Coney Island Cafe
“My great grandfather, Arthur, lived on the Isle of Patmos in Greece, the same island where the Book of Revelation was written.
He came to the United States through New York, went South, and ended up here in Hattiesburg. Then, in 1923, out there on the sidewalk in front of the café, he set up a cart to sell fruit and hotdogs until he had enough money to build the building. He moved all the fruit inside for a few years and then decided to change it into a short-order café.
After my great grandfather, my grandfather ran it until 1983, the year I was born. But then he had a stroke, and that's when my dad had to step in
They say history repeats itself and it does, because of why I had to step in for my dad.
For 35 years, my dad never missed a day of work. When he had to get his rotator cuff fixed, he scheduled the surgery for a Friday afternoon so he could be back at work on Monday morning, and he was.
One thing I’ll say about my dad is that I've never heard a bad thing about him, from anybody, ever. Even today, people come in and they’re like, ‘Where's the tall guy that worked here?’ They’ll say they used to eat here years ago, and when I tell them what happened, some of them will literally break down into tears and say, ‘He fed me when I didn't have any money.’
I was living with him when he got sick. One day, he came home from work, sat down to watch TV, and asked me to look at something. He pulled his shirt to the side and there was a bump on his neck. He said that it hurt, and was out of breath from just walking inside the house.
Well, the next day he came home from work again and said, ‘I'm going to go to the doctor today, something’s not right.’
The doctors thought that it could be lung cancer because he used to smoke. But after a biopsy, they found out it was extremely rare form of cancer called signet ring cell adenocarcinoma, found in only one percent of cancer patients.
94% of those are stage four.
A couple of days before he went into hospice, things were to the point where we knew it wasn't going to be much longer. He was still able to talk then, and so one night me and my sister asked him what he wanted us to do with the café.
His exact words were, ‘Y'all just sell it. Sell it and split the money. It needs too much work.’
But that didn’t sit right with us, so me, my sister, all the employees and about five customers who have been coming in for 50 years met up at the café to talk about what to do.
Nobody, not one person, wanted to see it sold.
My sister said, ‘Dad really wanted to make it to 100 years. We’re only five years away, and I think we can do it and I think BJ can run it.’
Right then I stopped her and said, ‘Look, if we're going to do this, the goal ain’t for five years. Either we're going for 100 more or we're not doing it at all.’
It was only 29 days from the time he got sick to the day my sister called me and said, ‘You need to get here now.’
I drove 100 miles an hour the whole way, running every red light. When I walked into the room, everybody was mourning, crying—he had passed about seven minutes before I got there, and that’s when I lost it.
I tell people that when I took over the café, I didn’t even know how to cook a bowl of cereal, and that’s the truth. There were many good customers who let me burn stuff, they’d still lie to me and tell me it was good, and then come back and give me another shot. I didn’t know anything about running a business, about having employees. I didn’t know anything about taxes.
We do things the old way, even though there are things we could change. We still take orders from the payphone, the last one in Hattiesburg. I still cut the French fries in the back by hand, every day. We use the same recipes that my dad and my grandpa had.
You don’t change what’s not broken. It’s worked for a long time and I don’t think my ideas would be any better. Those are the things that people come back in for and we have customers who have been coming back here every day, sitting in the same spots, since before I was born and I love listening to their stories.
Bobby, he’s going to sit in that seat twice a day every day: every morning at six, and then for lunch around 11:30. We have some paintings he’s done, including on of my dad, hanging up on the wall.
Sitting across from Bobby at lunch is a man with the nickname of Country. He’s been coming here since he was a baby, just a couple days old, and got the name 'Country' back in ‘53. He was on the basketball team and couldn’t shoot his layups the right way, so the coach said, ‘You play basketball like a country boy!’ And the name stuck. He’s very smart, used to be a Boeing worker back when he was younger, and he's worked with airlines his whole life.
Sitting beside him is Drew Turner. He's the owner of Turner Taxidermy right around the block. He's the third or fourth generation in here eating. Drew comes in and he's always got a story about animals or something he caught in his trap.
They always pull this table right here up to sit and on the other side of that table is a man named RT. He was one of my dad's best friends. He comes in every day and he's an airbrush artist. He's done our signs up here for our prices. He spray-painted that hot dog back there and he's just a family friend who has been eating here for 40 years.
It’s been five years since my dad passed away on January 23, 2018, and I've also gotten better, better at being a boss, better at being a cook, better at being an owner, but I’ve still got a lot of room to grow.
I think if my dad could see us now, he would be happy that it's still here. He’d be surprised because he told us to sell it, but making it to 100 years was a goal of his and knowing we made it would make him happy.
He’d be proud of the fact that we're still open and not bankrupt and haven’t burned the building down. Proud that I get up and come in every day. I think he would be proud that I took the initiative to learn how to do this on my own.
History repeats itself, and our history is one I’m proud to repeat. My dad did it for 35 years, never missing a day. I'm five years in with 30 more to go.”
– BJ Fokasis of Coney Island Cafe
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