Courtesy of Visit Meridian Tourism
How I’ve missed restaurants. I am an enthusiastic eater but a middling cook, a problem I have solved by only dating men who cook well, excelling at conversation so that I am always invited to dinner parties, and going to restaurants, a three-pronged strategy that kept me happily fed until recently. In February I had it confirmed that I’d gotten a vaccine in a clinical trial, and immediately hopped in my car for a whirlwind solo road trip: I saw the Shiloh battlefield, the highest point in Mississippi, and, most coveted of all, the inside of a restaurant. Weidmann’s, a Meridian fixture and the oldest operating restaurant in Mississippi, marked my re-entry into an actual indoor restaurant after my unhappy exile. I couldn’t have chosen better.
Weidmann’s had been recommended to me by a friend whose former position as a civil-rights lawyer had involved a lot of crisscrossing the South and working up an appetite upholding the Constitution. Weidmann’s stood out as a favorite of the restaurants she’d explored, and her glowing reviews put it on the top of my list of places to visit when I got to Meridian. Well, I didn’t go that direction for a while, and then I couldn’t go that direction for a while, and all the while the idea of Weidmann’s blossomed in my mind. Established in 1870 by a Swiss immigrant, the restaurant is not only the oldest in Mississippi but among the oldest in the nation: Charles Frazier, the current operator, estimates that it’s among the thirty or forty most senior of the nation’s eateries. (For a bit of context, Weidmann’s is older than thirteen states). It’s existed in different buildings in Meridian and even decamped briefly to Hattiesburg to serve hungry soldiers mustering for World War II at Camp Shelby, but has flourished in downtown Meridian since 1923, welcoming visitors with a bold neon sign over the sidewalk.
[Read these restaurant reviews by Chris Turner-Neal, too: "I'm Walkin' to Provence: N7 in New Orleans" and "Uppermost, Upperline: It's the tops, It's the coliseum."]
Frazier has helmed Weidmann’s since 2010, when the investment group that held the operation recruited him as an owner-operator. Mindful of the major spot the restaurant holds in the city’s psyche, but not a native himself, Frazier began his research, perusing old menus and talking to people who remembered Weirdmann’s from the fifties and sixties—and in a few cases, even longer ago. The previous operator had reimagined it as a high-end spot with modern dishes and prices to match, a strategy that stumbled in the 2008 crash and alienated the Meridian residents who loved it for what it was.
I ate and enjoyed every last bit of it, unapologetically chasing the last drops of sauce and crab fragments with my fork. I returned a nearly pristine plate to the waitress, who didn’t comment, as I’m sure she sees this every workday.
Frazier attributes some of his success presiding over the restaurant’s revival to his not being a chef, getting feedback from the city about what they wanted to see and then recruiting a chef who could deliver that vision. Southern cuisine is always a mishmash of influences, and one of the pleasures of eating down here is finding a note that’s different from “your” Southern food: local touches like “comeback sauce,” a garlicky topping emerging from Greek eateries in Jackson and radiating outwards. These touches, combined with chef-specific flairs like crunchy panko crumbs in the fried green tomato batter, place the Weidmann’s menu in the enviable spot where comfort food meets new experience—as I learned that road-weary night in February.
Courtesy of Visit Meridian Tourism
The bread that came before the meal was worth spoiling your appetite for—and oh, how long since free bread! Strengthened, I looked over the menu: Frazier had described a 250-plus item menu from the fifties, now streamlined, but the restaurant still offers a deep bench of delectables. My friend had recommended the crab cakes and the fried green tomatoes—these are of course what I would have been most interested in anyway, so it was especially thrilling to see that you can order crab cakes placed on fried green tomatoes under a layer of fontina cheese and beurre blanc sauce. It sounds over the top, but some occasions call for excess. I ate and enjoyed every last bit of it, unapologetically chasing the last drops of sauce and crab fragments with my fork. I returned a nearly pristine plate to the waitress, who didn’t comment, as I’m sure she sees this every workday.
As I ate, I indulged in another pleasure I hadn’t enjoyed in a while: eavesdropping. After so long minding my own business, just being near strangers’ conversations felt both normal and exciting. I lingered over my last few bites, unreasonably invested in whether my fellow diner was going to drive to Tuscaloosa to see a woman. (He told his friend he would not, but I didn’t believe him, and I don’t think the friend did either.)
Courtesy of Visit Meridian Tourism
Too full to give dessert its due, I ordered a slice of pie to go, deciding in a mild panic to choose the lemon almond over the famed black bottom. Cozy in the first motel I’d seen in over a year, I left the pie on the nightstand instead of popping it into the fridge: I’m not the kind of person who forgets there’s pie for breakfast, but it seemed foolish to risk it. The next morning, I popped open the plastic clamshell and went at it, and I must report that it was the best pie I’ve ever eaten, defeating Lea’s Lunchroom’s and both my late grandmothers’. Silky, lemony without quite being tart, sweetness subdued enough to let the delicate almond through—I ate it as slowly as I could stand to and, in the absence of witnesses, ran my finger along the crenellations in the container to sweep up any lingering meringue.
I can’t wait to bring someone to Weidmann’s. Like everywhere, it was shaken by the events of 2020, but cooperation among a fraternity of restauranteurs sharing solutions and the now-familiar pivot to take-out during the jittery spring and summer kept the place afloat, and now it stands ready to help future generations of Meridianites and admiring out-of-towners make memories. I’d like to be among them—but I’m not sharing.
Weidmann’s
210 22nd Avenue
Meridian, MS 39301
(601) 581-5770
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