Covington – Memphis Flyer

Remember Pappy & Jimmie’s Restaurant? The one with a billboard featuring two human heads on lobster bodies?

It moved from its Poplar and Hollywood location to Summer Avenue in 1989 and, under another name, to Whitten Road before it basically disappeared from the Memphis scene.

Well, guess what? Pappy & Jimmie’s is alive and well in Covington, Tennessee. And it’s still owned by Bill Rickard. He opened it in Covington, his hometown, in 2009.

Rickard originally bought the Poplar Avenue restaurant from Mike Kamowitz, who bought it from Jimmie Mounce, the “Jimmie” in the establishment’s name.

Mounce owned the Poplar location and was a partner with Pappy Sammons, who opened the legendary Pappy & Jimmie’s Lobster Shack on Madison in 1947. Sammons was an owner for a time with Mounce of the Poplar Pappy & Jimmie’s, which opened five years later, and once was pictured as one of the sign’s lobsters.

“I never worked in a restaurant in my life,” Rickard says. “Kamowitz stayed with me for a month and a half. Taught me how to cut meat.” The restaurant’s longtime servers and cooks also showed him the ropes.

Rickard knew from a young age that he wanted to own a restaurant. “It started when I was 12 or 13,” he says. “I’d go in a restaurant and say, ‘This is what I’d like to do one day.’ Me and my wife worked and saved our money and we ended up in Pappy & Jimmie’s.

“I just wanted to get in the restaurant business. I didn’t want anything that big. It turned out to be giant.”

Rickard, who had worked at a dairy and an auto dealership, had never even been a Pappy & Jimmie’s patron. “I went by the window and watched those lobsters in the tank, but never ate there,” he says.

The restaurant no longer sells lobsters, but Rickard remembers when they offered them fresh from Maine at the Poplar location. “I’d go to the airport a couple of times a week and pick up lobsters,” he says.

Rickard took care of that famous sign picturing Mounce and his son, Jimmie Mounce Jr., as lobsters. “It was neon when I got it. It kept going out. I took the neon off and had it painted.”

Pappy & Jimmie’s Restaurant, which had “kind of rustic” decor, was known for gumbo, steaks, prime rib, and seafood. Rickard added lunch service. “What really got us going in 1983 was they had a private dining room and I changed it into an oyster bar and we did oysters $2.50 a dozen.”

Like now, Rickard got in the kitchen and cooked when needed. “I can cook anything we have. I love to cook. One of the first things Mike taught me is how to make rolls. I still make them up here.”

After losing their lease, Rickard moved the restaurant to Summer. “Our business tripled when we moved,” he says. “They didn’t have the mall like they have now at Wolfchase … hardly any restaurants out there.

“We had a full bar, for one thing. A lot of people were coming in. There was a hotel next door,” he recalls.

As for the sign, “When Hurricane Elvis came through, it tore up both the signs and we couldn’t redo them ’cause they were so big.

“At that time, business had fallen off. We ended up closing up and opening a place on Whitten Road called Pappy’s Oyster Bar.”

Rickard changed the menu to home cooking after he opened Pappy & Jimmie’s in Covington. “This was a country town, and seafood and expensive stuff wouldn’t go. And that’s what I really wanted to do from the beginning, have a country-type restaurant. I never was crazy about seafood.”

The restaurant serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Loaded hash browns with ham, onions, peppers, and cheese is a popular item.

And, Rickard says, “I’m there every day. I’m 78 years old.”

He admits the name Pappy & Jimmie’s confuses customers: “I’m known as Mr. Jimmie out here.”

Pappy & Jimmie’s is at 749 N. Main Street in Covington; (901) 476-6002.

I was smart to take a Millington native to help navigate my way to nearby Covington, Tennessee, but not smart enough to print accurate MapQuest directions. So we stop at a Walgreens to find my objet de quest: Marlo’s Down Under.

“You should have turned at the ‘plane on a stick,'” says the woman behind us in line. “Wait for me to check out, and I’ll take you there and get a drink.”

This pleasant, fortysomething lady was as eager to help as she was not to be named in an article. So henceforth, I will call her “Beth.”

Beth takes us to an adorable town square and to a cozy basement hotspot under Le Chic Boutique and a bead store called Jezebel’s. Beth is full of enthusiasm for Marlo’s, and she stays with us through the arrival of dessert.

“If you want to have good, fine dining and atmosphere, it’s Marlo’s all the way,” she extols as our appetizer of hand-cut, fried potato crisps and hot, creamy crab dip arrives. “The closest thing to fine dining in Covington is Country Kitchen, and you know Country Kitchen,” she says this knowingly, though — in faith — I myself do not know Country Kitchen.

I think of a Humphrey Bogart line as I look around Marlo’s: “What’s a nice-looking restaurant like you doing in a town like this?” Not that Covington is without its charm, but it is a small town with a small-town feel. When pressed to name something to do, Beth struggles. “Well, there’s Sons of the Confederacy meetings,” she offers. As I’m thinking of Bogart, a sax cover of “As Time Goes By” wafts through the establishment, and I feel very, very cool.

Our salad is a very pretty spray of spinach and strawberries, topped with balsamic vinaigrette and a touch of fresh pepper. The entrée, and also Marlo’s specialty, is the Parmesan-crusted sea bass with Roma tomato pesto served over risotto. This is the nicest meal I’ve had while on assignment, and so in my khakis and jersey I feel underdressed. But as I look around I see suits and ties and T-shirts and jeans. Beth is dressed as casually as I am and notes, “I’m not dressed for Marlo’s tonight, but that’s okay. They don’t care anything about that.”

Courtesy of Marlo’s Down Under

Marlo’s

Chef and owner Nick Scott joins us to describe the décor. Ambient track lighting and candle sconces discreetly warm the establishment, while low ceilings (the building’s original wood beams) keep things cozy without feeling small. You can even see nails sticking down, which, coupled with the prevalence of exposed brick makes the place look even more “rustic-swank.” Scott points out the expanse of diamond-patterned stained glass behind the bar, which he proudly procured from Memphis’ Platinum Plus. “So you were in a strip club scouting out stained glass?” I ask. He replies, “Yeah.”

The bar is the warm and welcoming centerpiece of Marlo’s. Aside from its storied stained glass, the bar itself is the original grocer’s counter from more than a century ago, restored and elevated. Karenza King is the spritely bartender who gives me the skinny on the drink specialty: the Café Lenagar. “What makes it ‘Lenagar’?” I ask. King points to the female half of a distinguished-looking couple at a table adjoining the bar and whispers, “That’s her over there. They’re some of our best customers.” I didn’t get to meet Ms. Lenagar, but I did make the acquaintance of her namesake drink — a mix of Dakota-blend coffee, Frangelico, and whipped cream.

Marlo’s brims with history. The building has been, over time, a grocery store, a cotton firm, dental and law offices, a Rent-A-Center, and, as Scott puts it, “a disco-era clothing store.” And there’s a sense that it’s making history even now by bringing some upscale chic to the quaintness of downtown Covington. And while it is gaining ground as a Covington-area mainstay, Marlo’s draws more customers from outside the city than in. Scott, previously of Memphis’ University Club, says, “I’ve been to a lot of nice restaurants. This is my vision of all of them combined.”

On our way out, we learn that there are actually plenty of things to do in Covington. Summers offer weekend town-square concerts, and the nearby Ruffin Theater brings in local and regional music acts and houses a community theater. Cute shops adorn the square.

As we head back for Memphis, we pass the “plane on a stick” — a fighter jet on a pedestal at the corner of Pleasant Avenue and Highway 51. It’s hidden from view on the way into Covington but unmistakable on the way out. Just like Marlo’s.

Next stop: Country Kitchen.