After the disappointment in Amory, we took a series of two- and four-lane roads to Holly Springs, MS.  Bill’s was the first time that a burger from the book hadn’t been at least “good”, so I was hoping for a good experience at Phillips Grocery.

The building was built in the late 1800s and started life as a saloon, which was converted into a grocery store during Prohibition.  When the legal liquor dried up, they switched to dry goods and then began serving burgers in the thirties.  Across the street from a partially restored train station, this place is a throwback several decades.  The menu was, again, simple, but the the burgers were executed to a much higher level of “burger-tude”.  These were good.

Did I mention that they had fried pies, too?This pie looked so promising: pan- instead of deep-fried; fork marks where the crust was pressed together.  It looks very similar to the pies that my grandmother used to make.  But it was just okay.  The filling was made with baked apples instead of dried.  I can still remember getting my grandmother’s house in the summer to find sliced apples drying in the sun on a piece of tin, laid across two saw-horses.  Dried apples would have sealed the deal. Because the burger was good.

I ordered a single cheeseburger.  Seared, crunchy crust.  Nicely cooked center.  Mississippi burgerdom was salvaged.