I’ve always thought the phrase comfort food as utterly redundant, and anyone who’s spent a modest amount of time around me can testify to my love of all things edible. But Keifer’s is, to me, extra comfortable food. Before I lived in Jackson, I knew about Keifer’s. Coming to visit friends or volunteering a week at Camp Bratton-Green just north of Canton, Kiefer’s was a place I could always count on seeing while in town. While I was a Millsaps student, the restaurant offered a nearby escape from the bubble of academia and non-academia that filled so much of my time. Few things are better than a table on the restaurant’s wraparound porch. Add to that hypothetical table a group of friends, several plates of food, a few pitchers of beer, and the carefree laughter that a good meal can produce. Keifer’s was my first experience with humus, and I had never seen fries quite like their cottage fries.
And the feta dressing.
The Feta Dressing.
I fancy myself proficient in the kitchen, but I’ve never been able to recreate that stuff. Friends who have moved away from town wax poetic about dunking their cottage fries in it. I’ve even handed a container of the salty ambrosia, on ice, off to a former Jacksonian living in Birmingham as I drove through to Atlanta.
When I heard that the house the restaurant was in was being torn down to make way for The Belhaven building, I was a little concerned. Despite assurances from the staff that the new building would be almost identical, I was still unconvinced that the new digs would have the same raffish charm of the old place. As is often the case, I was wrong. The new location, literally across the street from its predecessor, is almost a mirror image of the old one with a few improvements. It’s easier to move around, for one, and I’m not worried that my girth will be too much for the old hardwood floors. It’s a touch cleaner, but still comfortable. Kind of like an old high school friend whom you haven’t seen in years, Keifer’s is still the same, if a bit more mature. And if you see me there, on the porch with a smear of feta dressing in my beard, hand me a napkin.
Written by Jamie
Jackson: photographs by Ken Murphy is available now for purchase. To order a copy, call Lemuria Books at 601.366.7619 or visit us online at lemuriabooks.com. Please join us in celebrating Jackson on August 5th at 5:00 in Banner Hall!
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