Drago's opening Jackson, MS restaurant

Jimbo said

I honestly hope it works out. Hopefully the proximity to I55 will help it. Ralph and Kacoos and Copelands both failed miserably. Now that area is even more hood-like than it was back when Copeland's folded. On the other hand, I heard Fudruckers was opening across the interstate so maybe there will be a revival of that area of sorts. For the life of me I can't figure out why they just didn't open in Rennaisance or Dogwood.

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Copelands failed miserably but so has every other place that ever entered that building. Ralph and kacoos failed miserably because it was just not very good and high priced. It's going to take more than Fudruckers to revive an area.

I hate County Line Rd but it is so close to I-55 that it isn't an issue. A lot of stores in Renaissance are struggling and it is a major PITA parking in at a mall to go eat. You can give it as fancy of a name as you want, bring in nice stores, build it in an old town square setting with nice fountains but it is still a mall.

County Line Rd/I55 is always going to be a heavy traffic area. The Hilton is always going to provide consistent customers and it is easy for them to pull from Madison/Ridgeland as well as Flowood yet still pull from downtown for people taking long lunches.

They have the publicity and excitement to make them profitable right away. The only thing that is going to hurt them is service and quality. That will be the challenge. Jackson has had some very good restaurants start out good and take a dive because they couldn't keep consistent quality employees.

The one thing I would have done differently is tried to find a location on the other side fo the road to be in Ridgeland instead of Jackson because Jackson likes to try and leach off businesses instead of support them. There just isn't space available across the street and certainly not a building being vacated by a large upscale restaurant. I wont miss Huntington Grill, hated everything about that place.