Jackson Jambalaya

i'm going to say the state of the economy might have a part.

There are too many restaurants, so expect more to close. The prices are too high, the service is bad at many restaurants and the automatic tipping is probably the final nail in the coffin.

I think mid tier restaurants are facing a price squeeze. On the low end it’s hard to compete with the drive through value meals that are sub $10 and on the high end if I’m being charged $20 for lunch I might as well go to 463 or Half Shell.

I stopped going out because cultural fatigue makes the already expensive experience not worth it. Plus me and my family just aren’t safe anymore. I was recently out with my family and had some greasy little mophead punks threaten me in pidgin because I told them my daughter is only 14 and warned them to stop harassing her.

gas prices and tipping are out of control

Sysco is now pretty much providing every restaurant with their food, especially chains. So now the restaurant business has become who can cook Sysco food the best. Plus $4/gallon gas, stagnant wages, increased prices, shitty service, shitty people eating out around you, makes cooking at home much nicer.

People are broke and getting more broke. So much winning

At least the swingers in Madison are doing well

Applebee's in Ridgeland probably closed due to the #culture swarming it like it does every chain. If there was an Applebee's in Jackson the Applebee's in Ridgeland would probably still be open.

A reminder to eat local where you can support local chefs/entrepreneurs and get quality food, even if it is a couple dollars more.

Bad service.....marginal food.....high prices.......rude service.....feral teens.......this is the new normal in just about every eatery these days.

Foodie scene in shambles due to the loss of…. Applebees and Mazzios?

With small children and no recent pay raises, we can't afford to go out to eat much anymore. Not to mention, beyond fast food, I don't do chains (Applebee's, Longhorn, Outback, etc.). I don't want to hear the cackling and then the complaining, wanting to see a manager to have their food comped.

9:47 am - agree with eating local to support our local chefs. We eat out less than we used to, but choose higher quality restaurants when we do go out!

I used to love the Mazzio’s Calzone Rings

@9:47. Hit the nail on the head.

K shaped economy.

Two Rivers and Elys are packed. Applebees and Mazzios are closing.

#1 factor: Oversupply. #2 factor: Economic pressure. #3 factor: Substandard service.

Local venues can win market share in these conditions but only by paying close hands-on attention to their Ps.

The last couple of years our family only eats at family owned restaurants. No more chains. The employees at chains are entitled brats. What is it they say: "if you cant afford to tip 200% stay home"? ok...Done.

Honestly I'm proud of Madison County for not supporting chains. Very out of character.

The economy is definitely part of it, but this was the natural trajectory for Madison and Rankin County’s restaurant boom.

These areas became oversaturated with chains and mid-tier restaurants all competing for the same customers and the same limited labor pool.

The people who typically work in these restaurants often do not live in those suburban enclaves, and with little to no public transit, staffing becomes a constant challenge.

The Jackson metro has also sprawled into one large suburban circle. Most people in Clinton are not driving to Flowood for dinner, and most people in Byram are not heading to Madison on a weeknight. When gas, traffic, and time are factored in, convenience usually wins.

At some point, there were simply more restaurants than the area could realistically support. This is piss poor regional planning.

There are just too many restaurants who all do pretty much the same things, and many of them not very well. Food and service quality has been low in most places since COVID. This combined with increased prices at the store and gas pump, many people are just tapped out.

Some chains are pretty good. Wish we could get a J Alexander's here. Chili's makes a pretty good burger.

You are 100% correct
This is what I hear constantly from people. Its not worth the risk or the prices you pay for the quality of food and services you receive.

601 was in an absolutely dogshit place. It had no parking. And an awful hill.

Gas Prices? a mild, temporary inconvenience for a world without nukes from Iran... give The Guy a few more months at least. It'll be worth it! the USA will be the world broker for fuel soon, do your homework (try PromethianNation.com) As for dining, EAT LOCAL, friends: fresh produce from local growers, meats and chicken from trusted producers, not CISCO! Yes dine at places like Aplòs in Highland Village OR Local 463 at the Rennaisace in Ridgeland... Lou's Full Serve on Highland Colony Pkwy.

For those of yall who have never been outside Mississippi or the USA. You are witnessing the slide into the third world in real time.

Yall thought food trucks were a cute novelty? No that’s actually a third world solution to numerous economic issues. Notice grocery stores closing in Jackson? Dont think the same thing can’t easily happen in the burbs.

Eventually you find yourself buying mystery meat butchered by vendors in street stalls made of recycled building materials and you dont care because your family is hungry and its all you can afford.

There are bigger things at stake here than legacy chain all you can eat pizza folks

While all these comments are valid, don't forget about private equity firms taking over restaurant chains and businesses by sucking the life out of them and their employees.

It’s a sick cycle: (1) clear a wooded area, which destroys the habitat; (2) plant foreign trees and shrubs; (3) insert national chain business; (4) after the hype dies, the business closes; (5) hello vacant or under-utilized property for the rest of time!!!

Chili's has had a resurgence because they started actively competing with fast food. A $10.99 lunch at Chili's (burger or chicken tenders+ fries, drink and chips and salsa) isn't a Michelin star meal, but its 100x better than fast food that costs the same.

I went to Subway last week and paid $15 for a 6 inch, chips and a drink.

Mazzio's used to have at least a dozen locations in the metro and is now down to three. Dine-in pizza is not what it once was, and this one is not far from both Pizza Shack and Sal & Mookie's, both of which are objectively better.

Still, RIP Mazzio's. That lunch buffet was undefeated.

We rarely eat at restaurants because of the mystery of not knowing what the hell is in their food. I know several people of the same opinion. We have gotten really good at preparing meals at home where I know what is in it.

You people should’ve long ago been prepared for a Trump-made energy crisis, food crisis, and economic crisis!

Come on folks - the super high inflation was caused by the former administration printing trillions of dollars to infuse into the economy. And, inflation doesn't reset every year, it is additive. Gas was also high under the last administration, so it's still better than it was.

As far as Applebee's and Mazzio's you can also add "Stale Concept" to the list of reasons. People are still swarming to shiny and new.

@11:02
so the solution is to print more money for job killing AI datacenters and cause more inflation and start another 10-20 year war WE WILL LOSE (because somehow Iran is going to be easier than Iraq and Afghanistan?) these are all thing TRUMP DID

10:56 Since when is lower inflation an economic crisis? I hardly think that Mazzio's closing a location constitutes a food crisis for America. I've heard that Thorzine is a good drug for those with TDS.

The only chain restaurant I'll go to is Waffle House. They make a good breakfast for a fair price. Their staff is friendly and attentive, and I like to watch the cooks make my food.

Does Madison have restaurants other than chains? Most of the area is comprised of strip malls.

With all the Néw excellent restaurants opening in Jackson, this makes sense that the Madison county restaurants don’t get financial support from Jackson needed to stay open

Mazzio's is to Italian food as Taco Bell is to Mexican food. They aren't. Applebees closed due to "the culture" ruining the dining experience.

Using "foodie" and then bemoaning the loss of Mazzio's and Applebee's tells me the term has lost all semblance of meaning. Don't get me wrong, I did like a trip to the buffet at Mazzio's every so often. But the term "foodie" used to denote actual culinary taste, not chain-restaurant-grade garbage food. Much like the multiple "cooking influencers" I see on social media who do nothing but put some chicken breasts and various cans of shit into a crockpot on a weekly basis.

Jackson area is blessed to have lots of great local joints. Some of which you don’t even remember when you go out to eat. My favorites:

Aplos
Krilaki’s
Kristo’s
Keifer’s
Vasilio’s
Pulito’s
Amerigo’s
Fratesi’s
Sal n Mookie’s
Bravo!
Sacred Ground
Pig n Pint
Boondocks
Hickory Pit
Kenova Smokehouse
Hamil’s
Trace Grill
Lou’s
Mayflower
EATs
Local 463
Primo’s
Burgers Blues Barbeque
Georgia Blue
Rooster’s
Manship
McB’s
Burgers and Blues
Rowan’s
The Station
Soulshine
Aplo’s
Lost Pizza
Pizza Shack
Manship
Poppy’s
Basil’s
Lou’s
Beagle Bagel
Broad Street
La Presa
Sombra
Hokkaido
Red Samurai
Nagoya
Little Tokyo
Sushi Village
Tuk Tuk Boom
The Bean
Primos
Another Broken Egg
Brent’s
Char
Burgers Blues BBQ
Anjou
Elvie’s
Koestler
Walker’s Drive In
CAET
Ely’s
Shapley’s
Tico’s
Char
Kathryn’s
Ironhorse
Mama Hamil’s
Mayflower
Cock of the Walk
Martin’s
Trace Grill

Please don’t bash them here. Just sharing so there’s a list for you to enjoy instead of Chik Fil A or other chains.

I don't like going out to eat because of the automatically added tip, it's that simple. I can afford to go out, but I believe in decent and friendly service (doesn't have to be perfect, everyone has a bad day or would rather be off doing something more enjoyable sometimes, I totally get it). When you don't have friendly and decent service I'd rather be in charge of the tip, and it not being automatically added in...that pisses me off EVERY SINGLE TIME! I work downtown and a "local" restaurant that is no longer downtown used to get mad and verbal about it when we would send a runner to pick up food for a lunch order for a meeting that would be charged to the client, and there was no tip added in...for a phone order! And Subway, yes, you pay $15 for a six inch sub, chips and a drink and they expect a tip...for doing their job! There are no tables to sit, strictly a walk in and order or pick up an online order. Why would you assume you need a tip for making a sandwich, it is literally what your job pays you to do. Tipping in insane.

Lost Pizza is a franchise chain restaurant

@11:35 Don't forget Sal & Phil's! Great seafood and owned by a nice young local couple.

11:43 yes out of Indianola, MS right? Still local.

Worked during my college years at restaurants. It's a tough business in any economic climate.

The prices are driving people away.

In summation:

It only took a couple of comments before it became racial. Sysco is the root of all MS restaurant problems. Donnie Dump can do no wrong and it is STILL Biden’s fault. Finally, after bitching for an entire presidential cycle about the price of gas, it is all of a sudden ok because you have bought the latest fairy tale about Iran being a threat for 53 years.

It's been a quarter-century since I've been to a Mazzio's or an Applebee's - the latter with a "connected" developer and some local functionaries, as the "lunch" part of a long meeting (things, predictably, went badly, once hypoglycemia from the sugary food, and the drecky oldies earworm music took their toll on our brains).

And it's been an easy three decades since I've had to go to a fried fish place. I've never been inside a Candied Chicken Wings place (although I've ventured capital for developments which had them as outparcels). But what a memory of our one fried fish experience! We were trying to unload some problem properties, and a Holyroller preacher was trying to get them for nothing. The first waitress, squirming-around like a cat in heat, was eyeing my husband's crotchal area, while telling the Preacher how she needed to get to church, more (maybe she thought DH was a dynamic Youth Minister or something). Then, the elderly fish house Proprietress came out, and, through curt tones and hostile body language, signaled to DH and me, that the Preacher was dangerous (and unwelcome in her establishment). If she'd screamed, "Run, kids, RUN!", she couldn't have been more obvious.

But the overall impression left by all three of these "Foodie" genres, is the queasy illness imparted by the triple threat of Simple Carbohydrates, Excitotoxins, and lame old music.

The Scamdemic Lockdown taught us all how to live without dining-out, EVER. Most of us came to realize that even the finer establishments had offered experiences which were mostly to be suffered-through - and that the ordinary chain eateries offered nothing but suffering.

Racist troll.

Dang lady... you fancy yourself as a wannabe fiction writer.

12:58 I don’t want, I NEED whatever you’re taking/smoking.

Madison is lost.

12:54 for the win. They think they’re so clever using “code” words like “culture fatigue,” when we all know they just say the “n” word at home. I’m sure it’ll take no time for these semi literate clowns to pile on you for that comment (they’re snowflakes, so they’re incapable of letting criticism go).