For six decades, travelers driving between Memphis and Nashville have found a reliable roadside refuge in Jackson, Tennessee, where a sprawling culinary and historical destination continues to serve up generations of traditional Southern culture. Brooks Shaw’s Old Country Store, located at Casey Jones Village, celebrated its major diamond milestone in May 2025. What began as a humble antique museum complemented by a modest lunch counter has steadily evolved into a multi-generational institution, drawing national acclaim and cementing its place as a quintessential stop for road-trippers seeking an authentic taste of the American South.
The story of the establishment stretches back to 1965, when Brooks Shaw and his family originally opened its doors as a showcase for historical artifacts and curiosities. As visitors lingered among the antiques, appetites inevitably followed, prompting the expansion of the small lunch counter into a full-scale dining operation. In 1978, the enterprise made its permanent move to its current home within Casey Jones Village, anchoring a destination dedicated to regional heritage. Today, the business remains proudly family-owned and operated into its third generation, with founder Brooks Shaw’s grandson, Brooks Shaw, stepping into the role of President in December 2024. This rare level of generational continuity has preserved the restaurant’s core identity, allowing it to maintain the exact culinary standards that first drew patrons in decades ago.
A Sixty-Year Habit of Feeding Folks Right
Maintaining a high-volume Southern buffet for sixty years requires unwavering dedication to scratch-made cooking, a philosophy that has not gone unnoticed by the culinary world. USA Today’s 10Best rankings have repeatedly recognized the establishment, naming it the number four best buffet in America for four consecutive years. This consistent national recognition highlights an operation that honors traditional cooking methods without leaning on shortcuts. The kitchen approaches its daily service with a clear focus on heritage, offering three meals a day that mirror the spread of an elaborate Sunday family dinner from generations past.
The dining experience itself is heavily influenced by the visual and historical atmosphere of the room. Rather than featuring standard restaurant decor, the vast dining hall is completely filled with thousands of authentic antiques, successfully recreating the look and feel of a turn-of-the-century general country store. This immersive environment directly reflects the business’s roots as a museum, offering diners plenty of historic artifacts to examine between courses while providing families with a natural conversational backdrop. The front-of-house workflow remains straightforward and efficient; patrons pay for their buffet and beverages upfront, while attentive servers manage drink refills and plate clearance, allowing guests the freedom to focus entirely on the extensive buffet line.
Fried Chicken That Never Saw A Freezer
When it comes to the proteins anchoring the daily spread, quality control is paramount. The kitchen prides itself on serving hand-battered fried chicken and catfish that have never seen the inside of a freezer, a distinction that immediately sets the standard for the entire meal. Depending on the day of the week, the buffet typically features a rotating selection of seven to eight distinct meat dishes, ensuring that repeat visitors always find something new to sample alongside enduring favorites.
House-smoked meats share prime real estate on the line alongside the traditional fried specialties. Slow-smoked pulled pork and tender ribs regularly make an appearance, offering smoke enthusiasts a rich, savory alternative to the crispy fried options. Meanwhile, fresh catfish remains a vital regional staple, hand-battered and fried to order in a manner that feels increasingly rare on modern buffet lines. First-time visitors often benefit from a measured approach, taking small portions of multiple meats on an initial trip before committing to a second plate, ensuring they can experience the breadth of the kitchen’s offerings without filling up too quickly.
Your Vegetable Plate Is About To Get Crowded
The vegetable selection on the buffet is exceptionally robust, routinely featuring fourteen to fifteen distinct options that elevate side dishes from mere accompaniments to the centerpiece of the meal. Leafy green lovers are well-catered to with both turnip greens and collard greens prepared in the traditional Southern style, while slow-cooked white beans provide a deeply comforting, hearty element. Sweet potatoes add a touch of natural sweetness to the savory table, and rich macaroni and cheese holds a permanent and undisputed place of honor among the vegetables.
This heavy emphasis on variety ensures that diners seeking a meatless meal can easily assemble a complete, highly satisfying plate entirely from the side dishes. An extensive salad bar, accompanied by homemade soups, provides a lighter starting point for those who prefer to ease into their meal. The sheer volume of choices encourages culinary exploration, making the buffet an ideal environment for guests to sample unfamiliar regional preparations without financial or appetite-related risk.
Watch The Cornbread Happen Right In Front Of You
Few elements capture the theatrical and culinary traditions of the restaurant quite like its hot water cornbread. Prepared from a cherished recipe belonging to the founder’s mother, the cornbread is cooked fresh on a griddle positioned directly in the middle of the buffet line. This transparent preparation allows diners to watch the process unfold in real-time, eliminating any mystery regarding how long the bread has been sitting.
Hot water cornbread relies on a simple, time-tested combination of cornmeal and boiling water, yielding a dense, savory cake with a crisp exterior that pairs exceptionally well with slow-cooked beans and greens. For many patrons, tearing a piece of the freshly griddled cornbread directly into a bowl of greens represents a direct connection to generations of Southern home cooking. The constant rotation of fresh batches ensures that timing frequently works in favor of guests lingering near the griddle.
Save Room, Because Three Cobblers Are Waiting
The dessert lineup at the buffet is anchored by a trio of homemade cobblers featuring apple, blackberry, and peach fillings, with the peach variation drawing particularly high praise from returning visitors. Alongside the warm fruit cobblers, traditional Southern banana pudding occupies a prominent place on the dessert table, completing the nostalgic spread.
Because choosing a single favorite among the cobblers can prove challenging, many experienced guests utilize smaller dessert bowls to sample a spoonful of each variety, or share multiple selections across the table. This sweet finale transitions seamlessly into the broader property offerings, as the dessert experience is designed to flow naturally into the adjoining ice cream parlor, where additional treats await those with room to spare.
An 1880s Soda Fountain Serves Up The Sweet Stuff
Located just steps from the main dining room, Miss Anne’s Ice Cream Shoppe houses one of only three known surviving 1880s soda fountains of its kind. Named in honor of founder Brooks Shaw’s wife, the parlor is meticulously designed to replicate an authentic 1890s ice cream shop. The rare antique fountain serves as the crown jewel of the space, drawing curious visitors even if they bypass the main buffet entirely.
The shoppe serves generous scoops of Blue Bell ice cream alongside handspun milkshakes, old-fashioned candies, and homemade fudge. A self-serve candy section sold by the pound offers a nostalgic experience for adults and a hands-on treat for children. Recognized nationally by USA Today as one of the top fifty ice cream parlors in the nation, the shoppe functions as a standalone destination within the broader country store complex, perfect for picking up a cone or a milkshake for the highway.
Short On Time? The Dixie Cafe Has Your Back
For travelers operating on a tighter schedule who cannot commit to a full buffet lunch, the Dixie Cafe provides an efficient alternative. Situated next to Miss Anne’s Ice Cream Shoppe, the cafe offers plate lunches featuring the same core Southern recipes found on the main buffet line, alongside a broader menu that includes burgers, hot dogs, chicken sandwiches, and classic fried green tomatoes.
Breakfast is served from Monday through Thursday, accommodating early-morning motorists looking for a hearty start to the day. The inclusion of a newly renovated drive-thru further enhances convenience, allowing patrons to secure traditional Southern comfort food without leaving their vehicles. This setup provides a flexible dining solution for diverse travel groups, ensuring that those in a rush or with specific menu preferences can still partake in the culinary traditions of the property.
Climb Aboard A Famous Steam Engine After Lunch
A meal at Brooks Shaw’s Old Country Store invariably extends beyond the table, thanks to its setting within Casey Jones Village. Anchored by the restaurant, the village features a diverse collection of attractions, highlighted by the Historic Casey Jones Home and Railroad Museum. Visitors can walk through a replica of a historic train station and climb aboard Engine 382, a massive 130-ton steam locomotive, to ring its heavy bell.
Additional points of interest include Miss Juanita’s Gift Shop, which spans roughly 3,000 square feet and stocks regional jams, jellies, apparel, and Tennessee-made goods. History enthusiasts can also explore the Providence House, an 1837 mansion that serves as both an event venue and an official Civil War Trails stop. Outfitted with modern amenities such as Tesla charging stations in the parking lot, the village bridges historical preservation with contemporary travel needs, turning what was intended to be a quick roadside meal into a full afternoon exploration between Memphis and Nashville.
