Taylor Grocery & Restaurant

Wow! What a great experience. I had some locals take me to this hidden little restaurant tucked away in a little town called Taylor,
MS (population 343). Talk about a trip back in time. Taylor Grocery was originally opened in 1889 as a dry goods store. The food, ambiance, music and staff are a delight. Known for their catfish, they also have many southern dishes that are amazing. Be sure to try the fries with rotel cheese, and get a side of Taylor comeback sauce to dip everything into. Side note: BYOB quietly in a red cup.

Coolest restaurant I’ve ever been to! We went after the Olé Miss/​Fresno St. game. I met the Grandson of the original owner, he showed me the original deed when his Grandfather bought the property from the Chiksaw Indians!
The food was good, the atmosphere was amazing! This place feels like the Deep South! This is really a fun place!

Lots of fun to come to Taylor Grocery. Take coolers with drinks and enjoy the tailgating until your table is ready. The place couldn’t be any more southern if it had to be. Food is ok and can be a bit better on some nights than others. The chocolate cobbler is a must do.

Came here with my family when they were in town and they loved everything from the food to the atmosphere. I had fried shrimp and fries and it was delicious. My dad and brother had catfish and they loved it.

Overpriced menu, bland food, crappy music that was far too loud for such a small crappy location. Will NEVER return.

Outstanding fried catfish, incredible fried okra, friendly service. It’s well worth the drive. Get there early or you will wait. The turnover is pretty quick, though.

Came here on a Sunday night for a friend’s birthday. Worst service I’ve received from any restaurant. The staff were also giving us a hard time for adding on an extra person to our party and stated that next time that person would have to sit at a different table.
As for the food, I ordered the country fried pork and chocolate cobbler, both were good and flavorful.
However, service was a deal breaker for us and it is safe to say we won’t be returning here for a second meal.

Hard to beat catfish in Mississippi, right? Combine that with an-​about-​to-​fall-​in old general store and a band, and you have country good times we were here for the UT game and if I had it to do over again I would get there at 6:30, tailgate an hour and wait to eat. That’s part of the experience. Not the best catfish I have ever eaten, but real, real good. More of a four star experience than just food… but would do it again in a heartbeat.

YUMMY… Catfish & slaw… nothing ordinary about this place a must-​try. Live music & BYOBB

I was in town to visit my cousin and go to the Olé Miss/​Texas A&M game. He told me about this place outside of town that everyone goes to and had the best catfish around.
We went, and there was a two hour wait, which ended up ‘only’ being an hour and a half. This place really was in the middle of nowhere, so we couldn’t exactly kill time. A lot of people were hanging out on the porch having drinks which was fun.
The restaurant must draw people with their interesting décor, live music, and decent food. The catfish was ok, and I also tried the spicy chicken. The sides were small for the price. The sweet tea was good.
They need another bathroom. As large as this place is and how many people come, it’s crazy they always have a line to go.

This place is all about the ambiance. Its definitely a place that one has to see in person and visit and I really wanted to love the food. Maybe my meal was off tonight. Truly a local place. Sunday night dinner with a 45 min wait and that was fine. BYOB, sitting on the porch, sipping a beer from a red solo cup and enjoying the end of the weekend and an Olé Miss win. Live locaal country singer also made the night more fun.
After being seated, had to wait about 15 minutes before our waitress came to the table. The menu looked great and I ordered the catfish. Blackened catfish had very good flavor but was not hot, kind of lukewarm. I ordered the coleslaw and beans as my sides. Coleslaw was a little bland, not much flavor and baked beans were ok. Kids meals of chicken tenders and french fries were hot and my wife had the pork tenderloin that was very hot but fried okra that was bland and soggy. My son had the filet wrapped in bacon that he really liked. Other locations in town such as boure, and ajax are much better. I was really surprised as the high rating it received.

Locals told me I had to try Taylor Grocery and it didn’t disappoint. They advertise that they have the «best catfish in Mississippi» and it was pretty awesome. Spent most of the day traveling and arrived very hungry in the late afternoon — just opened for dinner. Had the gumbo for an appetizer and the catfish for my entrée. The food was excellent and filling.
If you’re in Oxford, definitely hit this place up. For a Jersey guy, the town of Taylor was kinda in the middle of nowhere for me, but it’s so worth it!

We stopped here for a Friday lunch during Texas-​Olé Miss football weekend. It may have been the large crowds that weekend, but this place certainly ran out food — and quickly. When we arrived, they had 4 lunch items available (on a dry erase board), but had only 2 options by the time we ordered.
Regardless of whether they have 2 or 13 options available, the catfish is the absolute best. While someone at our table ordered lasagna, it was clear that the catfish is by far the best thing on their menu.
There was no music/​band at lunch, although people suggested that a band plays at nights.
It is BYOB but don’t roll in a cooler (like us clueless Texans), but bring beers/​liquor in a plastic cup. I don’t understand Mississippi laws, but apparently it is legal to drink out of a plastic cup but illegal to pull beers from a cooler.

I was in the great state of Mississippi for less than 36 hours, and I had to have a few things. I had to do some tailgating at the Olé Miss-​Texas game. I had to see my friend. And most importantly, I had to indulge in some fine Pimento cheese. And honestly, I had much more than I bargained for. But I actually didn’t have PC from Taylor Grocery and Restaurant. What actually arose was that we had Taylor cater for us.
Skeptical was I upon first inspection over what exactly they had to offer us, the food being in steam table pans just sitting in the kitchen, awaiting a mass «reheating» at some point in the event. Yeah, my inhibitions were ignited by the hosts waiting to serve the food, but still… catering fried food and the like? Come on.
Then, all those negative expectations were blown away. Not in the way of a feline water-​bound animal, what some like to call Catfish. The fried catfish was, in fact, pretty mediocre. But, the grits made the meal all the more worth it. This wasn’t some southern-​style cheesy-​jalapeño grits. This was straight up baked grits. With an abundance of butter flavor, which can only mean one thing… they use tons of butter. But, the most inviting element was undoubtedly the crust. It was nearly a half inch thick. And I think it was all cheese. It cracked like crème brûlée, if you are at all familiar with that crunch that juxtaposes the creamy inside. Likewise with Tayor’s Grits.
Additionally, there was also offered some odd broccoli stem casserole or something of the sort. Was not really sure. A little runny for my taste. And the black eyed peas were of pretty average quality.
But grits are what have to be ingested when dining with Taylor. Apparently the restaurant also has much more in the way of comfort fare, but for this review’s sake, I found the grits to be out of this world. And Oxford is a town that is pretty out of this world. I love Oxford, with all of its fratty culture and Southern grub.

went back for dinner and — gasp! no fried chicken! that’s a lunch menu item only. the grilled catfish was mighty fine, too, but how bummed were we to find that we had routed our trip through taylor only to be denied the best fried chicken ever?
pretty damned bummed, that’s how much.
saturday night though meant it was the hoppingest joint around with couples and families and everyone gussied up for date night. plus the guitar players sounded swell.
god, i love this place.

Visiting my mom in Oxford on a very perfect night decided to take a ride out to Taylor Grocery based on something she had read. I am SO glad we did. The BEST service, our waitress was the fastest sweetest woman ever! The BEST catfish ever! We did not have the fried catfish, but that also looked delish. The BEST peach cobbler I’ve had so far this weekend. The live music wasn’t too loud and everything seemed to run fast clean and efficiently. Thank you all for making me feel welcome and feeding me!

Darn good catfish. Great atmosphere. bYOB. The fried chicken, grilled chicken and grilled catfish are very good. Thought the coleslaw was good too!

This place really has some of the best Southern fried catfish you will ever taste. I really don’t even like catfish but I like the catfish here. They also have a very respectable selection of many other tasty dishes and cook a mean steak. The main dining area is a great historical place with some very unique additions (like many patrons signatures and mine is in there several places). The place gets crazy crowded during home game weekends so go really early or not at all. It is also right in the middle of tiny Taylor and there is usually some great music going on and a happy group of revelers to join in with and have some fun if you like that type of thing (having fun that is). I’m not a big fan of lunch here as the portions are very small so I would certainly advise against lunch and stick with dinner here. The sides are also in seious need of a remake as they are authentic examples of Southern dishes just not executed in a way that I like. Definitely a «must do» when visiting the Oxford area for the ambiance and catfish!!! Just make sure to bring your own booze!

One can see how Taylor Grocery might be the platonic ideal of road food: the drive down (semi-)country roads to get there, the Rockwell-​perfect setting and storefront, the cabin-​y interior and warm staff, the homey lineup of fried specialties. This is it, you tell yourself – and hushpuppies come with everything!
But you should have known better when you saw what the locals ordered: fries with rotel, meat-​and-​cheese plates with Hilshire Farm sausage links and cubed cheese (velveeta?). Huh? Fried catfish, the house specialty, has a weak cornmeal crust and needs salt; the blackened catfish, though a touch too salty itself, far exceeds it (!). Seriously. Sides were a mess: coleslaw came undressed; potato salad had a gross overabundance of sour cream; the «famous» rice merely a store-​bought pilaf with a lot of added chicken broth. And those hushpuppies: overfried, with no corn flavor evident.
We ended with peach cobbler: too canned, too syrupy, too much goo all around. The ice crea was presumably hand-​dipped by the hard workers at Sysco.
Overrated, significantly so.

This place oozes awesome. If you don’t know what this place is like, stop right now, go to the website, and read the ‘our story’ section. In short, it is a former grocery store on the outskirts of Oxford, MS. There is practically nothing on the way to the place from the city. All of a sudden you come to an intersection and there is a little village. Here lies Taylor Grocery. It’s exactly what you’d hope it would look like, dumpy but so cool. Everyone signs their name on the wall, and there is live music. It’s not so much a restaurant as it is an experience.
So before we went we had some Bourbon and cokes, and since it is BYOB, definitely made to-​go cups to take with us. This proved only to enhance the enjoyment factor. The night we went there was no wait, but during football season especially, I am told it is ridiculous. It’s fine though because you can just set up a tailgate in the parking lot, which is grass. I don’t like fish, and I’ve never had catfish before this, but dang if it wasn’t absolutely delicious. If you’re ever up that way you must go because it is a real treat. I was pumped to go to this place before my trip to Oxford and I was not disappointed one bit.
Just FYI, where it says it is on the map is incorrect.