Tucker Community Spotlight

 
When a favorite restaurant closes, oftentimes it spurs loyal patrons to find a new haunt. In the case of the S&S Cafeteria at Embry Village, it led one loyal customer to open a new restaurant altogether.

The man who goes by the name “Mister Louis” says the S&S was an institution. “We tried so hard not to have the cafeteria close,” he recalls. “Suddenly we were left with 43 people without jobs and nowhere for the senior community to eat.”

So Mister Louis bought much of the Cafeteria’s equipment, hired most of their staff and opened his own place, Magnolia Room on Hugh Howell Road. “It’s your classic Southern cuisine,” he says, adding “most of these recipes are over 80 years old.”

Boasting traditional offerings like fried chicken, home style meatloaf, fried okra and sweet potato pie, Magnolia Room gives diners from all across Tucker and surrounding areas another option when it comes to cafeteria-style Southern dining. While the recipes may be old, the restaurant is jumping on the relatively recent trend of locally-sourced foods. “We’re proud to say that we’re now partnering with Sherry’s Produce here in Tucker to provide us now with fresh fruits and vegetables,” Louis explains.

Although it’s been open for several months, Magnolia Room held a formal ribbon cutting attended by the Mayor and members of the City Council on June 13. Customers can keep up with their ever-changing menu at magnoliaroomtucker.com or 
facebook.com/MagnoliaRoomTucker.

“Last year I was conducting a monthly clergy meeting when Cliff Gates mentioned trying to host some type of basketball tournament between teenagers and officers to improve that relationship and foster a positive impression of police officers in the minds of teenagers. Everyone thought it was a great idea, but immediately recognized that it would be a big undertaking. Cliff volunteered to look into it and see if it was plausible.

Since that time, he has coordinated with the DeKalb PALS unit, Tucker Precinct, Tucker High School, Tucker Recreation Center, the City of Tucker and was even able to get the Atlanta Hawks to assist and sponsor the event. With the assistance of several volunteers, he scheduled the entire event, which culminated in April at Tucker High School where more than 100 teenagers participated in the tournament. Each three-man team had an officer that worked with them throughout the tournament. Through his efforts, these teenagers were able to play alongside a DeKalb County police officer and had the opportunity to see us as regular people and in a positive light. In a time where officers are routinely demonized in daily newscasts, this event was the chance to show those within the community just one of the many positives that police officers perform on a daily basis.

This was just the latest of many events that Cliff Gates has organized for our police department, all of which have always cast the department and officers in a positive light. He recently had Kroger donate ice cream to feed 1,000 and then coordinated with Tucker Precinct to have officers give them out to students at Tucker High School during lunch for free. He has organized several officer appreciation luncheons at Mountain West Church, where volunteers have fed officers from the entire department for free. He routinely organizes volunteers for the precinct for our holiday events and special projects throughout the year. All of this he does on his own time and for the betterment of the Department. It is for these reasons that I would like to nominate him for the Citizen of the Month in Tucker.”

Nomination by Major G.A. Padrick, Tucker Precinct Commander