Alex Dennery was born on the Greek island of Skopelos in 1900 and came to the U.S. in 1920. After working at restaurants in south Florida, he moved to Jackson in 1929 with his wife, Nettie, and two-year-old Charles; a daughter, Elaine, joined them in 1931. The diminutive Dennery lost no time in establishing himself.
In June 1930, Alex opened the Rotisserie at 147 East Capitol Street, between the Heidelberg Hotel and Lamar Street. It was small and inexpensive and he indeed cooked poultry and meat on rotisseries, a curiosity at the time. It specialized in “BBQ products done on a rotisserie, Italian Spaghetti, Kansas City Steaks, and Kosher meats.” The Rotisserie offered a thrifty breakfast: coffee, cantaloupe, hot cakes, two eggs, buttered toast, preserves, and grits for thirty-five cents.
In June 1931, Alex opened Rotisserie No. 2 on Pocahontas Road (then U.S. Highway 49) at Five Points, west of the Baptist Orphanage on Woodrow Wilson. Essentially a brick barbecue stand, it offered curb service (“A touch of your horn button brings a dainty Miss to your car”). On opening weekend Alex promised “Music by New Orleans Radio Artists.”
The Depression Decade of the 1930s wore on and Alex added outdoor dining, dancing to live orchestras, boxing matches, outdoor movies, and even religious services. In 1933 Rotisserie No. 2 expanded its indoor dining space, beginning a transition from barbecue stand to restaurant.
Alex claimed that his restaurant attracted as many as 1,500 cars on some evenings. An obvious overstatement, but there’s no denying No. 2’s popularity. By decade’s end, the downtown Rotisserie had faded away.
Adding to the Rotisserie’s cachet, a Hinds County deputy publicly accused Alex of “selling more whiskey than anybody in the state,” a charge the genial restaurateur modestly denied. The Rotisserie endured repeated dry-state “show raids” but remained rakishly respectable.
During the 1930s, Nettie and Alex created what became a Southern institution: “Come Back” salad dressing. The Rotisserie spelled its original “Kum-Back” and inspired numerous imitation dressings. No copy of the original recipe has surfaced.
In 1937, Alex’s younger brother, Nick, came to the U.S. and started as a Rotisserie waiter. By 1940, he had risen to cook. During the war Nick married Callie Leigh Alexander from Magee and was a partner in the Dixie Cafe in Pensacola, Florida.
At war’s end, the Dennerys sold the cafe and sailed to Nick’s birthplace island of Skopelos. They returned to Jackson in 1948, and Nick bought Tom’s Sea Food House on Silas Brown Street. Re-named Dennery’s Sea Food House, it quickly joined LeFleur’s and the Rotisserie as a Jackson dining institution.
Meanwhile, the Rotisserie had prospered. Alex razed “No. 2” in 1940 and erected the art deco structure that Jacksonians knew as the Rotisserie. Alex billed the restaurant as “Famous Coast to Coast.” Orchestras played for nightly dancing, and the food was outstanding. By the late 1940s, it was one of only two Jackson restaurants recommended by Duncan Hines, the other being LeFleur’s which opened in 1945.
In 1953, Alex sold the Rotisserie to the company that owned LeFleur’s. George M. Wilkinson, who founded and ran LeFleur’s, would also oversee the Rotisserie.
LeFleur’s moved from President Street to the I-55 frontage road north of Northside Drive in 1956. With the Wilkinson family as owners and hosts, LeFleur’s remained there until its closing in 1985, a first-rate dining establishment to the end.
The pairing of LeFleur’s and the Rotisserie lasted only a few years before Alex Dennery regained ownership. The Rotisserie remained at its Five Points location and continued its fine food and entertainment.
In January 1970, the Rotisserie ended its run as a landmark restaurant and supper club. In March, an ad offered the property for lease or sale. By May, tiny ads in the Clarion-Ledger classifieds announced: “The Rotisserie being torn down. Selling restaurant equipment.” Within a year, the familiar art deco building was demolished.
Alex and Nettie Dennery, creators of Kum-Back dressing and hosts to generations of Jacksonians, died in 1973 and 1974, respectively. Dennery’s Sea Food House flourished as “The Most Talked About Restaurant in Jackson.” In the 1960s, Nick Dennery achieved fame—or notoriety, perhaps—for refusing to serve anyone displaying hints of hippiedom. He turned away writer Tom Dupree and an Episcopal bishop because they wore beards. That aside, Nick and Callie Dennery were popular Jacksonians. Nick was a colonel on the staffs of four governors.
Re-named Dennery’s Restaurant, the Sea Food House moved to Greymont Avenue near the fairgrounds in 1976, two years before Nick died. His son, John, closed the opulent restaurant on 25 April 2008.
That afternoon a sign went up: “We are retiring. Thanks for 60 years.” The Dennery dining dynasty had ended.
William Jeanes lives in Dinsmor.
