The Rest Haven Restaurant has been a Clarksdale tradition for over half a century. Located conveniently on Highway 61, this cozy eatery attracts visitors from around the world. From Faulkner scholars, to Tennessee Williams connoisseurs, to down home Delta blues lovers, a trip to the Delta is never complete without a meal at Chamoun's Rest Haven.
The unique Southern culture found in Clarksdale draws visitors from around the world every year. New comers to the Mississippi Delta are surprised to discover a Middle Eastern cuisine sharing the same table with black-eyed peas and collard greens. They are also surprised to learn that the Delta is the home of various nationalities including Lebanese, Italian, Chinese, German, as well as Anglo-Saxon, African and Native American.
The Rest Haven is perhaps known best for its kibbie specialties. Kibbie is made with lean ground round, cracked wheat, olive oil, onions and special seasonings. You can indulge in kibbie sandwiches, kibbie patties, kibbie baked, kibbie friedeven kibbie raw. You can eat kibbie with pine nuts, cabbage rolls, stuffed grape leaves, tabouli salad, and tasty homous dip.
Other favorite meals include home made spaghetti, ravioli, gyros, and lasagna. The regular dinner menu includes prime rib, steaks, shish kabob, scrimp, chicken and catfish. Of course each morning starts out with a good ole southern breakfast of country ham, bacon, sausage, biscuits, eggs and pancakes. Daily lunch plates offer a variety of southern cooking guaranteed to satisfy the hungriest diner.
One can not mention the Rest Haven without a word about those pies! Coconut and chocolate cream pies with mile-high meringue have been famous here for over 27 years. People have been known to travel from Vicksburg and Memphis just for a piece of that pie! An unsettled dispute continually breaks out over which is betterchocolate or coconut.
Lebanese people began immigrating to Mississippi in the 1880's. Many of the early Lebanese residents sold dry goods door to door and eventually opened their own stores. Chafik and Louise Chamoun arrived in the United States in 1954. Chafik "borrowed a suitcase and received fifty dollars credit from a wholesaler of women's apparel." He peddled women's clothing door-to-door for years until opening his own grocery store in the 1960's in Clarksdale.
Customers noticed Chafik eating a strange looking sandwich that Louise made frequently for his lunch. After sampling this oddity called "kibbie," a steady increase of customers started asking Louise to make them similar sandwiches and Chafik had to move tables and chairs into the store to accommodate what became a regular luncheon tradition in Clarksdale. In the words of Chafik, "Once everybody tasted, everybody wanted."
To a great extent the Lebanese community has assimilated into the American culture. However, though clothing and language has changed, the Lebanese foods have persisted. Traditional foods made with cracked wheat, parsley, and grape leaves are still very popular.
(Information from Mississippi's Ethnic Heritage, John H. Morrow, Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry/National Agricultural Aviation Museum, Jackson, MS.)
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http://www.clarksdale.com/chafik.htm -- Revised: 25 Feb 1996
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