Along U.S. Highway 61 in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, Chuck’s Dairy Bar — offering a signature burger topped with chili and slaw — is a rare island of community in a region hit hard by rising waters and a shrinking population.
Words & Photographs by Rory Doyle
Chuck’s Dairy Bar has been a mainstay in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, for almost 60 years. Charles “Chuck” Henderson bought the dairy bar in the summer of 1964 for $700. The community hub’s success led him to expand to a sit-down location in 1977.
Before the morning fog lifts off the endless landscape of soybean, corn, and cotton crops, the parking lot of Chuck’s Dairy Bar is already full of pickup trucks. Many farmers stop by daily for a cup of joe with a breakfast sandwich or stack of pancakes. Red and yellow booths are puzzle-pieced together so that conversations a couple tables over are far from private. The sounds from the open kitchen spill into the dining room, which buzzes with talk about farming conditions and market prices, the weather, local politics, town gossip, and the challenges everyone has been up against recently. Locals have been coming for years, decades even, met with the friendly service of the staff who’ve been working the kitchen for just as long.
With breakfast served until 10:30 a.m., it’s not long until the lunch rush begins. A classic lunch order is the famous Chuckburger — a hamburger smothered with American chili, slaw, mayo, mustard, and pickles — served with fries. Lunch or dinner might be a hot plate, with a different option every day of the week, like fried chicken, catfish, meatloaf, or stew, served with two sides. As the restaurant’s name suggests, all this comfort food is followed by ice cream, sundaes, or an old-timey malted milkshake.
Jessica Cole (right) serves customers. Offering breakfast, lunch, and dinner, Chuck’s was started as a dining option for farmers and farmworkers.
It’s been a turbulent few years in the lower Mississippi Delta — a historic six-month flood in 2019, which led the federal government to declare the region around Chuck’s a disaster area; a shrinking economy and population; and, of course, the pandemic. Through it all, Chuck’s is as steady as ever in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, a town of about 2,000 and the largest in the hardest-hit counties of Sharkey and Issaquena. It’s an iconic eatery in the Delta and an enduring fixture in a region where residents are doing everything they can to hold on.
Backwater flooding surrounds a farm in the lower Mississippi Delta in June 2019. While the region’s residents are familiar with late-winter flooding, roughly 500,000 acres of land remained under stagnant water for more than six months.
In the summer of 1964, Charles “Chuck” Henderson purchased an existing dairy bar beside a Rolling Fork service station for $700. It was a small and simple structure on top of a concrete slab. Henderson was not a restaurateur, nor a farmer, like most Deltans, but he did have experience working at country stores and had briefly tried running a restaurant in a Jackson suburb in 1963. He’d gained a reputation for being a hard worker in the timber industry, both in Oregon and Mississippi. Chuck grew up outside the Delta in Ackerman, Mississippi, but ended up in Rolling Fork because his sister lived in the nearby town of Louise.
Chuck’s oldest son, Gary, says his father understood the importance of good business and treating people fairly. 1964 was Freedom Summer in Mississippi, a tumultuous time when those calling for racial justice were attacked by the Ku Klux Klan and law enforcement. It was far from the norm for a white business owner to be providing equal service to all Mississippians, but Gary says this is one of his father’s traits that makes him most proud.
“He tried to run a dairy bar outside the Delta in Clinton, Mississippi, but the Klan ran him out of town when they saw him serving Black and white at the same window,” Gary recalls.
In this photo from the 1980s, Chuck Henderson (left) talks with Rolling Fork resident Wallace Myles, a loyal customer and close family friend. It was Chuck's vision to make the dairy bar a place where the community could sit and stay awhile. Photo provided by Gary Henderson.
These threats didn’t emerge in Rolling Fork, and Chuck’s was able to keep takeout windows open to everyone in the Delta. Chuck’s goal was to become the main dining option for farmers and farmworkers during the spring planting and fall harvest seasons. He often provided food upfront, trusting loyal customers to pay their tabs at the end of the month, a tradition that continues to this day. In 1977, Chuck’s relocated to a bigger building just a few hundred feet up the road. They had steady business and felt like it was time to have a proper sit-down restaurant space instead of just the simple structure on the slab. It was Chuck's vision to grow the space and make it a place where the community could sit and stay awhile. Chuck and his sons built it together.
“My dad used to say that sooner or later, everyone was going to eat at Chuck’s,” Gary says, “because that would be the only place left standing.”
Chuck’s Dairy Bar employees (from left) Lou Ethel Hampton, Barbara Bush, Lettie Bea McNeal, Paula Addison, and “Shug” Rolla Williams in the dairy bar’s kitchen in the late 1980s. Photo provided by Gary Henderson.
Carolyn Washington began working at Chuck’s in 1988. She has been a leading figure in the kitchen for decades, helping to shape the menu that keeps customers coming back year after year. Among her most popular signatures are beef stew, beef tips, chicken spaghetti, turnip greens, and cabbage. To her, Chuck’s provides a rare and meaningful Mississippi setting.
“The Hendersons were the first white people I worked for. I wasn’t brought up around the white community,” Washington says. “Working with them was awesome because they made me feel like family. Chuck’s gives me the opportunity to work with all different kinds of people, and I’ve learned to love different kinds of people. I think the world would be a far better place if it was more like that.”
Carolyn Washington, who’s worked at Chuck’s since 1988, has shaped the restaurant’s menu, with popular dishes such as beef stew, chicken spaghetti, and turnip greens. “Chuck’s gives me the opportunity to work with all different kinds of people, and I’ve learned to love different kinds of people. I think the world would be a far better place if it was more like that,” she says.
In 2007, the Hendersons sold Chuck’s to Tracy and Tim Harden, passing ownership outside the family for the first time. The Hendersons and Hardens knew each other well through the Church of Christ. When Tim’s family was selling their farm, purchasing Chuck’s felt like a natural transition, especially since the restaurant had kept them fed through decades of farming.
Tim works full time for Mississippi Wildlife, Fisheries & Parks and helps out at Chuck’s when he can, but Tracy is the one who manages the staff of 17 employees and follows closely in Chuck’s footsteps. Originally from neighboring Warren County, Tracy was initially hesitant to take over because she didn’t have decades-long connections with the locals. She did have 10 years of experience managing the kitchen of a Vicksburg restaurant, and she knew how demanding the industry can be. Chuck asked her to attempt a trial run as manager for two weeks. During her test run, Tracy quickly observed the special bridge formed between restaurant and community. Right away, Chuck told her that he knew Tracy was the perfect fit to keep the dairy bar running.
Tracy Harden, owner of Chuck’s Dairy Bar, in the dining room. Tracy and husband Tim knew the Hendersons through the Church of Christ and bought the restaurant in 2007.
Tracy says this community connection is the best thing to come out of owning Chuck’s. Whether it’s providing a free meal when a customer is unable to pay, delivering food to seniors and people in need during the pandemic, organizing community fundraisers and clothing drives, giving cookies and hot chocolate to local kids over the holidays, or the simple act of listening to her customers, the restaurant truly transcends the traditional dining experience. “I want the food to be good and for people to keep coming back for that,” she says, “but I also want people to see Chuck’s as a place they can depend on for more than just food.”
Jacob School (left) and Chase Dolly eat lunch at Chuck’s after a morning of hunting. Chuck’s is one of the only home-style dining options that exist within a 45-minute drive in all directions.
In February and March of 2019, residents of the lower Delta began seeing their land saturated with water. This was not unique for the late-winter season in this region, but the difference that year was that the water just stayed. Weeks of periodic rainfall and a historically high Mississippi River — combined with the fact that drainage pumps had been vetoed by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2008 out of fear of destroying a neighboring wetland forest and its wildlife — created the perfect storm. In unprecedented fashion, roughly 500,000 acres of land remained under stagnant water that had nowhere to go without the pumps. In some low-lying locations, the water stayed for more than six months.
“This whole area was like a bathtub that couldn’t drain,” says Valley Park farmer Rodney Porter.
A farmer exits floodwater and navigates the little dry land remaining on his property in the lower Mississippi Delta in June 2019. “This whole area was like a bathtub that couldn’t drain,” said Valley Park farmer Rodney Porter.
When the water finally receded in the summer of 2019, nearly everyone thought the flood had been a once-in-a-lifetime event. But the winter of 2019-2020 brought higher-than-normal rain once again, and for some farmers, it meant the inconceivable — two straight years without a crop. Agriculture is the lifeblood of the region, and indications of a changing climate have brought forth immense challenges to local farmers and business owners.
Ray Mosby, publisher of Rolling Fork’s newspaper, the Deer Creek Pilot, estimates that sales tax revenue has dropped somewhere between 25%-33%, if not more. In addition, Issaquena and Sharkey counties, totaling just over 5,600 in population, averaged an unemployment rate of more than 9.4% in April 2021, well over the state’s 5.8% average. Access to healthcare in the Delta has also been an ongoing challenge.
“We’ve had two years of natural disaster followed by a pandemic, which led to an economic disaster,” says Mosby, who is also a regular at Chuck’s. “My dad was a farmer here for over 50 years, and he used to say you can have a bad year, but it was the third year in a row that will do you in.”
Lee Rees pays for his order through a sheet of plastic serving as a COVID-19 precaution at Chuck’s Dairy Bar. Chuck’s was able to stay afloat through the pandemic in part due to funding from the Paycheck Protection Program.
Despite COVID-19 turning Chuck’s into a to-go-only venue for a couple of months in 2020, it’s been able to stay afloat with the help of Paycheck Protection Program funding and the fact that very few home-style dining options exist within a 45-minute drive in all directions. The only other options are gas station food, a few fast-food drive-throughs, and one Mexican restaurant that has closed and reopened periodically. Even Subway couldn’t retain enough business to keep its doors open.
“During the flood, and now the pandemic, our team has tried to show even more love for our customers,” Tracy says. “It’s about making sure people know we care. To me, this is about way more than flooding and a virus, it’s also about mental health. So many people are struggling here. We just try and talk with them, pray with them, and listen to them. Sometimes we just sit with our customers, share a cup of coffee or a meal, and they let it all out. Then they get to leave with a sense that things are going to be OK.”
“They always treat you with respect and show love toward customers,” says Connie Herman, a Rolling Fork resident who has been a loyal customer since the 1970s. “They treat you just like family — like you’re best friends, not just a customer. I think that’s the best compliment a restaurant can get. If we didn’t have Chuck’s, I don’t know what we’d do. It’s such a blessing.”
A sign advocating flood drainage pumps on the wall at Chuck’s Dairy Bar. In 2008, the Environmental Protection Agency vetoed drainage pumps out of fear of destroying a neighboring wetland forest and its wildlife.
It’s 10 p.m. on a Saturday night, and it’s closing time. Tracy moves from sanitizing tables in the main dining room to the back of the restaurant to organize pool tables and a couple of old-fashioned arcade games. Decades of locals have spent their weekends socializing at these tables, growing that small-town community connection. Tim joins her, putting up the last of the pool sticks and helping her lock up after a day where breakfast rush ran into lunch and lunch rush ran into dinner. This is the endless flow of Chuck’s.
“Chuck’s means several things to me. Yes, it’s just a building sitting there, but it also means security — for me and my family, but all the other families who’ve been coming here for so long,” Tracy says. “It also means hope. If Chuck’s can show people what it means to love, to have fun, or a better way of life, then I see hope. There should be a lot of hope for our future if we all do our part. I see Chuck’s as the place where I can do my part.”
This work was supported by the National Geographic Society’s COVID-19 Emergency Fund for Journalists. Additional funding was provided by the 2020 Yunghi Grant.
Rory Doyle is a working photographer based in Cleveland, Mississippi, in the rural Mississippi Delta. Born and raised in Maine, Doyle studied journalism at St. Michael’s College in Colchester, Vermont. In 2009, he moved to Mississippi to pursue a master’s degree at Delta State University. Doyle has remained committed to photographing Mississippi and the South, with a particular focus on sharing stories from the Delta.
