Part one: Tales of the Klondyke

VICKSBURG, Miss. (VDN) — I bought the Klondyke Convenience Store (and all that it was) in November of 2005.

That happened six months after we opened HorseFace Harry’s on Halls Ferry Road. We came up with HorseFace Harry’s because the Garfield’s, which I came to town to operate, turned into a nightmare. There were people in place who had other plans for that location, and I was in the way. Looking back, it all seems to have worked out just fine.

Harry’s was a hit, but it became clear to me that my business partner had their own ideas on how to run a business. It wasn’t a sustainable situation for me. The Klondyke became available, and after much pressure from the food salesman, I took a look at it and immediately said no way. The salesman, Gary Longo, told me to go sit on the lot and count the number of cars going in and out.

I made an offer on it that week.

It was a unique place. It was a bit run-down, but it had a good customer flow all day long. On average, 250-300 people a day dropped in to buy something, most of them on their way to the harbor to work or on their way home from there. We did a big breakfast business. After breakfast, chicken and burgers were the mainstay. We had bait back then, but fishing wasn’t really a big thing. To be honest, we lost more money on minnows, goldfish, and worms than we ever made. If you don’t sell them, you’d smell ’em.

I expanded lunch to include veggies and a daily ‘blue plate’ type thing, and that was a big hit. On Friday, we had the most popular lunch in Vicksburg. Everyone came to get our Crawfish Creme Creole, and there was often a line out the door for hours. We opened up a karaoke bar in 2013, and that took off in a big way. For the next several years, we were recognized as the top night spot, the top lunch spot, the top locally owned restaurant… all the good stuff. It was a good thing and a really fun time.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

One of the highlights for me was when a chef from Napoleon’s in New Orleans came to Vicksburg and ordered my Shrimp Rich-Boy (it had too much going on to be a po-boy). He told me it was the best-tasting shrimp ‘po-boy’ he’d ever had and let me know he was going to come up with his own version for Napoleans. That is a high culinary compliment. Ours was on a New Orleans-style hoagie bun, grilled in butter and garlic, with real mayo, fancy lettuce, and spicy fried green tomatoes. The shrimp were grilled in butter, lemon, and garlic, wrapped in Applewood Smoked Bacon. We topped it with a squiggle of our comeback sauce- a sweet, creamy, and spicy blend with a light orange tint to it. The plate was served with a side item, almost always French fries, and a wedge of lime. We encouraged the server to squeeze the lime on the sandwich as they served it.

It was a damn fine sandwich, and describing it has made me wish I had one right now.

We came up with our own fries, too. We would hand-cut the 40-count potatoes (the really big ones), deep fry them in the same oil as the chicken, and season them with Cavender’s seasoning. It was one of those perfect combos. We also did a sweet potato fry that was seasoned with sea salt. I liked the sweet potato fries exponentially more than the regular ones.

A $10 Steak

Probably our most famous item was that $10 steak. It was a loss leader, meaning we were lucky to break even on it, but you had to get a side with it, and that made it profitable.

People who had never been to the Klondyke showed up to get that steak. As a result, we picked up hundreds of new customers who came back to try out lunch and the other things we sold. That steak was the same quality steak you’d get at other restaurants in the area; we just sold it at cost. It was not unusual to sell over 100 of them on a Wednesday night. People still talk about that steak when they realize I’m the “Klondyke Guy.”

The best part about the Klondyke, though, was the people. It was mostly a working-class group that included a bunch of characters, several of whom I still call friends. They are some of the finest people I’ve ever met. There were a few scoundrels, too. They wouldn’t stick around long and usually left with a painful memory, either mentally or physically, depending on how ornery they were. Hey, working folks have rules for an orderly society.

When I first took over the Klondyke, it was clear I worked for the guys who came in there. They had a routine, and it was my job to stick to it. Beer was $1 a bottle and was sold from open to close regardless of the law. A lot of guys would get a couple for the ride home, some would get a 6 or 12-pack a day, and others would sit at the bar after work and drink a few before heading on out. But the most memorable parts for me were the group that dropped in after work in the afternoon. They had a pecking order; hell, one of them had his own desk plate with his name on it. He put it on the bar and held court when he was there.

Nightclub pricing

At one point, I raised the price of beer to $1.25 and lost a couple of customers who complained about our “nightclub” prices. Someone told me the beer wasn’t as cold as it used to be, so I called in the experts and tuned that beer cooler down to 28 degrees – as cold as the lowest alcohol beer will get before it freezes. Science. They shut up about the beer not being cold after that.

There is a code of conduct at a working man’s bar. There were unwritten rules, and everyone instinctively followed them. Guys who worked together would seldom talk about work unless it was to brag on one or the other and how good they were at some skill. I was surprised to find out that several of the guys who came in there made six figures and were supervisors who had worked up to their position with hard work and attention to detail. Seldom did I have to call an electrician or a plumber; the guys would take a look at it, and if they couldn’t fix it, they would when they came in the next time. They gave me hell when I tried to buy them a beer in exchange.

A man in a gorilla suit

Chuck Barfield was the first of the group to die on us. Chuck was something. As good a man as was ever born, funnier than anyone you knew, and I hear he didn’t put up with much in his younger days, but he sure was mellow when I knew him. Probably, to this day, he was the best joke teller there. He had a couple of go-to jokes which he told often, one of them I must have heard 20 times (about a man in a gorilla suit), and I laughed every time. He was that good at it. He came in on a Friday afternoon, complaining about his chest hurting. Said it happened before, and they made him stay in the hospital for a couple of days, so he was going to wait until Monday to go see the doctor because he didn’t want to miss the weekend at deer camp. I tried to convince him to go to the hospital and have it checked out, but he got mad at me and left. Well, sort of mad, he wasn’t going to have it, and got tired of me telling him to go. He didn’t wake up after the second night at the deer camp, and to this day, I beat myself up for not insisting he go to the hospital.

He was the last one at the bar whom I didn’t make go to the hospital when they were sick. I used Chuck’s name to make them go. Mickey was next. One of the guys brought in a bottle of something they made out in the woods and was sharing it with the crew. Mick took a shot and fell out. When he lifted his arm to down the shot, he blacked out, a clear sign of a blockage. We made him go to the hospital, and he did not survive the week. He was part of an extended family that invited me to their cookouts and stuff, so I knew him and his family. I still keep in touch and keep tabs on them. Mick’s brother Steve was next to go. He was sick and recovered, then sick, then recovered, and then he was gone. His son fell far from the tree, lives in a beautiful part of Southern California, and has been very successful financially. We talk and joke all the time on the internet, as recently as yesterday. He is one of the funniest people I know. He calls me “dad” a lot, usually when a pretty girl is being nice to me.

Every day I’d see the same faces, and then one day they just wouldn’t be there. Life is like that. There are nothing but fond memories of the working men and women who made the Klondyke.