Falling in love with Tupelo

Two statues with one name: Becoming, located outside Elvis’ birthplace, depict Elvis the boy and Elvis the superstar

The birthplace of Elvis is a town full of fun and surprises

JENNY BLOCK | Contributing Writer
JennyEBlock@iCloud.com

Falling in love with small towns and cities was not on my bingo card for 2026, or ever really. But here we are. This year I have found myself exploring places that you might call sleepers. My latest was Tupelo, Miss., and believe me, this is not a place you should be sleeping on any longer

I’m not particularly an Elvis fan, and, as far as I knew, that was Tupelo’s real claim to fame.

But my grandma Jeanne is an Elvis fan, and if she digs it, I’m in. So despite not knowing anything else about Tupelo, I was game to dive in.

So, you can imagine my surprise when what I expected to be a simple weekend in a new place turned out to be a weekend full of surprises. Tupelo just might be one of the best kept secrets when it comes to weekend getaways — from the food to the sights to the people.

I started out with lunch at the Amsterdam Deli. It was super cute. And the menu was not just the usual suspects. Alongside soups and salads, there were gyros and shwarma, falafel and flatbreads. The portions were generous and the food was delicious.

Hotel Tupelo was to be my home away from home, and it was love at first sight when I arrived. The staff was so friendly, and my room was comfy and well-appointed. The bed was a little too inviting, and the bar downstairs was a little too much fun, with table shuffleboard and great live music.

But those are the best problems to have at a hotel.

I felt like I was on a whirlwind tour my three days there. I visited the Queen’s Reward Meadery, which opened in May 2018 and where all of the mead is made with 100 percent Mississippi honey. I didn’t even know I liked mead. Turns out I love it.

The fabulous owner, Jeri Carter, tells the best stories, and on top of all the mead options, you can also opt for a flight of slushies, which I highly recommend.

The food
I had so much great food that week — Chef Cooper Miller’s innovative Southern cuisine
at Forklift Restaurant; delicious samosas and korma at Namaste Indian Cuisine; mouthwatering brisket at Clay’s House of Pig; yummy coffee at Lost + Found Coffee Company; decadent Connie’s blueberry doughnut bread pudding at Blue Canoe; build-your-own bloodys and wild benedicts at Brick & Spoon, and Thai food at Sao Thai that I could not get enough of.

And, honestly, I cannot stop thinking about.

When it came to exploring the food of Tupelo, one of the best parts was going to the classic, little old-school haunts that the locals have been lining up for for years:

• Connie’s Chicken: Holy smokes. Biscuits and gravy and blueberry donuts, oh my. Before Connie’s, I didn’t even know I liked biscuits and gravy, and I would never order a donut without chocolate. Well, now I stand corrected.
• Johnnie’s Drive-In: I had my very first dough burger — a depression-era invention where flour (or another filler) is used to stretch the meat. It was shockingly good and insanely inexpensive. Elvis was known to eat there, and the booth where he always sat is marked accordingly.
• Talbot House Bakery: Not only are they a nonprofit transition program for women, they also serve enormous and insanely good cinnamon rolls.

The Elvis tour
I swear I did do more than eat and drink while I was there. I visited Elvis Presley’s birthplace, where I got to see the teeny house he was raised in as a really impressive museum that takes you through his life, from birth to stardom.

If you want to dig even deeper, you can take the Elvis’ Tupelo Driving Tour with landmarks frequented by Elvis when he was young, including the Tupelo Hardware Company where he got his very first guitar.

Rumor has it he wanted a .22-caliber rifle, but his mother refused. The clerk stopped his tears with a guitar and started the gospel singing youngster on a musical trajectory no one could have imagined.

Shopping
Already a fan of Blue Delta custom jeans — and AirForce1s! — I was SO excited to visit the mothership. Everyone there was so nice, and you can literally see how they design, make, and even ship their jeans. You can get measured there or do the process online, and they can make you jeans — and other pants — in a ton of colorways and styles.

I wandered downtown Tupelo and took in all of their fabulous, many Elvis-inspired, murals. I shopped at Reed’s Department Store, one of the oldest department stores in Mississippi, and visited all sorts of charming boutiques and shops, as well as the Caron Gallery, specializing in art by Mississippi artisans.

The museums & more
Then there was the Gumtree Museum of Art; Oren Dunn City Museum, the Elvis Guitar Trail, Natchez Trace Parkway and the Relics Antique Marketplace, which I could have meandered through forever.

There was honestly too much to see, do, and eat in just a few short days. But despite the great food and sights and history and shopping, none of that came even close to the best part — the people.

If you read my columns, you know making connections and meeting people is, well, my thing. I somehow felt like I belonged there.

From the servers to the shopkeepers to the locals I met all along the way, everyone was so welcoming and warm and willing to share their Tupelo. I’m proud to say I have my Tupelo now, too, and I can’t wait to go back and explore her more.