MCCOMB, Miss. — Over the course of a steaming-hot Southern lunch, served family-style on a large lazy Susan, restaurant proprietor Andre Davis has watched individuals go from good strangers to lifelong associates.
His restaurant, The Dinner Bell in McComb, Mississippi, consists of simply 4 tables. Giant and round, they seat upward of 15 individuals. Within the middle of every is a lazy Susan dotted with heaping platters of meals, spinning forwards and backwards as clients pile up their plates.
On any given day, anybody may very well be sitting across the desk. Davis’ buyer base ranges from European vacationers to locals. The tables have hosted water therapy plant staff, church teams and as soon as, in line with Davis, British actor Hugh Bonneville.
“We’ve had individuals sitting collectively that had nothing in frequent however the desk they had been sitting at,” Davis mentioned.
For restaurant goers, the rotating tables present a novel alternative to fulfill new individuals, hear completely different views and bond over a shared enjoyment of traditional Southern meals and the restaurant’s famed fried eggplant.
“We have met docs, legal professionals, lecturers,” mentioned Wayne Dyson, a daily buyer. “And discover out that most individuals are all good individuals.”
“Particularly in the event that they’re consuming,” he added.
The Dinner Bell in McComb, Miss., is proven on Dec. 11, 2025. Credit score: AP/Sophie Bates
Dyson and his spouse have met numerous individuals from everywhere in the nation within the 40 years they’ve been frequenting the restaurant. Over lunch earlier this month, the couple shortly bonded with a gaggle of strangers, laughing like they’d recognized one another for years.
Justin Monistere and his household stopped for lunch to rejoice his sister’s commencement from nursing college. By the point he left, he was referring to the Dysons as “mother” and “pop.”
“Right this moment in time we do not speak as individuals. It is both by way of a message or telephone,” he mentioned, including that is the primary meal he has had since he was a child the place nobody pulled out a cellphone. “I feel that is an excellent factor that they are doing right here.”
The distinctive eating type, which can also be related to Chinese language eating places, dates again to the early twentieth century in Mississippi.
The family-style eating places developed alongside railroad tracks to extra simply serve massive numbers of individuals approaching and off trains, in line with Charles Morgan, who owns the now-closed Revolving Tables Restaurant in Mendenhall.
The restaurant has been in Morgan’s household because it opened in 1915. He grew up listening to individuals speak politics and faculty soccer round an 18-seater desk.
Each Morgan and Davis have watched related eating places shut over time, however a smattering stay throughout elements of the nation.
“You positive do not see too lots of these anymore,” mentioned Morgan, whose personal restaurant closed when his father retired in 2001. He and his sister hope to reopen.
The sort of eating, Davis mentioned, is not for everybody. Some individuals retreat into their social shells, whereas others blossom.
Some days are quiet, with just some regulars gathered across the desk swapping farming suggestions. Different instances, the restaurant is raucous as tour teams and households chatter with the brave people prepared to spin the roulette wheel on who they might be sitting with that afternoon.
Davis mentioned he has seen individuals from all walks of life conversing. Some kind friendships, others a easy sense of respect. One couple, a widower and widow, met on the restaurant and later received married.
“It has been hilarious, a number of the those that have ended up sitting beside one another,” Davis mentioned. “You could not do it on goal, you could not plan it, and also you could not make it up.”
