You can drive past 3118 Livingston Road and miss it. The building is unassuming. There are no neon signs, no valet, no patio. There is only a brick building that two men — Tyrone Bully and his father — built with their own hands in 1982, and a parking lot that wraps with cars at lunchtime every day except Sunday, when the place is closed because the family is at church.

This is Bully's Restaurant. And it is one of the most important pieces of the Jackson food economy that almost no one outside Mississippi talks about with the seriousness it deserves.

What Bully's actually is

Ballery Tyrone Bully and his father were both masons. The senior Mr. Bully had run a corner store in the neighborhood for years when he suggested they open a restaurant to serve hot food to the factory workers across the street. They built the building themselves — brick by brick, their own labor and their own design. It opened in 1982 as a snack shop selling sandwiches. It did not stay a snack shop for long.

A neighbor named Ma Pearl became the first cook. She worked there for over eighteen years, taught Tyrone every recipe she knew, and insisted he follow them exactly. That insistence is, in some real sense, the reason Bully's tastes the way it tastes today.

In 2016, the James Beard Foundation named Bully's one of America's Classics. The America's Classics award goes to restaurants with timeless appeal that are beloved in their region for quality food reflecting the character of their community — and that have been in business for at least ten years and remain locally owned. Bully's qualified for that honor on every count. The Beard committee called the cooking back-of-the-range work without peer.

Tyrone runs the place with his wife, Greta Brown Bully. He arrives at six in the morning and stays until he locks the doors at night. Their daughter, Tyrea, makes the cobbler. The wait staff, by long-running newspaper accounts, includes people who have been there twenty years or longer. The walls hold paintings and posters of Black leaders from Martin Luther King Jr. to Jesse Jackson to Barack Obama. The menu — chitterlings, oxtails, neckbones, turkey wings, meatloaf, mac and cheese, three different greens daily simmered in pork-infused broth, fried catfish, sweet potatoes, beef tips with rice — has not chased any food trend in forty-three years. It has not had to.

Regulars include police officers, city council members, state legislators, and musicians who record at a nearby studio. Folks come from across the country with license plates from far-off states. The 2021 Moon U.S. Civil Rights Trail guidebook lists Bully's as a recommended stop. That detail matters. The Civil Rights Trail does not cross your restaurant by accident.

Why this matters as business journalism, not just food writing

Forty-three years is a long time for any small restaurant to survive. Forty-three years for a Black-owned, family-built, working-class neighborhood restaurant in Mississippi is something else entirely. The Bully family did not inherit capital. They built the building. They trained the cook. They kept the menu honest. They held the line through every economic shift Jackson has been through — including some that closed many of their peers.

The James Beard award did not change the food. It put a national spotlight on a place that was already doing the work. That distinction is the entire story.

The gallery: Black-owned Jackson, beyond Bully's

Bully's is the spine, but it is not the whole skeleton. Jackson's Black-owned restaurant scene is dense, varied, and mostly unsung outside the city.

A few that deserve their flowers:

Sugar's Place in downtown Jackson is a soul food destination that has been showing up on every Visit Jackson and Black-owned restaurant list for years. Breakfast plates that turn first-timers into regulars.

Big Apple Inn on Farish Street has been serving its famous pig-ear sandwiches since 1939. Farish Street itself is a Civil Rights landmark, and the Big Apple's history is woven into that story — Medgar Evers had his NAACP office in the building above it.

Johnny T's Bistro & Blues is the spot that does live music and elevated soul food in equal measure. It is consistently named one of the best Black-owned restaurants in the metro on Yelp.

Stamps Super Burgers has been making one of Mississippi's best burgers for over five decades. The smell of fresh patties and hand-cut fries hits you before you walk in.

Eddie Wright BBQ is a meat-and-three institution that James Beard has also recognized. The line moves slow because the food is worth the wait.

Geraldine's & Eula Mae's Kitchen is a soul food spot with a devoted Mississippi TikTok following. Locals do not gatekeep this one anymore.

Cedes Place has become a destination for food critics on social media. Word travels fast in Jackson, and Cedes has earned its momentum.

The Fam Biz lives up to its name. Family-owned, deeply Jacksonian, and recommended by local creators who do not recommend lightly.

Mico's Grab & Go is the trio plate spot. The owner runs the operation himself with a sense of humor that customers post about online.

Deja Brew in Fondren is the Black-owned soul food gem that quietly serves one of the best plates in that neighborhood.

1693 Red Zone Grill is what happens when Chef Mike Mosley brings his Cajun, Creole, soul food, and global influences to Jackson. Locals can't stop talking.

The honest part

Black-owned restaurants in Mississippi do not get a fraction of the venture capital, real estate access, or marketing infrastructure their non-Black peers get. They survive on word-of-mouth, family labor, deep community loyalty, and food that is unimpeachable. When one of them — Bully's — finally gets a James Beard medal, it is not a coincidence. It is what happens when forty years of doing the work meets a national institution that finally caught up.

If you live in Jackson and you have not eaten at Bully's, that is a fixable problem. If you are passing through, get off I-55 at Woodrow Wilson and make the drive. The cooking starts at 11 a.m. and ends at 6 p.m. The place is small and worth the wait.

This is what a James Beard Award restaurant looks like when the people running it never stopped being who they were.

Sources

1. James Beard Foundation. "2016 America's Classic: Bully's Restaurant." https://www.jamesbeard.org/stories/2016-americas-classic-bullys-restaurant
2. Southern Foodways Alliance. "Bully's Restaurant" oral history project. https://www.southernfoodways.org/oral-history/bullys-restaurant/
3. Wikipedia. "Bully's Restaurant." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bully's_Restaurant
4. Visit Jackson. "Bully's Restaurant." https://www.visitjackson.com/directory/bullys-restaurant/
5. Visit Jackson. "Top Black-Owned Restaurants in Jackson MS." https://www.visitjackson.com/blog/black-owned-restaurants-in-jackson/
6. Specialty Shoe Lover. "10 Black Owned Restaurants You Must Try In The Jackson Metro Area." June 25, 2025. https://specialtyshoelovers.com/10-black-owned-restaurants-you-must-try-in-the-jackson-metro-area/
7. BlackPulse Headquarters. "Black-Owned Businesses in Jackson, Mississippi." https://blackpulsehq.com/cityguide/black-owned-businesses-in-jackson-mississippi/
8. Mississippi Perks Pass. "Bully's Restaurant in the Heart of Jackson, Mississippi." https://msperkspass.com/soul-food-in-jackson-ms-bullys-restaurant/
9. Yelp. "Top 10 Best Black Owned Restaurants in Jackson, MS — Updated 2025." https://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=Black+Owned+Restaurants&find_loc=Jackson,+MS