The Artful Evolution of Hal & Mal’s

By Malcolm White, Ginger Williams Cook and Robert St. John

The Artful Evolution of Hal & Mal's is a collaboration between artist Ginger Williams Cook and author Malcolm White about the people, the place, and the history of Hal & Mal's, an iconic institution in downtown Jackson, Mississippi.
Featuring beautiful watercolor paintings, the book brings together thirty years of family history, live music performances, and cafe society through graphic designs of old photographs, original illustrations, Hal's legendary recipe cards, and the written word. Opening with a foreword by the renowned author and chef Robert St. John and featuring Ginger's bold and vibrant look at a place she grew up patronizing, The Artful Evolution of Hal & Mal's captures the reflective, quirky voice of one half of the dynamic team known to millions as Hal & Mal.

Hal & Mal's was conceived by brothers Hal and Malcolm White. The dream was rooted in a childhood on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, reinforced by years of living and working in New Orleans, and ultimately launched in Jackson in 1985. This gathering place has always been owned and operated by family--now the second and third generations. The multifunctional, southern-soul-soaked rooms are adorned with memorabilia and chock-full of local character; each one also features a stage for live music. The kitchen serves a steady offering of hearty regional staples with a nod toward the Gulf of Mexico.
Hal & Mal's is the most-talked-about upscale honky-tonk in all of Mississippi, where art is made, music plays, and folks gather to share community and celebrate the very best of Mississippi's creative spirit.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Release date: Feb 14, 2018
• ISBN: 9781496816894

Malcolm White

Malcolm White, Jackson, Mississippi, is a public servant and entrepreneur who has worked in the fields of food, music, art, and culture for more than forty years. With their extended family, he and his late brother Hal created and lovingly nurtured the evolution of one of Mississippi's most renowned public gathering places.

Book preview

THE VIGNETTE COURTYARD

In our town, founded where French Canadian Louis LeFleur set up his trading post (approximately where the WLBT television station sits today) around the turn of the nineteenth century, we sometimes forget our story. LeFleur chose the location because of its strategic overview of the bend in the Pearl River; the like-minded entrepreneurs, trappers, and traders who had clustered there; and the large population of Native Americans and others who passed through the spot. In addition, LeFleur’s Bluff, as it is now known, was relatively close to the World Wide Web of the day—aka the Devil’s Backbone or the Natchez Trace, the region’s economic and transportation lifeline. The city of Jackson blossomed over the next century, and in 1927, the GM&O Freight Depot opened on Commerce Street. Fast-forward another fifty years, and the grand old warehouse was sitting abandoned and derelict when Hal and I came along looking for a place to establish a cultural outpost—a gathering place for community, art, and good food. Hal and I tackled the thirty-two-thousand-square-foot structure section by section, as resources and energy allowed. When we opened in 1985, the only functioning spaces were the Dining Room/Pub and the Big Room, often referred to as the Amish Dance Hall by our longtime tenant and beloved resident painter, Richard Kelso. The Oyster Bar came next, and around 1989, the Courtyard. Later, we opened the Neon Fish, sometimes known as the Red Room and at one point the home of Soulshine Pizza; in between, other art studios and living quarters occupied this funky brick establishment.

The French word vignette means small vine. Historically, a vignette was a decorative design or small illustration—branches, leaves, grapes, or the like—used on the title page of a book, at the beginning or end of a chapter, or to separate sections of a book. It has also come to mean a short but graceful literary sketch, usually between eight hundred and one thousand words.

I like to think that vignette aptly describes the French-style Courtyard at Hal & Mal’s, which has a small vine-draped entryway over a heavy, black wrought-iron gate bearing the initials H and M. The vine was planted in a small sliver of soil by Mama Zita more than two decades ago and has grown to cover the entire south end of the building, an addition constructed to serve as a refrigerated storage room for the Merchants Company, which occupied the building after the GM&O vacated. The iron gate was built by Zita’s youngest son, Pat Pigott, who has done many other fencing and ironwork projects for us over the years. When our family got the lease on the building in 1983, the roof on this section of the building had collapsed, leaving it open to the sky. We decided that it would be easier and more interesting to create a courtyard than to try to rebuild the roof and reclaim the space for interior