‘An actual soul meals joint’: Farewell to J&J Diner

After 32 years in enterprise, North Little Rock’s J&J Diner — a soul meals restaurant and Friday evening pool corridor — introduced that its doorways would stay completely closed. The destiny of the Washington Avenue restaurant has hung within the stability since December 23, when its proprietor and matriarch, Mrs. Joyce Marie Maxon Givens, died unexpectedly after a procedure following coronary heart problems.

Joyce, her sons Harold Givens, 50, and Chevis Givens, 44, advised us, was the soul of the restaurant. The fried rooster was an enormous draw, Harold stated, and particularly well-liked with the regulars who got here to shoot pool within the late-night hours, till 1 a.m. on Fridays and till midnight on Saturdays, when the luncheonette reworked right into a social membership. “They got here from miles round — and I’m speaking about folks hanging out late — for that fried rooster.”

“She was all the time cooking from the soul,” Chevis stated. He’s been hanging out and serving to on the restaurant since he was “12 or 13,” he advised us. “Lots of people would ask her for a recipe, and she or he’d say, ‘I don’t don’t have any recipe!’ When it got here to how a lot salt to sprinkle over her signature cabbage, Chevis stated, “she’d have her ancestors speaking to her, saying, ‘OK, cease there. That’s sufficient.’”

Oxtails, yams and cabbage at J&J Diner

Tales from the soul meals spot have develop into fond reminiscences for the Givens household. Harold was in highschool when Joyce opened the restaurant, and spent loads of weekends chopping celery, onion and bell pepper for Sunday chicken-and-dressing. Kitchen know-how, her sons advised us, got here from Joyce’s roots as a household cook dinner earlier than she and her brother, the late Johnny Lee Maxon, opened J&J in 1991. Joyce was the sort of particular person everyone tried to influence to cook dinner for the household picnic, as a result of, as Harold stated, “You didn’t have to fret about it tasting …” (He trailed off politely, however we received the purpose.)

Harold recalled a time when comic Antonio Fargas — most well-known for enjoying “Huggy Bear” on the late ’70s-era buddy-crimefighting-duo TV collection “Starsky & Hutch,” had a gig on the town, and ended up wandering into the eating room at J&J. “He walked in and he stated, ‘I can inform it is a actual soul meals joint; You bought white folks consuming in right here!’ And everyone simply fell out.”

One other day, Harold recalled, a giant bus pulled up exterior the diner. “And 5 – 6 guys received off this bus and requested, ‘Did now we have any meals?’ And my mother’s not turning down any cash, in order that they got here in they usually ate. And are available to search out out, these guys had been The Platters! We went to the liquor retailer, they usually stayed all evening. These guys had been so all the way down to earth. Oh my God, we had a time that evening.”

Joyce cherished the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Dallas Cowboys, Chevis advised us. And she or he “valued having enjoyable every single day,” Harold stated. “She did stuff her approach. When you didn’t prefer it, don’t come to her restaurant. As a result of you recognize what you’re gonna get. The identical particular person. She was the identical particular person every single day.”

courtesy of Chevis Givens

Marking her passing, town of North Little Rock made a proclamation that January 4, 2024 could be designated as Joyce Marie Maxon Givens Day. When it rolls round in 2025, Harold stated, the household plans to “occasion like rock stars.”

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