A Journey to Learned and Gibbes Store for a Tasty Steak on a Paper Plate

When it was proposed that a group of us make a restaurant field trip to H. D. Gibbes and Sons General Store in Learned, Mississippi, our friends the Weathersbys on Muddy Springs Road answered, "Sure, Weathersbys are up to eat steak on a paper plate!

We're in!" H. D. Gibbes began its life as a General Merchandise store in the late 1800s and has re-imagined itself in recent decades as a destination for steaks, seafood, and home-cooked sides.

There is frequently live music and the atmosphere is convivial, happy, and noisy. It still serves as the convenience store (six days a week) for the town of Learned (population 90), and they have gas, beer, chips, burgers, soft drinks, and a lunch special. Its fame, however, is the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings when it is transformed to what Southern Living has deemed one of the "30 Most Legendary Steakhouses in the South." We were forewarned and forearmed with the information that payment could only be made in the form of cash or a check.

In the age of credit cards and tap-to-pay this comes as something of a surprise to many diners. Another curiosity is that if you want anything alcoholic besides beer you are encouraged to BYOB (bring your own bottle). The beer itself is kept in coolers and you fetch your own and keep track of the number, because checkout is on the honor system.

When you leave you will tell the cashier what drinks, appetizers, and desserts you ordered. We arrived at the five o'clock opening time, since things get crowded there sometimes. Our group was largish at a dozen, and we were seated out on a spacious screen porch with an enormous swamp cooler blowing over us.

Despite the mid-July heat we were very comfortable. The live music is inside the store where long trestle tables are filled with parties seated all together. In that compact space the old worn floorboards of the general store bustle with customers finding seating, servers delivering food, wait staff taking orders, and those departing checking out at the cashier.

This and numerous people catching up with old acquaintances that they have run into in this out of the way place. Our celebratory party sampled the majority of the items on the simple, constant menu. Gibbes is famous for its grilled steaks and New Zealand rack of lamb chops, however the pork chops and seafood entrees were also excellent, and all are served on paper plates with paper towels for napkins.

The portions were generous and several pairs in our party chose an available option to split their entree and get an additional plate with two sides. The sides were casseroles, whole potatoes (sweet and russet -- with all the trimmings), and salads. No one had room for a full dessert, but we shared around pieces of buttermilk pie and a funeral brownie, for which a handful of spoons were thoughtfully provided.

Gibbes did not disappoint and was worth the drive. From Magnolia our navigational system said it would take us ninety minutes for the eighty something miles and it was dead on. Thank goodness for GPS, because once we left I-55 at exit 72 for Utica we were on windy, shady backroads for thirty minutes.

We were tooling down Dry Grove Road talking ninety to nothing when Melissa Johnson, the driver, slowed as an animal ambled into the road in the distance. As we got closer and it turned broadside it became apparent that it was not the expected large dog or wild pig. "Oh, my gosh!

That's a bear!" Passenger Elizabeth Woodall and Louise Lampton confirmed. We drew up to where it had left the road and at the edge of the woods, it turned and looked at us. We were stopped in the middle of the road, but too flustered to get our cameras up and windows open to take a picture before it galloped off into the woods.

We were thrilled! It was the first time any of us had seen a black bear in Mississippi. Black bear conservation has been an ongoing project of the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks.

More and more sightings of black bears have been reported as a growing bear population has moved east from the Mississippi River corridor. As people begin to encounter bears for the first time information and education is crucial for their continued success. They are most frequently sighted on trail cameras, breaking into deer feeders.

Because they are opportunistic they are now moving into people's trash cans and bird feeders. They have sometimes been compared to really large raccoons. For more information there is a Facebook page called Mississippi Black Bear open to the public.

There people share their sightings along with videos and photos (captured by people with more presence of mind than our party had). All in all a memorable and entirely satisfactory outing to Learned, Mississippi.