (that's where I learned all this) and about his plans to restore the old WJDX building, but I guess he wasn't able to pull that restoration off.

I remember he had a bunch of neat old pictures, documents, recordings, etc. from the early days of Mississippi radio in his office there at the S&C building. I specifically recall a photo of a young Eudora Welty reading into a microphone. He also had a painting of what the original tower setup looked like.

And not to steer this too much into a radio conversation, but I remember that just north of that site, about halfway to County Line Road, were the towers for WSLI 930. They had an electric (neon?) sign at the entrance to the transmitter (I guess the studio was there at one time). I think they tore those old towers down in the 1980s or maybe 1990s.

I remember cruising in the late '50s, listening to "Hernando's Hideaway on WRBC. Never saw Suzanne Somers, but I think Pete Costas had a white T-Bird.

I miss Archestratus. The best restaurant Clinton ever had.

Archestratus was nice, but way overpriced, hence the reason it didn't last.

I used to frequent Jokers Tavern in the mid 1980's. It was the place to go to keep drinking after all of the other Jackson bars closed, if you didn't want to drive out to the Reservoir. I never knew how Jokers kept serving the booze until the wee hours of the morning. Did they just ignore the law and no one caught them?