Blues and biscuits in B.B. King’s backyard

“If you was in Indianola, Mississippi, on a Saturday night on Church Street…and see all the things that was going on…you would remember it forever!”

B.B. King

Keeping it simple and focusing on three key ingredients, the music, the food and the landscape for which Indianola is known, seems to be a recipe for success. This is especially true for the Blue Biscuit, the hip restaurant and live music venue that pays homage to the Delta’s rich blues culture and lures tourists from all over the world.

Trish Berry, an owner of the Blue Biscuit, was a young teenager when she first heard B.B. King, the internationally famed blues legend who calls Indianola home. She remembers the distinct sound that wailed from Lucille, the celebrated performer’s guitar, as it played through the jukebox at one of her favorite daytime hangouts in her hometown of Vicksburg.

“I grew up listening to B.B. King when I was way too young (at) Cleo’s Hilltop in Vicksburg,” she said. “It was over the hill from my house.”

Little did she know that those first sounds from the iconic King of the Blues would be her intro into a life of celebrating the land, music and food that encompass B.B. King and his Delta roots.

Trish and her husband, Stan, moved to Indianola in the early 1980s when the city was only a few years into hosting its annual B.B. King Homecoming, a yearly pilgrimage B.B. made for 34 years to perform on his home turf. (The 89-year-old performer’s last homecoming performance was this past May.) Trish, who had just moved to Indianola from Clarksdale, was eager to help with the festival.

For years, Trish served on the B.B. King Homecoming committee and hosted sponsor parties at her house. She also had the honor of driving the blues legend around his former town.

“I’ve got pictures of B.B. asleep on my sofa,” she said. “I schlepped him all over town to all these events, and he never complained. He just is the most patient person I’ve ever met in my life. We all love us some B.B. King.”

Her time spent with the most renowned contemporary blues musician in the world gave Trish a deeper connection to her new home. Indianola also claims blues legends Albert King and Little Arthur Duncan and is reportedly a stone’s throw from where Charley Patton, the father of the Delta blues himself, took his last breath.

But, other than a B.B. King marker and Club Ebony, the legendary nightclub that hosted Ray Charles, Count Basie, Bobby Blue Bland, Little Milton and other legendary acts, the city did little to celebrate its blues legacy until recently.

Indianola Mayor Steve Rosenthal, a native of the city and a self-proclaimed blues fan, worked as a teenager at his grandfather’s department store, Ben Fried’s, which was only two blocks from Club Ebony. He claims his retail experience helped him understand the importance of the music scene in Indianola.

“I can remember the heyday of Church Street,” he said, referring to the area where B.B. King and his contemporaries would flock to hear and perform live music. Club Ebony was always hopping in the evenings when Rosenthal’s family store closed.

“I would walk the two blocks just to see who’s playing, and I would see unbelievable musicians,” he said.

Trish seized an opportunity in 2005 when she heard through the grapevine that a $15 million museum honoring B.B. King was about to break ground right across from her home on Second Street.

“I brought some friends down from Clarksdale who were big in the blues tourism thing, and I stood them right here and I told them, ‘There’s going to be a $15 million B.B. King blues museum. What do you think I need to do?’ And they said, ‘You need to get home and get to work.’”

Trish and her husband heeded the call and teamed up with Harlon Malone, a Clarksdale native retired from Stephens-Adamson who “can build anything and do anything,” Trish said. About seven years ago, they bought the building, literally steps from Trish and Stan’s home, on the corner of Second and Pershing streets. The building needed major renovations, all of which Trish and Harlon did themselves.

“We didn’t have all this done, we did it,” Trish said. “I did not realize I had gone to school to be a construction worker, but I found out indeed I had, because we did all this.”

Trish’s background is a far cry from construction. She learned to love cooking as a young child in Vicksburg on the apron strings of her housekeeper, Addie Lewis, the same woman who regularly caught her sneaking to Cleo’s Hilltop.

“We cooked our way through a Julia Child cookbook when I was growing up,” she said. “I’ve always loved it. We were making rolls and making cakes from scratch.”

After graduating from Ole Miss, Trish attended culinary school in Memphis and took specialty classes to perfect her cooking style. She later landed her role as one of the chefs at actor Morgan Freeman’s Madidi Restaurant in Clarksdale, which has since closed. While building the Blue Biscuit, Trish worked for Indianola Pecan House on product development. But, now, she’s “full time Biscuit,” she said.

“I love my job, because I hear really good music and meet people from all over the place and get to cook a little bit, which I love,” she said. “I can roll to work and crawl home. You can’t beat it. You just can’t beat it. And, it’s pretty much a labor of love.”

Trish and Harlon transformed the former church into a down-home place that, in many ways, resembles a juke joint. The building outside is outlined in strands of colorful Christmas lights, and a “weather vane” sporting a blue guitar, rests on the roof. An inviting blue glow seems to radiate from within the brick building at night. It’s as inviting as its name, which Harlon accused Trish of finding “at the bottom of a Jack Daniel’s bottle.”

“That’s not true. It was just a process of elimination thing,” Trish said. “The Blue Biscuit was a friendly sounding name, and we wanted it to be a really casual place. And, what is more Southern than blues and biscuits?”

Inside, guitars hang from the ceiling, which is lined with composite sheathing board to add to its simplistic juke joint style. The walls are covered with knickknacks, vintage signs and local folk art, including a hand-carved Blue Biscuit sign and a piece composed of old license plates. The bar is découpaged with post cards, old 45s, guitar picks and photos, including some of Trish’s pal B.B. in her living room with her children.

A back room and side porch were added for additional dining, private parties and other gatherings, including the Blue Biscuit Book Club.

“We wanted it to be a homey, kind of comfortable atmosphere. And, it’s full of junk. We accept junk,” Trish said.

The Blue Biscuit restaurant operation didn’t open until 2009, but while it was under construction, Trish and Harlon’s concept evolved into offering overnight lodging to accommodate guests of the B.B. King Museum, which opened across the street in 2008. By then, the two had converted Trish’s pool house and moved a shotgun shack from right outside Clarksdale to the property, making both spaces into “blues bungalows.” The bungalows, decorated by “slinging junk around,” provide an authentic Delta lodging experience. The former pool house has corrugated tin for shower walls and a glass “sky light.”

The bungalows have stayed full pretty much since the beginning. Some guests come and stay for months at a time. To keep from turning people away, Trish has started offering her own upstairs bedrooms as guest space.

“We were full so much, since I was pretty much an empty-nester, I just re-did those rooms, took out all the evidence of 20 years of 1,000 boys living up there and it being a dorm and just kind of fluffed it up a little bit.”

More bungalows are in the works, too.

“We can have up to eight or nine little rental houses right here,” she said.

Trish’s inspiration for the bungalows was the hugely successful overnight lodging offerings in Clarksdale, such as the Shack Up Inn, modernized shotgun shacks available to overnight guests.

“I had seen what was possible in Clarksdale, so that was the inspiration for getting it going down here,” she said. “I hope it’s given people a reason to spend some more time in the Delta rather than just go to the museum and get in their car and leave.”

Since opening June 4, 2009, the Blue Biscuit has served authentic Southern food that showcases Trish’s culinary past and embraces the food culture of the area. Fried catfish, hush puppies, New Orleans-style po’ boys and “redneck beignets” are classic Biscuit dishes available for lunch Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays and dinner Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

The “big @ss” ribeye, “big @ss” pork chops and “big @ss” hamburgers are also big @ss sellers.

“You hang around here long enough, and you’ll get one of your own,” Trish joked about her apt food description.

The pulled pork is the real shining star at the Biscuit. It’d better be, since it takes Trish and Harlon “72 hours of tender love and care” to get it just right each time.

“It’s quite a process, a lot of blood, sweat, tears, screaming and hair-tearing every time, but we do about 50 butts at a time, so we have to do it about once a month,” Trish said. “It’s a giant pain, but it’s so worth it. It’s so good.”

The pork is what captivated English chef, restaurateur and television presenter Rick Stein, who camped out at the Blue Biscuit while filming his hour-long documentary, “Rick Stein Tastes the Blues,” for BBC Four.

“Every day, at least two meals a day, he ate pulled pork,” Trish said. “He said, as far as he’s concerned, that it’s the best pulled pork in the world.”

Stein’s documentary digs in and celebrates the blues music and the food of the Mississippi Delta. The film features scenes of live music from the Blue Biscuit stage, where local and regional performers jam every Saturday night. Trish said on Fridays solo and duo acts usually grace the Biscuit’s stage, a no-frills platform where locally and nationally known performers, such as Terry “Harmonica” Bean, Jimbo Mathus, Pat Thomas, Steve Gardner and the late Duff Dorrough, make music history each week.

Rosenthal said the Blue Biscuit is a constant for live entertainment, which is key to bringing in tourists, and keeping them around a while.

“When we’re dealing with tourists, we have to have something we can count on for live music,” he said. “I can always say, ‘Go to the Blue Biscuit on a Saturday night, and you can count on live music and a good time.’”

The formula, along with the international press, seems to be working. Trish said 50 or 60 people from the United Kingdom and Australia have strolled into town to get a taste of the Blue Biscuit after the BBC documentary, which helped put the Blue Biscuit mission in perspective.

“(Stein’s) deal coming over here was to kind of see how the music and the land and the food all tied together,” Trish said. “The first thing that popped into my head was, the music is real simple, but it’s really good. And the food is real simple, but it’s really good, and so much of it is the basis for everything else, food and music-wise. So much good food in the South and so much good music, everything started with the blues.”

And, the blues is what you’ll get at the Blue Biscuit.

“We’re just one more something to do in the Delta, or in Indianola,” Trish said. “It’s just something to help put Indianola on the map.”

STORY Lauchlin Fields
PHOTOGRAPHY Melanie Thortis