In this labor town where Virginia creeper and Trumpet vines are scaling the back of City Hall, and the empty buildings downtown outnumber the occupied, you don't find much well-heeled dining.
“It's just good, down-home cooking,” Jerome Self, a lifelong Itta Bena native, said of the town's culinary offerings.
On the north side of Humphreys Street there's Chevy's Restaurant and its lone window adornment: a sign that says “For Sale.” On the south side there's the livelier Tyrone's Sports Bar and Grill. That six-month old establishment's only decoration, besides Christmas tree lights strewn over the awning, is a handwritten note taped to the front door: ‘Hey, hey I sell beer in here. So have your's outside. No beer brought in.'
“We feed you all the stuff you don't really need,” Self said only half joking. He's the owner of Tyrone's, where a $10 bill turns into plenty of food, a beer and a few rounds of pool. “I guess you could say, I'm kinda like a silent killer.”
These hardly kosher notes make it all the more ironic that three months ago in Memphis there opened a valet service-offering, chandelier-decorated restaurant named “Itta Bena.”
Though dubbed a “Delta experience,” the 250-people capacity restaurant, which according to its managers is Memphis' best-kept secret, seems to fall short of harnessing the unpolished Delta vibe it claims to offer.
There's she-crab soup, Prince Edward Island mussels, pan-seared Alaskan halibut and drunken pork chop “soaked in Jack Daniels” to be had, and the restaurant's signature dish is a wild mushroom angel hair pasta item topped with a Parmesan cream sauce. Though you can get grits, they come with white cheddar and are topped with scallops.
Like Stella famously put it to Blanche DuBois, “Don't you think your superior attitude is a little out of place?”
“We've got everything you would want, whether you're part of the old scene or the young scene, you'll have a good, relaxed time,” said Josh Tidwell, head server and a supervisor at Itta Bena.
Although the Commonwealth was unable to contact recent patrons such as Sheryl Crow, Justin Timberlake or Lisa Marie Presley to ask them their opinion of the Beale Street restaurant, Memphis Commercial Appeal restaurant reviewer Jennifer Biggs gave the restaurant two-and-a-half stars.
“When Itta Bena first opened, someone e-mailed me to mock the menu, albeit in a humorous, ‘Lord have mercy and bless their hearts' way,” began Biggs' column on the restaurant. “She grew up in Itta Bena, she said, and they weren't eating Prince Edward Island mussels and pan-seared Alaskan halibut back then: Cornbread and a mess of greens was more like it.”
And that's still like it.
None of the four restaurants in the town of Itta Bena interviewed for this article said they offered a dish similar to any of the Memphis restaurant's.
Pinto beans, mashed potatoes, baked beans, dressing and neckbones are what people order most at Bailey's Hometown Restaurant. When asked how long she had been cooking, the 79-year-old cook at Bailey's said, “You really don't wanna know.”
At Tyrone's, the sandwiches are what people order. “My most popular item, I guess, is that hamburger,” said Self, “or my Philly steak sandwich.”
In the newly opened Hollywood Cafe, owner Brandy Davis said the ribeye steaks are big sellers.
At Larry's Fishhouse, people consume approximately 2,500 pounds of all-you-can-eat, “Mississippi Delta fried catfish” each month.
“I tell people that if you don't like it this week, you won't like it next week either,” Larry Kelly, owner of the fishhouse, said in explaining the level of consistency he strives for.
“We had to change from chopped to shredded cole slaw a while back, and it almost killed me,” said Kelly, whose home in the woods is “100 feet” from where he was born.
In the town of Itta Bena, cuisine and everything else rarely veers far from its roots.
None of the town's restaurants spoke of plans to revamp their menus into Wolfgang Puck-inspired numbers, or of hoisting 50-inch plasma screen, high-definition television sets onto their walls, or of equipping their doors with locks and chains flown in from Afghanistan. All three of which Itta Bena in Memphis has.
And while the restaurant is situated on the third floor of the same building that houses B.B. King's Blues Club, the owners installed a 16-layer soundproof floor to block out those drifting blues tunes.
“You might hear a bass drum,” said Tidwell.
“I like going to see live music, and I like good food,” former Itta Bena manager Wil Thompson told the Commercial Appeal. “I just don't want them at the same time.”
Apparently, the only connection n apart from the obvious B.B. King link n the town of Itta Bena has with the restaurant bearing its name is off-the-beaten path charm.
“You could walk by a million times down on Beale Street and never know we are up here,” Tidwell, who is originally from Brandon, said. “When you're sitting up here, you can see all the people on Beale, but they can't see you. It's something you've really got to experience.”
Itta Bena Mayor Thelma Collins said it's her town's quaint, friendly atmosphere that is the town's biggest asset.
“It's small enough to where everybody knows everybody, and it's definitely off the beaten path,” she said. “But at the same time, people have their space.
“We've got that Southern hospitality,” she said.
Collins said she and the town's Board of Alderman received an invitation a few months ago, via e-mail, to have dinner at the restaurant in Memphis. They haven't made the trip yet, but plan to go by the end of the year.
“I think it's wonderful,” Collins said of the restaurant. “It will give our little town down here so much exposure.”
When asked to name the food that best exemplifies the town of Itta Bena, Collins didn't hesitate.
“I'd have to say chicken, cooked any way you want it, and yams. Can't forget the yams.”
