Taste & Sip, Travel

Taylor Grocery: Fried Catfish and Foot-Stomping Music, Too

November 29, 2019November 27, 2020 by Pamela Dittmer McKuen

Taylor Grocery near Oxford, MS, is an eatery that delivers Southern comfort food with a side of live music.

Never mind the peeling paint, hand-scribbled signs and rusty gasoline pump. You’re in for outrageously delish Southern cooking at Taylor Grocery, an eatery famous for fried catfish. It’s just a short jaunt outside Oxford, Mississippi.

(I dined at Taylor Grocery during a recent media visit sponsored by Visit Oxford MS while on assignment for Where to Retire magazine.)

Diners fill a restaurant that has wood floors, brick walls and red-and-white check tablecloths — The family-friendly Taylor Grocery draws diners near and far to its location outside Oxford, MS.

A favorite of both locals and far-flung visitors, Taylor Grocery is open for dinner Thursday through Sunday. No reservations are taken, and the lines can be long. There’s plenty of atmosphere to soak in while you wait. For one, the building is about as old-timey as you can get. Historians say it was built in 1889, although the official town records were lost. Some folks say it was burned out and rebuilt in 1903, but current owner Lynn Hewlett differs.

“I’ve been all through this building, and there are no signs it was ever on fire,” he says.

Over the decades, the building has seen multiple owners who mostly ran retail operations. Fried catfish, a regional staple, was added to the mix in the early 1970s. Hewlett bought it in 1998, when it was a grocery store that sold catfish on the side. He had different plans and opened the restaurant the following year.

“I didn’t want to be in the country store business,” he says. “I said this is going to be a fish house. The day I bought it, I moved all the bread racks and stuff and put them on the porch and put out a sign that said, ‘Free.’ I gave everything away. Every time I took a rack out, I put a table in, and here we are.”

A graffiti-covered wall, mostly signatures and dates — You’re welcome to add your scribbles to the walls at Taylor Grocery.

When people started autographing the walls, at first he tried covering over their handiwork, but then gave in. Now the scrawls, from floor to ceiling, are iconic decor.

The menu indulges in fried and broiled catfish along with a couple of steaks (bacon-wrapped filet and grilled ribeye) and a few pork and chicken selections. Entrees are served with two sides (such as fried okra, cole slaw and baked beans) and either Texas toast or hush puppies.

A white dinner plate piled with fried catfish, hush puppies, fried okra, cooked greens and a lemon wedge — Taylor Grocery specializes in catfish and other Southern culinary favorites.

Appetizer selections include a cheese and sausage plate, chicken and shrimp gumbo, and fried oysters. Special mention must be made of the Ro-Tel cheese fries. It’s a heap of French fries doused in a sauce of Velveeta cheese and Ro-tel, a grocery staple of canned diced tomatoes and green chiles. Perhaps you’ve made it yourself for a party and served with chips.

A white plate heaped with French fries covered in a cheesy-tomato sauce — Ro-Tel cheese fries are gooey, flavorful and addicting.

A white plate with sausage slices, yellow cheese cubes, jalapeno slides and a small dish of dark dipping sauce — Yummy cheese and sausage plate adds jalapenos and tangy dipping sauce.

Desserts are cobblers, pecan pie and ice cream.

Taylor Grocery does not serve alcohol, but you are welcome to bring your own as long as you observe a few quirks. Your wine bottles must be wrapped in a paper bag. Your beer has to be in cups–no cans or bottles are allowed inside the restaurant. Distilled spirits are not permitted at all. You’ll notice diners running out to their cars and coolers to refresh their beer cups or down their cocktails.

Two guitar players performing against a graffiti and brick wall — Music-makers take the stage every night.

Live music accompanies diners every night. Most of the musicians live nearby or within a 100-mile radius, although two guys from Kenya performed a couple of years ago. The musicians figure out among themselves who will play and when. Not even Hewlett knows who will show up. He doesn’t get involved in all that.

“I don’t pay them,” Hewlett says. “I feed them, and I try to rustle up a little money in the tip bucket. If that works out, good for them. If it don’t, sorry.”

Thursday nights are the slowest. That’s when Hewlett likes to give younger, less experienced musicians the opportunity to take the stage.

“Sometimes that works out,” he says. “Sometimes it makes a long night, but we kind of have to suck it up.”

Is Hewlett also a musician? “Well, that’s a stretch,” he says. “I admit I’m not a good one. I don’t play until late at night. I get better as the night goes on.”

Through a window, the backs of four restaurant patrons wait to be seated — Taylor Grocery doesn’t take reservations, so you might have to wait.

Customers are invited to sign a guestbook near the front door. A review of a few pages shows names and hometowns from all over the world, not just the South or United States.

“I’m not saying they all come here just for this, but when they get to this part of the world, somebody’s going to say, ‘You’ve got to go to Taylor Grocery,’” Hewlett says.

I picked up a pen and added Chicago, Illinois. I wasn’t the first. I won’t be the last.