Martin's Restaurant & Bar

Martin's is a downtown Jackson bar frequented by a mixed crowd of nine-to-fivers and college kids from Millsaps, Mississippi State and occasionally Jackson State University. They feature live acts frequently enough and one can host a karaoke party if they chose to. Plenty of seating either at the tables or at the bar. Bartenders are friendly folks and you can buy a pack of cigs at the counter.

Wow. It's kind of strange to see people smoking in bars again, but there they are! I don't mind smoking indoors, but I really wish that there was a better ventilation system so that the blue haze wouldn't hover 4 feet above everyone's head.

Looking at the place after having lived in San Francisco for 4 years, the beer and spirits are pretty inexpensive by comparison, but for local Jacksonians, the prices are actually quite standard.

If you get itchy for a slight change of scene, there's Hal and Mal's about 10 feet across the street lot.

In March of 2004, I was driving cross-country, moving from New York to San Francisco. It's a big country, & I was hell bent on exploring as much of it as I could, but I was also keen on keeping my budget on a shoestring, so I'd arranged to crash with friends & friends of friends the whole way.

I was maybe 10 days into my trip & heading towards Jackson when I called my friend Justin (I'd never met the guy, but he'd been vouched for by one of my very good friends who was living in Austin, TX at the time --- she'd gone to college with him). On the phone, as he was guiding me into town, he asked me one of those no-brainer questions:

"Do you like Ted Leo?"
"PSH. Do III like TED LEO?! Damn, son, who DOESN'T like Ted Leo?!"
(actually, I pretty much said "Yeah" or something like that)
"Good, cause he's playing tonight for $8 at this dive called Martin's"

It turned into one of the unforgettable experiences on my trip, as much for the show & the company as for the bar itself. Dirt cheap beer, chain smoking staff, hipster clientele...it's like it stepped right out of the deep Mission & into Jackson. I got good & drunk for about $15 & had myself a nice long slurry conversation with Ted after the show.

I'm sure he was impressed, too...