There is something about sharing a meal that has always brought people together. In McComb, that idea will take on a whole new meaning this fall when one long table stretches down Main Street for an evening centered around food, fellowship and community.
On Monday, October 5, Downtown McComb will host The Main Table, a new community dinner featuring a meal prepared by one of the city’s most recognizable institutions, The Dinner Bell.
Beginning at 7 p.m., guests will gather beneath the lights of Main Street at 219 Main Street for an outdoor dining experience benefiting VisitMcComb.org and the McComb Main Street Association.
The idea behind the event is simple: take the tradition of gathering around a table and bring it right into the heart of the city.
And there may be no better restaurant to help do that than The Dinner Bell.
For generations, The Dinner Bell has been known for its large round tables and rotating Lazy Susans filled with Southern dishes meant to be passed and shared. The round-table dining tradition dates back more than 80 years in Mississippi, when boarding houses used Lazy Susan-style tables as an efficient way to serve large groups.
Although The Dinner Bell itself was never a boarding house, its location near McComb’s railroad and bus stations made it a popular stop for travelers passing through town. Over the decades, sitting down with strangers around one of its tables became as much a part of the experience as the fried chicken, vegetables and famous fried eggplant.
The Main Table takes that same spirit of communal dining and expands it across downtown.
For one evening, Main Street itself will become the dining room, with a beautifully appointed table stretching through the heart of the city. Friends, neighbors, business owners, visitors and people who may have never met before will sit together for a Southern meal prepared by The Dinner Bell.
It is also a fitting setting for an event that celebrates both McComb’s past and its future.
McComb grew around the railroad, and gathering places have long been part of the city’s identity. Today, organizations such as the McComb Main Street Association are working to bring renewed activity to downtown through historic preservation, beautification, local business development, public events and tourism.
The Main Table brings many of those efforts together in one place.
Proceeds from the evening will benefit VisitMcComb.org and the McComb Main Street Association and support their continued work in downtown revitalization, tourism, historic preservation and community development.
But perhaps the most meaningful part of the evening will simply be seeing people gathered together.
There is something wonderfully Mississippi about a table full of food and people sitting around it talking. For decades, The Dinner Bell has shown that a shared meal has a way of turning strangers into neighbors, even if only for an hour.
On October 5, McComb will take that tradition outside.
Instead of gathering around one of The Dinner Bell’s famous round tables, the community will gather around one very long one beneath the lights of Main Street.
It may be a new event for McComb, but the idea behind it is something the city has been practicing for generations: pull up a chair, pass the food and make room for somebody else at the table.
The Main Table will be held Monday, October 5, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at 219 Main Street in Downtown McComb. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Because the event will be held outdoors, October 26 has been announced as the current rain-out date.
Tickets and additional event information are available through VisitMcComb.org and the event’s Eventbrite page.
