The Mayflower Cafe began over 80 years ago, started by 2 Greek immigrants.  Their third generation owner took control in 1990 and some twenty years later, when he announced closure of the restaurant, Hunter Evans and Cody McCain instead purchased the restaurant in 2024 to keep it going.  This pair owns Elvie’s (review in a couple days) and was a finalist for the Best Chef South James Beard award.  They revamped the neon sign outside that was used in the film The Help and added a first floor bathroom.    It’s a long space with counter stools in the part of the space facing the street and booths along the long walls with tables in the middle.  Open for lunch and dinner Tuesday through Sat. the front stools face the fresh oyster bar at dinner.  Otherwise the room had lots of mirrors and nautical decorations.  They offer a daily special, and all looked to be generous plates of food.  There is a dedicated parking lot in back of the building and street parking.  There were additional rooms that people were walking too but I didn’t go exploring as the dining room got pretty tight with patrons at lunch.  Service was friendly and fairly efficient, the food was fine and the Comeback sauce is on the table with crackers.  It’s a piece of Jackson’s history so go if you can.

Set-up

Food

One of the Wednesday specials was crawfish tetrazzini with a Mayflower salad, 2 sides, roll or cornbread and tea.  We both ordered that with an upcharge of $2 to make onion rings a side dish.  Our other sides were field peas, green beans and each tried one bread.  The salads were nice fresh bits of lettuce and I got the blue cheese dressing.  It had a ton of chunks but was fairly mild in flavor.  The Comeback dressing was a lot like French dressing with a good bit of sweetness to it.  Both made a fine salad.  (Comeback is supposed to be so good it makes you want to come back).  The rolls were yeasty good while the cornbread was fairly sweet but also good.   The field peas were cooked perfectly with nice seasonings.  The green beans were well cooked, maybe canned and dull.  The onion rings were freshly made and not at all greasy.  The onion was well but not overcoated for a good balance.  The tetrazzini didn’t have a ton of crawfish, did have a good bit of spice and was quite soupy with a runny cheese sauce and tons of pasta.  It was okay but I wouldn’t order it again.  I mostly saw people ordering the fried foods and burgers.