Jackson Jambalaya

No surprise to anyone who ate there. That place is gigantic, and they had to charge outrageous prices for food that was just alright. Hope that Caet is able to pull it off.

Heck, why not move into the old IHOP or Bonanza buildings if they don't think the intimacy of the space had anything to do with the success?

Wow. Big risk. Part of Caet's charm was the size of it.
Hate that for Fondren. Luck to the Emersons.

The food was lacking for the price at Seafood but they had the best bartender there on Sundays at brunch time, I think his name was Johnathan. I hope CAET is smart enough to hire him on! I love CAET but hated driving all the way downtown from Madison to enjoy it; I am wishing them much success.

What does CAET mean or stand for? Asking for an oyster lover.

Is Saltine in The Fondren still open?

Seafood R'evolution closing is not a surprise. Overpriced and sub-par. Another illustration that the Madison/Ridgeland foodies are just a slight cut above the Piccadilly Cafeteria crowd.

Caet is the Emerson's daughter's name.

I just hope that the reincarnation of Parlor Market, the Bravos, Char and Manship and the Whataburger on High Street are still here at the Second Coming. ok...Table100, Walkers, PigNPint, Sal N Mookies and Broad Street are solid jackson eateries as well.

...The rest are perpetually circling the drain. Who knows how long the Steak Fight parties can keep up their (surf &) turf battle in Ridgeland.

I hate to say it but this will be the end of CAET. The small space was always packed. Having a wait or not being able to get a seat isn't always a bad thing. 10k sqft will be hard to keep packed. I'm surprised Seafood R'volution lasted this long. Great food, just not enough expendable income for people to regularly eat there and to keep the place open in this area.

Side note- Will Emerson serve Redfish Anna there?

# of people surprised: 0.

Historic Jackson restaurants will outlive all of the Ridgeland/Madison nonsense. Hope the move doesn't bite the CAET owners. Had a nice setup in Fondren. I know other Fondren business owners hate to see them go.

I tried Seafood Recolution one time. My sister and her cuckold took me there for my birthday. Needless today, I prefer Berry's Seafood down in Florence.

@2:34 Jonathan from Seafood Rev moved to Caet a while back, so I think he will definitely be at the new location. Great Bartender, my friends and I have become customers anywhere he moves.

@3:20 ...wait..wut?

That was a roller coaster of a post...

Narrator: and yet, the crowd wanted to know more...

CAET didn't have the space they wanted in terms of size. Wanted a bigger space.

The 5 year lease was up and the owners decided this area wasn’t profitable enough for the revenue that they’re accustomed to. They have a restaurant in New Orleans already and are planning to open a steakhouse in Chicago next. The population and economy around here is laughable compared to actually major cities but you would never know reading the Jackson Free Press. And it’s only going to get worse if Pheel Bryant and Tater don’t get a handle on the rapidly declining population fast!

4:21- the restaurant was owned by a group of local investors.

@4:21

I have news for you. Mississippi's population decline started LONG before our current Governor and Lt. Governor (whom you call absurd names) ever took office. There is no doubt that Governor Bryant's and the Republican lead Legislature's aggressive stand on bring new and good paying jobs to Mississippi has helped slow the population loss.

Thank you for the political commercial 5:00 pm. I'm just glad to seek that a paid political lackey like yourself is still being productive at 5 pm posting glowing comments to a blog.

@4:21 & 5:00

Absolutely amazing how some people can derail a discussion about local restaurants and turn it into a political pissing match. Not even the elected politicians bicker as much as you armchair pundits.

And at the end of the day you know nothing no bodies don't accomplish anything except raising your blood pressure into unsafe territory. Americans NEVER change their political opinions after age 30.

SR was purchased in large part by Barksdale and another % was taken by lots of lawyers in the area.

Barksdale was rumored to say when asked why he kept it open after sustaining staggering losses:

“I’ll close it when I want to.”

7 million plus down the drain

But...Emerson gets a show dog of a restaurant and a kitchen second to none .....get ready for how it should have been done.

3:20 just tickled me ......

While we continue all of this territorial bickering between little towns, the rest of the country views the whole metro area as a pimple on a rat. It is really laughable how many fish believe they are big swimming around in this little puddle.

Straight from the MDA director's mouth....the brain drain in Mississippi is a myth. I guess that is good news for restaurants.

And it’s only going to get worse if Pheel Bryant and Tater don’t get a handle on the rapidly declining population fast!

Losing ~4100 people this decade is not a rapid decline but you're an idiot so no one really expects you to understand the difference.

Yall get Emeril and Emerson confused.

not sure why CAET doesn’t go both/and here

5:36, here's the key to your post: "rumored"! Don't say sheet when you don't know what you're talking about. Mr. Barksdale wouldn't be happy that you're making up quotes and ridiculously exaggerated numbers on his business investments. You should seriously move along.

@6:11 4,100 is a lot to lose when Nashville alone takes in 80 to 100 new residents to the area per day. 50% of construction cranes in the U.S. are currently in Nashville WORKING. But wait, we got an tire plant coming to Clinton. Hot Damn!

@5:57 tell that to my sister whose adult children have all moved away to actual major metropolitan areas after they finished college. Not everyone wants to work in restaurants and dodge potholes on the way home just to watch Clueless Chuckway and Kennuf Stokes on the nightly news. The brain drain is real and my own church is suffering bad because of it.

What is really laughable is how many fish swimming around in this little puddle believe they know-it-all and can speak for the rest of the country.

#quiturbitchin. It will be Great to have 3 fantastic resaurants within walking distance of each other. Betcha they all stay full.....

I took my wife shopping and saw that a crab buffet was opening in an old Chinese restaurant near Marshalls and TJ Maxx off County Line Rd.

I really love crab. We need more crab restaurants in the metro.

6:11, yes let’s be content with just a non-rapid decline.

Emerson will do great and this is a welcome change. Sad to see SR close as I had some nice but way overpriced meals there.

The joint sucked....next.

5:57, how would the MDA guy (Glenn) know anything given his head is so far up Philbilly's rear. He can't utter a sentence without invoking the governor's name, and the governor can't make a statement without adding in some tie to President Trump.

An upscale Fondren cocktail lounge is moving to an upscale strip mall in the suburbs? Why even keep the name? Might as well call it Red Lobster.

March 19, 2019 at 3:13 PM

Last time I checked, Table 100 was in Flowood.

If hyperventilating and exaggeration rocks your boat @7:12 then pinch yourself for the good fortune.

6:28 pm

You added zero to the mix

Did SR make money? If so how much? If not, losses?

What were initial costs? How much did Buster put in? Any re-fis?

Who invested and in what %?

Ever hang out at the bar and watch investors audibly bitch at the managers and complain out loud about losing their shirts?

Ever seen a place making a profit close?

I once thought about oysters until I saw a waiter blow his nose onto raw oysters and then serve them. The people eating didn't notice anything.

This is the beginning of the end for Fondren. Good riddance. I've never seen a more comical gaggle of hipster clowns as the regulars that haunt "The Fondren" and pretend that they are in Williamsburg NY. I've seen the real deal and a lot of wannabes and Jackson's is the worst knock-off in the nation.

9:24 so gets it right. everything in this state is a knock off of some where else. SR was doomed from the git=go. huge overhead , insane prices and half baked food. but it allowed the beautiful people of madison county and the south eastern conference to hang around and pretend they are in new orleans . fried cat fish and steaks (for all the studs on the atkins diet) are the only thing that will make it in madison county.

5:36/8:42 You further prove my point. You know NOTHING about the situation. Why continue wasting everyone's time? Buster doesn't have a dime in it. What a bunch of idiotic questions. And you've never sat at the bar and heard anything. Yes, I've seen restaurants and other types of businesses close that were profitable, for many reasons. NOW. MOVE. ALONG!

To 3:25: Restaurants today count on family traffic, not bar-stool-hounds, to ring the registers. Grownups don't 'follow a restaurant' because of a bartender or somebody in the kitchen. People spend hard earned money once or twice a month to take the wife or family out to dinner. They don't give a hoot in hell about the liquor cabinet or who's twisting shredded carrots in the kitchen.

I bet you're a regular at Wild Wings and the Outback bar on 55.

The original is nothing more than yet another competent mid-tier hotel restaurant in New Orleans. That its outpost in Mississippi, whomever the owners might be, couldn't make it should come as no surprise. This one didn't have a large constant influx of review-driven out-of-towners with disposable funds to keep it going. I have been to both several times - never on my own suggestion - and every time, it was neither good nor bad but rather, just another way to encourage the gullible to spend money on things they think makes them sophisticated and stylish. In Trumpian terms, "it has CLASS!" I don't celebrate its closing but I don't mourn it, either.

@ 3:13
The owner of table 100 lives in fondren. Who cares where people locate there establishments. He told me 9 months ago the new roof top bar would attract a lot of patrons from Caet and it's too much competition. Let's talk about improving Mississippi as a whole not bashing metro area towns and local areas.

10:14 pm

Look at mirror - see a troll.

You add nothing.

You just complain that things stated “can’t be true!”
Fact - it cost millions to open and build
Fact - it closed.
Fact - it Lost millions of dollars
Fact - investors lost money
Fact - a new restaurant will open in its place

You cannot legitimately dispute any of the above

If you run your pie hole again...prove it

Troll

10:14, only an idiot would close a profitable business instead of sell it

9:24 nails it, except you can put Jackson and former-Jackson folks in the same category of wanna bes and competing with each other makes them both worse.

The Chick Fil A in Madison is being redesigned. The Burger King across the street has young men and women from out of town, dressed in black, trying to educate the employees on how to behave. And don't forget the revamped Krystal in Gluckstadt. Who the hell says Madison County doesn't have fine dining? Wait! If you're looking for a cozy place to take a client, don't forget the Kroger Deli on 51. They got some downright good fried chicken and the TV is NOT set to CNN.

This is the inevitable white flight from The Fondren. In 10 years the cycle will reverse itself with gentrification.

@7:41 AM

The gentrification meme only works if your city has something worthy of desire. The examples people imagine of gentrification in San Francisco or Bedford-Stuyvesant won't happen in Jackson.

Nobody with money or sense will want to live in Jackson in 10 years. The only value that Jackson has left is investment in Section 8 property where you can receive a check from HUD for housing welfare recipients.

HUD/Section 8/SRAP funding will level off the property values of houses in the city, keeping homes from being totally worthless to anyone.

restaurant closing is indicative of ENTIRE area---too much capacity/supply in EVERY area/arena--not enuf demand to absorb capacity cause there's NO MONEY IN JACKSON---champagne taste--beer budgets!!

there is no quicker way to go broke than open a high end resturant. as a banker for thirty five years, the last thing i want to lend money on is a resturant. the failure rate is epic.

advise for anyone who wants to go into the high end resturant business. anthony bourdain wrote a book called KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL. read that first . its all true. after reading it ,if you are still convinced
you are the next dickie brennen, make sure you are spending someone elses money and not yours, because you are not going to get very far.

I was a CAET regular and this is absolute and total BS that Emerson is moving it to ridgeland.

The fun part about CAET was that is was a somewhat small bar. I just don't see how they will succeed in Ridgeland. I know I won't be going.

Actually 8:42, yes, the Macaroni Grill on County Line was a profitable restaurant when it was closed. I believe Brinker still owned it at that time, but they got tired of not being able to find good managers. The profit it was making in the end didn’t justify the continued hassle and risk. They also were not oblivious to the direction that area was headed.

Nope. We just aren't being flooded with as many illegals and H1Bs and other migrants. We in fact are getting back high skilled millenials. Hire them every month.

Yes, it's hard to be an entry level Exxon petroleum engineer in Miss. But, after 5-10 years as an engineer, they migrate back as supervisors to great Miss. companies. Same with lots of professionals, as they find they are upper income in Miss. and can barely afford a house in other areas.

Spare us the BULL on "losing population."

https://www.nsparc.msstate.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Mississippi_Population_Fact_Sheet.pdf

7:41 and the rest of you of White Priviledge. You will have to answer to your maker one day. And to all of the people that you denigrate with your hateful remarks. So be careful with what you do and say.

He who gets first count of the money wins after the landlord is paid. Rents are too high. New Orleans food is the greatest in the world and priced for a working family until Katrina. Besh and group have priced themselves out of the market and serve an inferior product.

8 to 10 types of oysters? There are only Louisiana/Missippi oysters. Saltines attempt at others prove the point. Beginning of the end for Emmerson but a good ride.

On Caet and Jackson and moving:

Derek operates Walkers, The Capitol Club, and Parlor Market.

All do exceedingly well. He is not leaving Jackson. Far from it.

This is a chance to take over a glorious space at a reduced rate due to the failure of Barksdale's idea of a restaurant. It will be challenging and it too may fail...but it will not be from a lack of trying.

I am pleased to support Derek and his team by entertaining clients there as much as humanly possible.

Good luck guys.

9:01. Only 90 or so Macaroni Grills left in the country now--and falling. It's almost as if younger people don't want to eat in chain restaurants anymore...

Will they double book, like at Walker's?

@9:45 what great Mississippi companies?!? CSpire?! Comcast?!! You’re delusional as those annoying pro-Jackson folks in that Jackson Foodies group on Facebook! Who the hell is moving to Mississippi besides a UMC resident that’s gonna buy a house in Madison for four years and then be off to Phoenix or Nashville once they’re done with residency?! I called my brother in Texas who works for Exxon and asked him to move back here and he laughed and asked who was gonna match his salary here, Jesus?!! Please stop drinking that Jackson water unfiltered.....

@3:25 he is at The Briar Patch Bar in Livingston part-time as well!

SR was a mess. Weirdly formal and overpriced for this market, it ended up being a Fancy Place patronized by people celebrating ma-maw's birthday. Once-a-year folks aren't enough. That out-of-way space will prove very difficult to inhabit.

I hope i'm wrong. Whatever, RIP Seafood.

@ 8:55 am

Oh Scarlett...whatever will Caet do without your sparkling presence at their $5 app & wine HH once a week, partaking in plate(s) of pimento cheese toast and complaining over a glass of house cab. You better get all of your B*!$%ing in to the bar staff within that 4 pm -6 pm window by April 1st.

Frankly, my dear...well you you know the rest.

March 20, 2019 at 8:55 AM "I was a CAET regular and this is absolute and total BS that Emerson is moving it to ridgeland.
The fun part about CAET was that is was a somewhat small bar. I just don't see how they will succeed in Ridgeland. I know I won't be going."

Wah, wah, where are the crybaby, pacifier emojis when you need them? People don't make their business decisions based on your tantrums. Get over yourself and grow up.

Is it true that Cherokee is moving into the old Shoneys on County Line Rowad? And do all these New Orleans Wanabees qualify as a chain since Emerson owns them all?

And who will be the first to open fine-dining in The Gluckstadt. Donate early - They're still begging for donations every day on social media.

Shrimp Basket is in the old Shoney's location on County Line Road and has been since November.

Not to worry. Half Shell is in the news again and will open in Madison. So, instead of dining while looking at Rudy at Seafood Revolution, you can now dine while looking at Mary at Half Shell.

For a relatively small city, Jackson actually has quite a few excellent restaurants. I am glad to have so many good options.

Wow I learned a lot from the bickering of a couple of you. Thanks for sharing.