Big Apple Inn (Jackson, MS restaurant, 1939-present)

The Big Apple Inn on Farish Street in Jackson, Mississippi, was started by Juan “Big John” Mora in 1939. The name was taken from the “Big Apple” dance, a national craze in 1937.
 
Farish Street was known as “Little Harlem,” and it is possible that the Big Apple Inn was also named after the Big Apple bar/restaurant that opened in Harlem in 1934. In 1951, the Big Apple Inn moved across the street from 414 North Farish to its current location at 509 North Farish.
     
Big Apple Inn is known for its smoke sausage sandwiches (“smokes”) and its specialty of pig ear sandwiches.
 
       
Facebook
Big Apple Inn
@BigAppleInn · Soul Food Restaurant
509 North Farish/4487 North State Jackson, MS 39202
   
Newspapers.com
8 March 1939, Daily Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), pg. 5, col. 1 ad:
BIG APPLE, 414 N. Farish
 
Newspapers.com
25 December 1951, The Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), sec. 3, pg. 13, col. 5:
BIG APPLE INN
509 N. Farish
 
Newspapers.com
25 November 1984, Atlanta (GA) Journal-Constitution, pg. 2=A. col. 1:
Farish Street still a page out of Jackson history
Downtown area remains heart of black community
By Raad Cawthon
JACKSON, Miss.—Standing in the steam rising from the griddle of the Big Apple Inn, Dorothy Jackson mashes big link pork sausage into something resembling dark, greasy hash.
 
Newspapers.com
29 August 1985, The Clarion-Ledger / Jackson Daily News (Jackson, MS), pg. 1, col. 2:
Big Apple Inn ‘soul food’ source since ‘39
By CHARLOTTE GRAHAM
 
YouTube
The Big Apple Inn in Jackson, MS
Sep 11, 2014
Visit Jackson
You have to try a Big Apple Inn pig ear sandwich or a hot “Smoke”!
This video is shared from the Southern Foodway Alliance. southernfoodways.org/
     
WAPT (Jackson, MS)
Anthony Bourdain brought ‘Parts Unknown’ to Jackson in 2014
Celebrity chef found dead in France at 61
Updated: 9:34 PM CDT Jun 8, 2018
 
Serious Eats
The Big Apple Inn, A Little Mississippi Diner With an Outsize History
ELLA BUCHAN
Published: June 27, 2018 Last Updated: June 15, 2020
(...)
At first glance, there’s nothing especially remarkable about the Big Apple Inn. But its walls have witnessed more history than the average hole-in-the-wall diner. This is one of the few remaining businesses on Farish Street, once a thriving African-American neighborhood on the edges of downtown Jackson. Back in the day, some called it “black Mecca”; others nicknamed it “Little Harlem.” But in the years following desegregation, the city’s black residents, formerly confined to a limited set of neighborhoods, began shopping and eating in other parts of the city—places where they had previously been unsafe or felt uncomfortable, or had been outright prohibited from visiting.
(...)
For Lee, that history is personal, and familial. As documented by the Southern Foodways Alliance, Lee’s great-grandfather Juan “Big John” Mora arrived in the area from Mexico in the 1930s, launching his business with a tamale cart before opening his first brick-and-mortar in 1939—just across the street from the current location, which opened in 1952. He named the restaurant after his favorite swing dance, the Big Apple, and added hot dogs, bologna sandwiches, hamburgers, and “smokes”—buns filled with ground smoked hot sausage—to the menu.
     
WLBT3 (Jackson, MS)
Historic Big Apple Inn gets special recognition
December 21, 2018 at 7:04 PM CST - Updated December 21 at 7:04 PM
 
Twitter
Jailand C. Williams
@JaiWill__
Back jumping again like the “Big Apple Inn”
“The Big Apple Inn” this hole-in-the-wall joint located in Jackson, MS on Farish Street once rented out offices, with civil rights heroes Fannie Lou Hamer and Medgar Evers among the tenants.
#ItsaClassic #blackhistorymonth
6:56 PM · Feb 28, 2019·Twitter for iPhone
 
Twitter
Simon Urwin
@SimonUrwinPhoto
An ‘ear and smoke’ - a #sandwich duo of smoked sausage (left) and pig ear (right) served at the Big Apple Inn in
@VisitJacksonMS. My words and pictures about this classic of the @DeepSouthUSA on @BBC_Travel now. #food #nomnom
4:44 AM · Jul 4, 2020·Twitter Web App
 
BBC—Travel
Pig ear sandwich: An iconic dish of the American South
This soul-food delicacy that was once about struggle and survival has been transformed into a thing of comfort.
By Simon Urwin
3 November 2020
(...)
Big John built his own food cart, and using an old family recipe, began making and peddling hot tamales on street corners. By 1939 he’d saved enough money to purchase an old grocery store that he set about transforming into a restaurant.
 
“First he had to decide what to call it,” said Lee. “Around that time there was a dance craze sweeping the nation with lots of different moves like the ‘rusty dusty’ and the ‘pose and peck’. The dance was called The Big Apple and it was his absolute favourite. That’s how the place got its name.”