All That and Elvis Too
A Bar Room Fit for a King On the Mississippi Coast

Elvis Presley left the building a while back.
    More recently, another legendary visitor named Katrina blew in for an equally memorable visit, but a guest wouldn’t know it just by looking at the menu and the décor or sitting down for a cocktail after hours at Aunt Jenny’s Julep Room in Ocean Springs, Miss.
    There’s a who-cares timelessness to the bar beneath Aunt Jenny’s Catfish House that transcends celebrity and natural disaster and the trends that more readily define other drinking establishments on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. At 60-plus years and counting in operation an, and having weathered two major hurricanes and countless other natural and man-made challenges, the Julep Room is a survivor, with the 5-feet surge of water that kept them closed two whole months for remodeling
in the aftermath of Katrina only the latest episode.
    Tucked away in the basement of an antebellum mansion on Ocean Spring’s Washington Avenue that’s been a private residence and a spa, as well as a two-fisted bar and discrete local hangout since the early 1940s, the Julep Room is both buoy and anchor on the local bar scene.
    Its calling cards are its authentic dark atmosphere and rustic yet classic décor, as well as its friendly bartenders, stout drinks and live music, seven nights a week.

Forever Frying
    “People have been hanging out here forever,” says Julep Room Bartender Mandy Russell, who’s been laying whiskey down for the loyal local crowd for two years now and counting.
    “People just come in and they stay. It is a well-kept secret. People have lived here all their lives, and some of them never knew this place was here. You can’t see it from the road.”
    Russell says the 150-person-capacity Julep Room attracts all kinds, from the old down to the youngest generation — and anyone else whose social sensibilities fit the no-hassle atmosphere and the total lack of anything pretentious or artificial. “It is like being in your living room,” Russell says.
    It’s been at least 50 years since the last sighting of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, who is said to have dropped in with friends in the 1950s and enjoyed himself from a table in the corner. Yet Elvis still would feel at home with the food, the beverages or the music served up to patrons at the Julep Room today.
    “It’s fry heaven,” Russell says. “The menu consists of fried catfish, fried chicken, fried shrimp, fried okra, fried pickles and fried green tomatoes.”
And on the side, with orders of cole slaw and either sweet potato or French fries, is another ubiquitous Southern-fried specialty.
    “We have hush puppies, too,” Russell adds. “They come with just about everything you order.”

Southern Sipping
    “Most people drink beer and whiskey here,” Russell says. “We have our basics, Budweiser and Miller, and a lot of people are drinking Blue Moon, Red Stripe and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.”
    Toward the hard spirits end of alcohol and cocktails, she says her mostly local customers go for Jim Beam, Jack Daniels and an occasional Wild Turkey bourbon. “They usually just drink it straight or on the rocks.”
    Since the hurricane destroyed the mint bush at the Julep Room, the bar staff has been unable to make an authentic namesake Mint Julep for a customer, but Russell says it doesn’t matter, since only the occasional out-of-towner would come in and order one anyway. Despite the name, the most popular cocktails are any kind of vodka with cranberry as well as Vodka & Red Bull.
    “We stay busy pretty much throughout the year,” Russell says.