It's time for Matchbook Monday. Some real Jackson history is posted below. Feel free to add your stories or any information about them in the comments section as you enjoy these blasts from the past. Readers can email copies of any old matchbooks to kingfish1935@gmail.com.
Once upon a time, there was a disco, yes, disco, in Maywood Mart.
It may seem hard to believe, but before malls had food courts, department stores operated restaurants that were a part of the actual store. D.H. Holmes had a cafeteria while McRaes operated Widow Watson's at the Metrocenter and Northpark locations. The Northpark restaurant closed and became a Ruth's Chris (where Tico got his start.). The Metrocenter version lasted until the early 1990's when it joined the tide of closures that ultimately doomed the mall.
Jacksonian Plaza was home to a string of nightclubs in the 1980's and 1990s. The Palm Beach Club was sandwiched between Studebakers and Katmandos. It was between Kroger and the Books A Million.
Matchbook Monday closes with a forgotten restaurant, C&S Seafood Restaurant on East County Line Road.
19 comments:
C & S (Caldwell and Skinner) was located behind the "ECOL, That's All" Convenience Store on the NW corner of County Line and Ridgewood. Mr. Skinner's wife visited the restaurant EARLY one morning looking for Mr. Skinner. She found him (and his paramour) in a somewhat compromising situation. Mrs. Skinner proceeded to unload her pistol in the direction of Mr. Skinner. He survived but the restaurant didn't.
Don’t remember Senji’s at all. Where in Maywood Mart was it?
Some dude is trying to get me to post something about one of the races. Quit trying to hijack comments. Want to post it, buy some ad space. I don't discriminate. I sell to all.
these Matchbook Monday’s sure bring back some great memories. Thanks for letting us remember some good ole days of youth.
Oh, man... Buffett with the Rhythm Aces opening, around the time "Third Rate Romance"
was a hit.
Starkvegas, indeed.
Senji's was on the north end of Maywood Mart. It was in the old Kings Inn location, basically where Petco is now. If you look at the newspaper, you see it opened in Feb. of 1979 when disco was dying. It lasted about a year before becoming a country bar with a mechanical bull, a la Urban Cowboy. The other disco I remember was Zoli's on Lakeland which became Danny's strip club and is now Bonsai.
The Palm Beach Club was the old Studebaker's location. It tried to capitalize on the Miami Vice theme that was popular at the time. It was full of Don Johnson clones in t-shirts and lightweight suit jackets with 3-day beards. That was around 1985-86.
If I'm not mistaken (and I very well could be), there was a restaurant on the top floor of D.H. Holmes at the Metrocenter, and I believe the name was Potpourri.
That newspaper page is awesome! Steak and Ale, Cork and Cleaver, Senji's, Pop's on Lakeland, a Jimmy Buffet concert at MSU, Laserock at the Planetarium, and an ad to sell your 8-track tape players! Groovy, man!
The funniest one, though, is the ad for the skeevy Fernwood adult bookstore in south Jackson that was notorious for skin mags and x-rated peep show booths. I laughed at the tagline that said "magazines for the entire family"!! Didn't Frank Melton raid that place once when he was mayor?
Maybe I'm wrong, but I believe that Tico got his start at Ruth Chris when it was on Bounds Street, behind the flag store on I-55 Frontage Road.
The bartenders at Widow Watson's could always direct you toward the be best coke...or so I heard.
@2:36 I'm with you! Loved all the ads that brought back a lot of memories. Went to several laser shows at the Planetarium(Laser Rock, Laserium) I couldn't help but laugh about Fernwood Bookstore. As a naive 18 year old, I always wondered what the Novelty part of it was 'til I went in there one day and saw what the 'Novelties' were....they sure had some!
Don't remember Senji's, though. Loved Widow Watson's at MetroCenter. Steak & Ale, Big Mike's 1, 2, & 3, The Zodiac on MONDAY nights... So many things to do back around that time in Jackson.
@2:26 pm. I think the country “urban cowboy “ with mechanical bull bar was called Wild Bills Cadillac Grill.
@ 2:26. Wasn’t the name of the urban cowboy bar with the mechanical bull named Wild Bills Cadillac Grill?
@7:22/7:39am You know, that was indeed it. I did a quick Google search on that and "Wild Bill" was Bill Latham, he of Amerigo, Char, and Babalu fame. That's an interesting bit of history!
Seems like I remember it became a jazz club called Trinity's after the country bar closed.
Anyone remember "Catfish Shack" on Hwy 80? It was our family's alternative to Cock of the Walk. I don't remember much about it other than the place was much small than COTW, everything was cedar (walls, ceiling, etc.), they handed out paper kids menus with a black and white catfish on it that you could color in and then had soft-serv ice cream. Nobody seems to remember the place but me, though...
The Catfish Shak on Highway 80 is now called the Country Fisherman. If you go in there, they still have some signage and decor from the Catfish Shak days, including a neon sign on the wall of the cartoon catfish they used in the CS logo.
There was another Catfish Shak as well. John Marley and his sons took over the old Putt-Putt location on County Line and turned the arcade building into the New Orleans Cafe. Behind it they built a Catfish Shak and ran both for a while. Eventually, the old NOC building was torn down, but the Catfish Shak building is still there and is now Tico's.
A bit of trivia - I believe that Jeff Good's first restaurant job was at that Catfish Shak on County Line. His girlfriend (later his wife) worked at the NOC and he worked at the CS. This would be around 1986.
Melton and some highway patrol officers raided a place that was right next to the Fernwood Books location, about a block north. The building is abandoned, but the signage is still up. They went in there and rousted the perverts who were doing God knows what in the back rooms. I think it has been closed ever since.
Funnier still, the Fernwood Books building now houses a church!!!
11:19, I'm 10:06. Many thanks for the intel!
Great postings
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