Authenticity is nearly impossible to manufacture. New restaurants have to earn their place in a community in a way that is not entirely in their control.
Just over five years ago, the Town of Livingston was a promising development and The Gathering was a new restaurant, but in that time the development has begun to populate with tenants and the Gathering and Livingston Mercantile have become a popular dining and hangout spot.
This success owes thanks to owner Bowen Eason and Head Chef Paul Adair, who have embraced their rural location and managed to create something embraced by their community.
Eason has family who lived in the original Town of Livingston around the turn of the 19th century.
When you enter The Gathering, guests are greeted by a photo portrait of his family members — William Littleberry Lewis, Margaret Theodocious Lewis and their children.
Eason said the photo was taken in nearby Pocahontas by a traveling photographer. The Lewis family lived in Livingston for some time before opportunities began to migrate to other centralized locations and the rural township evaporated.
“It really is something, back in those days where you might have to leave town to get a picture of your family, something we can just snap with our telephone today,” Eason says. “I had always heard about how my family was from this area and I love being able to be a part of the revival of its memory. It’s serendipitous.”
Eason is often seen at the restaurant chatting with guests and serving plates of food himself to hungry customers.
He said his background is in the corporate sphere of the food industry, some 38 years, but always wanted to take a shot at owning his own place.
“At first I took it very slow. I started seriously considering ideas in 2007, but by the time I had met Paul and we started working on a menu in October of 2014, it started rolling more quickly from there,” Eason said.
They started serving food in December of 2014.
As restaurants develop, they tend to pick up reputations. The Gathering’s reputation is distinctly Sunday. Their laid-back style offers a variety of Southern comfort food options and their roughly 60-seat dining room easily accommodates large families after church or small groups of friends looking for greasy fried chicken and mimosas.
“We take a lot of care into preparing our food. We have come up with a menu that is familiar and local and is reasonably-priced,” Adair said.
Adair chalks their success up to three things: good and friendly service, potatoes, mashed fresh every day, and properly-prepared fried chicken.
“Our fried chicken is easily one of our best sellers and that surprised me at first, but I found that when you do it properly people notice. A lot goes into frying a piece of chicken and it’s very easy to mess up and skip steps and still have something edible. But, when you take your time to properly wash and bread it, it makes all the difference,” Adair said.
Chef Adair says that Sunday is the right direction, but adds that many people miss out on the spectacle that is Sunday evening.
Meals are served family style with a big plate of fried chicken, bowls of sides and maybe some snacks on the side joined by the sounds of the self-styled “electric catfish, southern acoustic” band, the Accumulators, who take up a corner of the restaurant as they have every Sunday for about the past three years to entertain guests.
‘We have a reputation as a lunch spot, but I think our dinners are where we really get the opportunity to show off our local farmers we partner with. I think it is a whole other level and its something we are really proud of,” Adair said.
And their ingredients are carefully sourced. All their tomatoes and many other vegetables and herbs they put on their plates come from a hot house down the road in Flora. Their milk comes from a local farm, and they source their pork from farms in north Mississippi.
“We want ingredients that speak for themselves and trigger food memories. We might do a dish occasionally with a heavy sauce if that is appropriate, but we want you to taste the incredible ingredients we have found and share that with people,” Adair says.
Case-in-point are their cherry tomatoes, bought from a mystery man just down the road. Legend holds that he procured some seeds from Europe and has been growing flavorful cherry tomatoes in a hot house.
Their kitchen carefully roasts the tomatoes and combines them with a variety of Mediterranean-inspired appetizers on their menu including a butter bean hummus and a salad that features pesto, basil, buffalo mozzarella from Italy and fresh olive oil.
As they roast the tomatoes, the skin wilts just a little and the inside becomes juicier. One bite, the skin pops and a rush of juice boasting that distinct tomatoes flavor, somehow both savory and fruity, meets the taste buds.
“These are just amazing,” Adair said.
They get their milk from Kim Growers, who Adair said just walked in one day asking if they needed milk.
“It was the best milk I ever had and I said every restaurant should use this,” Adair remembers. “We use it in our kitchen and sell it in the general store and have helped her get into a bunch of local kitchens. Everyone uses it now.”
Adair got his start in kitchens in Jackson, where he is from, and Oxford, where he tried to go to school before joining the Army. The Army took him around the world, including being stationed in South Korea and two tours in Afghanistan.
These travels inform many of Adair's decisions as a chef and in particular one of their dishes on the menu: fried catfish bites with Korean gochujang, thick hot sauce, and Mediterranean buttermilk raita, something between a Greek tzatziki sauce and tartar sauce.
“The inspiration is crispy Southern fried catfish with hot sauce and tartar sauce, something very familiar, but we are able to bring these little inspirations to make it our own,’ Adair said popping a catfish bite in his mouth. "It’s really good."
These travels instilled a love for different cuisine, including a particular penchant for Korean food.
After five years of service he went back to kitchens in Oxford for a time before using his GI bill to attend the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in New York City.
This offered him opportunities to cook in high-end restaurants in upstate New York, including a stint at Eleven Madison Park, which features decorations such as James Beard awards and three Michelin Stars.
Adair moved back to the South to start a family where he found work at Table 100, the University Club and finally settling at The Ravine in Oxford. “That place really molded me as a chef,” Adair said — before meeting Eason and “giving this a go.”
Paul’s test, Eason said, was preparing a simple, but beloved Gulf Coast dish, flounder with green beans and mashed potatoes, for his mother’s birthday.
“He put his own twist on it and she loved it,” Eason said. “She was 90 at the time and from the Gulf Coast and said it was the best she ever had.”
For Eason, nailing the vibe and producing a menu that they are proud of is a result of their 48 employees, who come from variety of backgrounds to make The Gathering and Livingston Mercantile work.
Inside, the place is always bustling with activity. Upon entering, you may find yourself in a line leading up to the counter for to-go orders. To your right is a bounty of gifts, including children’s toys, art by local artists — most of which is for sale — candles and locally-made bath bombs. If you walk across the restaurant you will enter the Livingston Mercantile, a general store with more locally-made goods, live crickets and other fishing supplies, a selection of snacks, cold beer, steak marinades, local canned goods and Livingston Mercantile brand pickles, not to mention the full-service gas pumps and countless other items.
However, the dutiful staff makes these complicated transitions seamless.
DJ Fleming is a manager in the general store and said there is a governing principal that ties all their disparate items together.
“We basically just want to be a good ole Southern general store. A quick place to stop in and get something you forgot on your last grocery run or maybe stock up for a fishing trip, but we also have plenty of people who want to come in and look around after dinner. Our main thing is that we want to be convenient which is why we offer full-service gas and wide selection of goods,” Fleming said.
Ron Gueririe is the general manager and Betsy Mullins is their Pastry Chef. Lu Gueririe curates the gift shop and Kacey Saik and Eason’s wife, Elizabeth, dutifully decorated the interior.
“We are really proud of what our staff has done and it is great to see a lot of them are succeeding and chasing their dreams,” Adair said.
But most importantly, Eason said they have created jobs in a part of the county where not much was going on.
“We are in a rural area and you get a lot of people who maybe have a criminal record or spotty work history who can’t get hired anywhere else,” Eason said. “We are proud to say we have created nearly 50 jobs and have had a lot of people go on to do other things. We had a guy working for us and he told us it meant a lot to him to have a job. He now has a good job working on a county road crew.”
“I had a sous chef leave and is now a chef in Jackson. We were sad to see him go but I am glad he has found some success,” Adair said.
Thousands of words could be written and still fail to capture the tastes, sites and sounds of the Gathering during any given seating.
They can be reached at 601-667-4282 or you can experience the communal atmosphere for yourself or stop in for some fishing supplies at 106 Livingston Church Road in Flora or go to livingstonmercantilestore.com
