Hooker's Restaurant
Highway 17 South
Lexington, Mississippi

Update 2006: Hooker's is closed.

You'll find the best food in Holmes County, Mississippi about 2 miles south of Lexington on the west side of Highway 17 near the Ebenezer Road intersection. Notice the other Holmes County points of interest on the map.

The Bluesmobile parked outside one of the   South's best restaurants. It's a wonder I don't    weigh 300 lbs.

I found Hooker's Restaurant the way I normally find wonderful places–by accident. I had just visited Elmore James's grave at the New Port Church, and while headed up Highway 17 toward Lexington, I felt hunger pangs along about the same time I reached Hooker's Restaurant. Man, oh, man, am I glad those 2 events coincided.

Folks, if y'all travel Interstate 55 north of Jackson near noontime, take a minor detour onto Highway 17 and do lunch at Hooker's.

Hooker's is open from 5am until 7pm and is closed on Sundays. If someone you know plans research on Elmore James, inform them that the owner of Hooker's Restaurant, Olivia Hooker, is a member of the New Port Baptist Church in whose cemetery Elmore James is buried.

That's Olivia on the left in the red apron, and on the right that's her friend Beneva Jefferson, 57, of Lexington. I very much enjoyed talking to these fine ladies. Beneva just finished telling me an Elmore James story. "I was about 12 years old, so it must have been around 1952. I remember hearing my daddy say, ‘Elmore James and Sonny Boy Williamson at Tillman Branch's place. Both of ‘em there at the same time! I gotta go!'"

Needless to say, that led to questions about Tillman Branch and his place. (Answers coming soon.)

Check out the variety of food in Hooker's display. If you eat lunch here, you'll be in the company of black working men--mechanics, carpenters, plumbers, farmers, loggers, guys who work with their muscles. Guys with big appetites. When they walk away from this display, they carry a plate heaped with food.

Here's a chart showing what's inside that display:

I ate the red beans & sausage, the cabbage, and a pork steak with the gravy over rice, lots of gravy over rice. I chased that with cornbread and iced tea. As I possess 20-20 hindsight, I now wish I had tried a biscuit and some of that delicious looking sweet potato casserole. The meal cost me $4.84 including tax and tea! Unbelievable!

And, y'all, I swear it was one of the best meals of my life, especially the pork steak. I kept mumbling, "Oh, man. Damn, this is good. Oh, man."

It had been covered with sliced onion and smother-cooked in thick brown gravy. I looked up from my plate and loudly asked, "Hey! Who cooked this pork steak?"

This cute girl spoke up. Her name is Bridgette Oliver, and she's from Lexington. She's pointing at the pork steak. "I did," she said. "Why?"

"It's about the best thing I've ever eaten, that's why. Hey, how old are you?"

"24."

"24! Ain't no way you can cook this good and you just 24."

"I shore can! I cooked everything today!"

"Wow! You married?" (I know, I know, she's half my age. Okay, okay, less than half my age. But, damn, looking like that and cooking like that. . . .)

"Might as well be, we been livin' together so long."

"What kind of spices did you cook it with?"

"I ain't tellin'. It's a secret."

"Awwww, pleaseeeeee?"

"Nope. Wouldn't be a secret if I told."

Sounds like she has brains too.

In case anyone is wondering, I did try one of the boiled pig feet. (I hear somebody saying, Any damn fool who will eat a pig ear sandwich will surely eat a boiled pig foot.) I tried hard, but I couldn't find anything to eat in it but bones, skin, and fat. Yuck.