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L-R: Destin Mathis, Larita Mathis, and Jacquelyn Mitchell
Unlike other restaurants that claimed Elvis Presley visited their eating establishment on occasion, Dale’s counts Elvis as a “regular.” Owner Larita Mathis remembers the King eating at Dale’s, her family’s restaurant in Southaven, Mississippi, back when it was known as “Dairy Haven.”
“He had big sideburns, I remember that,” she says. “He had the poofy hair.” Mathis, who was 8 at the time, says, “He had a lot of conversations with my daddy and my mom.”
Her parents, the late Earnest Dale Graham and Lillie Graham, were the founders/owners of the iconic pink-and-green restaurant, which opened in 1966.
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It's hard to miss the bright-pink building on Main Street in Southaven.
The spacious, bustling restaurant, which seats about 300, contains four dining rooms. The equally bustling menu lists mouth-watering items, including ribeyes, chop steaks, catfish platters, and the ultimately Southern “Chicken Fried Chicken.”
“Chicken fried chicken is one of our best sellers,” says Mathis “We take a chicken breast, hand-bread it, and deep-fry it.”
With white gravy on the side, of course.
Dale’s also offers a variety of “Specialty Potatoes,” which include stuffed, loaded, “grilled chicken loaded,” and a “grilled steak and cheese potato.” Hamburgers include the “Char-Burger,” “Bacon Burger,” “4-Star Burger,” and “Southaven Burger.”
Both of her parents were from Hurricane, Mississippi, near Ecru. Her father worked for a Memphis box container factory, but things changed when he and his wife “saw this little block building under construction.” In those days, Southaven’s Main Street was “a little dirt road back then” and he told the builder he would like to lease it from him and sell ice cream.
“We were going to be some of the first families to move there,” says Mathis. “He thought there needed to be a place where people could get something to eat. Not very expensive and not very fancy.”
The family added on five times and changed the name from Dairy Haven to Dale’s in 1981. “We expanded the first time to a roast beef place with a salad bar and burgers. We still had ice cream at that time. Then we expanded here again in the early ’80s. When we took out the salad bar and added steaks, we changed the name to Dale’s.”
photograph by michael donahue
Crystal Walls
People watched her dad cooking steaks in a charcoal pit from a little front window, and “everything smelled like charcoal.” They added one more room, began serving vegetables, and the menu became what it is today. “We have burgers, salads, and a lot of choices,” says Mathis, adding, “everything is homemade. We don’t cook anything from a can.”
Desserts include chocolate pie made from her grandmother’s recipe, and lemon pie and banana pudding from her mother’s recipes.
Dale’s will be open on Thanksgiving, as they are every year. “We do chicken and dressing. Customers can choose their vegetables. Homemade sweet potato pie comes with it. Yeast rolls and cornbread.”
Celebrity guests over the years have ranged from sports stars to singers. Graham had a photo made of himself with Barbara Bush when the former First Lady visited Dale’s. He put the picture on a wall but, Mathis says, “Everyone would come in and say, ‘Is that your wife?’
“He would take it down and hide it in the trunk of his car. We would find it and hang it back on the wall. It’s not there right now.”
As for the King of Rock-and-Roll, Mathis says, “Elvis used to eat here all the time. I was a little kid and he was an old guy to me then.”
Her dad would ask Elvis, “Can you give me an autograph for my daughter?” And she says he always would. She recalls that he ordered milkshakes and corndogs, neither of which they now sell.
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photograph by larita mathis
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lvis, who often drove up on his motorcycle, wore “the whole leather outfit with the pants and everything.” He sometimes visited with a group. “We had a picnic table in front of the building. They would go sit out at that picnic table and eat.”
Her father owned more than one Dale’s, Mathis says. “He had some 16 franchises for a while in the early ’80s. I would go around to all of them and train the employees and things like that. We eventually decided not to franchise anymore and try to keep it local.”
The family once owned a barbecue restaurant, Dale’s Smokehouse Cafe, in Batesville, Mississippi. And Mathis also owned Rocket City, a ’50s-style restaurant in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
They kept the Hattiesburg location for a while, but later changed the name of restaurant, which was across the street from the University of Southern Mississippi, to the hipper-sounding Chesterfield’s.
Mathis’ children, Jacquelyn Mitchell and Destin Mathis, today manage Dale’s. Long-time employees include server Crystal Walls, who’s been with the restaurant for 51 years, and kitchen staff member Vita Green, who’s worked there almost 30 years.
Asked if she’d ever open another Dale’s, Mathis says, “I’ll never say I won’t. There’s always a possibility.”
So, what happened to all those Elvis autographs? “You know what? I don’t know where they are,” says Mathis. “We had a lot of old paperwork that I found here recently and I hope they’re in there.”
Dale’s is located at 1226 South Main Street in Southaven, Mississippi.
