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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Irish Eyes Are Smiling in Olive Branch

Justin Ash brought a touch of the old sod to Olive Branch, Mississippi. He recently opened Ash’s Irish Pub, which, he believes, is the first Irish pub in Olive Branch. “When you walk in, it’s like you get that heart-dropping moment,” he says. “Like a culture shock.”

For his pub, Ash created a “late-19th century, early 20th-century” spot, which he describes as “old world,” with “cobblestone brick, rough-cut timbers, and a walnut wood-looking bar.”

Decor includes wine barrels, street lanterns, stained glass windows, and a train station clock. Ash also features flags dating from as recently as the 2024 American flag to as far back as 762 AD, the earliest he traced his Irish lineage to on his dad’s side.

His grandmother taught him how to cook Irish cuisine when he was a teenager. “And I just remembered.”

His Irish fare includes “shepherd’s pie, fish and chips, bangers and mash, Guinness beef stew, chicken and chips, and poutine.” For now, Ash only serves beer, but he eventually will serve craft cocktails.

Ash also wanted a convivial place, which is what an Irish pub is, he says. When you sit down at the bar, whoever is on your left side and whoever is on your right side are “going to end up being your best friend whether you like it or not. In a traditional Irish bar, it’s disrespectful not to speak to others. If you sit there by yourself quietly, it’s disrespectful. It’s a public house. That’s just the way things work. There’s no such thing as a stranger.”

And, he says, “The biggest thing was to give that feeling of hope and, I guess, belonging. Like my friends did for me when I was in the hospital.”

Ash was in his fourth deployment in the Army when he was injured in 2018 in northern Syria. “We were on a mission and our vehicle struck something in the roadway and it caused our vehicle to flip. And a rifle ripped off the left side of my face. I wound up at Walter Reed [National Military Medical Center] in Washington. I had to relearn how to read, walk, talk.”

His friend Tara McShea, who worked in civil affairs for the Army, often visited Ash, who stayed in the hospital for two-and-a-half years. She took him to Philadelphia to visit her family’s Irish pub, which got him interested in Irish gathering spots. He got a notepad and in about 10 minutes made a checklist of what he wanted his Irish pub to be like.

After he got out of the hospital, Ash, who had been with the Marshall County Sheriff’s Office before he left for his last deployment, retired from the Army and moved to Olive Branch. “I walked into an empty apartment in April of 2020 and started my life over.”

Over the next two years, Ash, who began working on his undergraduate degree in criminal justice when he was in the hospital, finished his associate’s, bachelor’s, and master’s degrees.

He found the exact location he wanted for his pub about two years ago. Originally, it was “an empty shell of a room.”

Ash used the money from his military and sheriff’s department retirements to open the pub. “I put all cards on the table.”

When you visit Ash’s Irish Pub at 9200 Goodman Road, you’re probably going to see Ash. “I’m the owner. I’m a cook. I’m the bartender. I’m the waiter. I’m everything. … I’m all over the place back there. Cutting potatoes. Cutting carrots. Making stew. And making fish and chips. I might be out here wiping tables. I’m doing everything from 10 a.m. till 1 a.m. every single day.”

He plans to feature Irish music played on “traditional Gaelic instruments,” including violins and guitars, at his pub. Patrons will be able to “sit around the table and play together.”

Already, though, Irish — and everybody else’s — eyes are smiling at Ash’s Irish Pub. “Oh, my God. This past Friday night every seat at the bar was filled and they were singing, ‘No nay never,’ and slapping the top of the bar,” he says. “They were sitting there laughing together. And I said, ‘This is beautiful.’”

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Simply Delicious: SideStreet Burgers

It’s like Jonathan Mah had to become a restaurant owner.

Mah, 42, owner of SideStreet Burgers in Olive Branch, Mississippi, spent most of his life in restaurants.

“My dad started a restaurant probably when I was 10 or 11,” Mah says. “His first restaurant was Cafe Arcadia in the Collierville town square. It had steaks, and they had a buffet where they did some Southern food.”

His parents at one time ran two restaurants simultaneously. “My mom had her Cafe Magnolia in Olive Branch. My dad did his in Horn Lake, Evan’s Cafe. Both on Goodman Road.

“I had to work all the time after school in the restaurants. Cooking, cleaning — you name it, I had to do it. It wasn’t always that fun to me at the time, but that was my background. We liked to eat, and my parents had restaurants. So, when I went to college, it was the only thing that felt comfortable.”

Mah majored in hotel-restaurant management at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

His parents cooked at home, says Mah, who was born in Greenville, Mississippi. “My mom did quite a bit and my dad usually grilled out. Being a Chinese family, my grandmother lived with us for many years. So, she was stir-frying and cooking a lot, as well.

“We didn’t have the typical breakfast you grow up eating, cereal and things like that. We had dumplings for breakfast. And we put a little bit of soy sauce and sesame oil in our hot oatmeal.”

But his parents didn’t serve Chinese food at their restaurants. “For some reason they just didn’t cook it. They cooked Southern food.” His mother served “peach cobbler and her amazing brisket. Mashed potatoes and gravy. Fresh fried okra. And my dad did something similar on his side of town, but just in his own style.”

Mah went for hamburgers instead of Asian when he opened SideStreet Burgers May 12, 2012.

His dad gave him the building. “I was confined by a small budget and the small building. I said, ‘Well, you know what? Let’s just keep it simple. Start with burgers and potatoes.’ A good Angus burger we hand-patted and red potatoes.”

Mah added other items, including the Fat Panda — “Korean marinated beef tenderloin” — the Mother Clucker chicken sandwich, Jake’s Chicken Nachos, Blackened Mahi Fish Tacos, and the Whatchu Talkin’ Bout patty melt.”

They offer other hamburgers, but The Street Burger is their signature. “We take cheddar cheese and slice it daily. So, it’s right off a cheddar loaf, probably a quarter-inch thick of cheese, and [add] a little garlic mayo.”

Five years ago, Mah and Derric Curran, owner of Mississippi Ale House, which is next door, teamed up. “That’s a craft ale house. They brew their own beers and get other beers from Mississippi.”

SideStreet Burgers doesn’t offer in-house dining. “Customers pick up their food and they go over to the Ale House and drink beer and listen to live music.”

Mah also added his OB Pizza Co. inside Mississippi Ale House. “Hand-tossed pizzas cooked on pizza stone. Fun pizzas like our White Castle Pizza, Fat Panda Philly, and Taco Pizza.”

Also at that restaurant, he says, “We have amazing whole wings marinated in hot chili oil and tossed in wing sauce. We call them Kung Fu Wings.”

Mah finally broke the chain and added hints of Chinese cuisine at SideStreet Burgers. “I always try to infuse a little Asian into my meat.”

He prepares Chinese food on occasion as “ghost pop-ups,” which people can order on his Facebook page.

But Asian food isn’t what his customers want at SideStreet Burgers. Or other items Mah tried, including a “wedge salad with some really good blue cheese” and a “curried chicken wrap.”

“If they sell, we keep it on as long as we can go. If it doesn’t, we move on to something else and bring our customers another taste of something else we’ve created.”

SideStreet Burgers is at 9199 MS-178 in Olive Branch; (901) 596-4749.

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Campbell Clinic to Expand with Three New Locations

This summer, Campbell Clinic Orthopaedics is set to expand its practice with the opening of three new locations in West Tennessee and Mississippi.

Campbell Clinic currently operates in Germantown, Collierville, Midtown Memphis, and Southaven, and will add to its roster by opening one new location over each month for the rest of the summer: East Memphis (585 S. Mendenhall, opening June 2022), Arlington (Airline Road, opening July 2022), and Olive Branch (Goodman Road, opening August 2022).

“In order to further our commitment to delivering world-class orthopedic and musculoskeletal care to those who need it most, we are growing our presence closer to where patients live and
work,” said Dr. Frederick Azar, chief of staff of Campbell Clinic. “Our desire to provide the highest level of care to our patients means expanding our footprint both locally and regionally.”

“These three new locations bring us to a total of eight locations,” adds Campbell Clinic CEO Daniel Shumate, “all of which will be crucial to helping us continue to provide superior orthopaedic care in the very communities we serve.”

The three new locations, all staffed by Campbell Clinic providers, will be open Monday through Friday and offer walk-in, urgent orthopaedic care, x-ray, casting, and physical therapy
services.

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Beal’s Dixie Kream – TODAY – Wow!

Beal_sDixieKream-today.jpg

Last week, when I posted the images of Beal’s Dixie Kream taken in the 1960s, I sort of hoped that the place might still be open — perhaps run by the children of the original owner, Hazel Beal.

Boy, was I wrong. My pal Jeff Crook ventured down Old Highway 78 this weekend, and found the place, just about at the Mississippi state line. This is how it looks today. Pretty depressing.

Here’s what Jeff had to say:

Hi Vance. I think I found Beal’s Dixie Kream. I”ve attached the photo.

The place is in Mineral Wells, next door to an establishment that used to be called John’s Creek Cafe. The cafe’s sign has been painted over white, but there are some neon beer signs in the window and a sign on the door that says “No one under 21 allowed.” Sounds like a charming place to see some genuine local color, but I had the wife and kids in the car, so I just took a photo of the wreck next door.

The building now appears to be owned by a concrete company whose fence runs all the way up to the walls, and maybe through them. I didn’t open the door. It had a padlock, which looked broken. Maybe somebody broke in to set the fire.

Thanks for your hard work, Jeff. I always like it when readers do all my work for me.

PHOTO BY JEFF CROOK

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Beal’s Dixie Kream – Olive Branch, Mississippi

Beals Dixie Kream in 1966

  • Beal’s Dixie Kream in 1966

So the other day I was looking through a stack of 50-year-old yearbooks from Olive Branch High School. Doesn’t everybody do that on a Saturday night?

I didn’t find any Lauderdales among the students, but one thing I did notice was an ad in the back of all the yearbooks, for an establishment called Beal’s Dixie Kream. Yes, that’s right — it (and the owner’s name) was spelled Beal — without the “e.” Sometimes the ads spelled the name of the place “Cream” but the neon sign out front says “Kream.”

The owner, as you can see, was Mrs. Hazel Beal. No mention of a Mr. Beal, so I wonder if she was a widow? Divorced? None of my damn business? (choose one)

The yearbooks spanned 1960 to 1967, and one thing that caught my eye was how the brick exterior changed over the years. In a 1961 ad, it was apparently a solid color, but in later ads it clearly had a checkerboard pattern. What’s curious is that by 1967, the walls were back to being one color. Too bad the ads were in black-and-white, so I don’t know what color(s) the place was painted. I bet it was quite festive, and since it appeared in every yearbook, THE place to go on Friday and Saturday nights in Olive Branch.

Like most ice-cream joints, Beal’s offered milkshakes and a variety of sandwiches. But it also provided customers with “Memphis telephones” so they could “Talk While You Eat.” In fact, look at the 1966 advertisement, and there’s the phone booth, right in front.

The ads say Beal’s Dixie Kream was located on Highway 78 at the Tennessee/Mississippi state line. I haven’t driven out Lamar in a while (probably ever since Maywood closed), so does anyone know what happened to this cute little place, and what’s there now?

Here are some other views of it, taken from the old yearbooks:

Beals in 1961

  • Beal’s in 1961

Beals as it looked in 1965

  • Beal’s as it looked in 1965

Beals in 1967. Note the popcorn maker.

  • Beal’s in 1967. Note the popcorn maker.