Karen Pinkston remembers that she once had to FedEx a bottle of Lusco's Shrimp Sauce to a lady in New York City.
"She was having a cocktail party the next day," Pinkston said with a laugh.
That bottle was one of perhaps 30,000 she and her husband, Andy, have filled and sold over the past two decades.
"I don't keep up with how many bottles," she said recently. "Andy does that."
He interjected from another room that the yearly average is about 1,500.
The couple owns and operates the 72-year-old restaurant, Lusco's, a business that was started by Andy's great-grandparents, Marie and Sam Lusco - Italian immigrants who moved to Greenwood in 1914. Lusco's evolved from a rolling store to a restaurant visited not only by Mississippi clientele but also customers from all parts of the world, from Australia to Africa, China to Czechoslovakia.
The restaurant on Carrollton Avenue is decorated with memorabilia - documents, drawings, photos, newspaper and magazine articles - that tell about who's been there or what publication has taken an interest in the restaurant over the years. One of the newer photos shows a group with Emeril Lagasse, the TV chef, restaurant owner and cookbook writer.
Most nights, customers can find Karen and Andy in the kitchen at Lusco's, where people have been coming for seven decades to eat broiled steaks, pompano and shrimp; fried shrimp and onion rings; Italian dishes, such as spaghetti; and salads soaked in the house dressing, a sharp vinaigrette. Catfish is on the menu these days, and so are other dishes and sauces, such as a balsamic vinaigrette Karen says customers are frequently requesting.
The couple started selling bottled sauces - fish and shrimp - and the salad dressing a couple of years before their daughter, Sara, was born. Sara's now 18. Her mother remembers taking all of their three children to specialty-food trade shows when Sara was a babe in arms.
"It was an experience," Karen said.
She and Andy decided not to try to develop an extended outside market for Lusco's Salad Dressing, Lusco's Fish Sauce and Lusco's Shrimp Sauce.
"Our profit margin is slim on this," she said. "We just decided to let the restaurant sell the sauce." They did, however, commit to supplying a small number of retailers, such as Everyday Gourmet in Jackson and Mississippi Gift Co. in Greenwood, with Lusco's products.
Cindy Tyler, the Gift Co.'s owner-operator, says she sells more Lusco's sauces every year. Her business, which has a catalog and Web site, sold 1,512 bottles in the last three years: 456 in 2002, 480 in 2003 and 576 in 2004. Some of the sales come from Lusco's diners who drop by Mississippi Gifts during the day, when the restaurant is not open.
Karen said it's not unusual for customers to telephone with an order of several bottles to be shipped. "They will call and say, 'Will you send me a mixed case? I want to keep some at home and share it with friends.'"
And what happens every so often is that people who have bought a bottle at the restaurant will telephone for cooking instructions.
If someone has bought a bottle of Shrimp Sauce, Karen is likely to have told the customer, "When you get it home, if you don't know what to do with it, call me."
She noted that "sauteed shrimp is one of the easiest meals you'll ever fix at home."
She used to make the dish all the time when her children were small, and she still stirs some up occasionally. She'll add crab meat and Shrimp Sauce and pour that over pasta.
Karen said she wishes that she and Andy had been able to more aggressively market the sauces; they sometimes talk about the idea as a "retirement" job. They would not only bottle sauces and dressings but also perhaps add batter mix and steak seasoning. Karen's also enthusiastic about her balsamic vinegar salad dressing, her Italian red wine vinaigrette and sweet-and-sour dressing.
She's always cooking to please. "I just recently made up a feta cheese dressing. That went over big. A lot of people have asked me to bottle that," she said.
However, the feta dressing would have to be kept cold and probably include preservatives. "Once you start using preservatives, you change the flavor of your dressings.
And one thing I can say about Lusco's dressings and sauces: They have never had preservatives."
