Oxford, Mississippi’s Oldest Restaurant The Beacon Will Close it’s doors for the final time May 10, 2025

by Danny Toma – Photographs by Newt Rayburn, John Cofield, Jessica Montz, Kelli Briscoe, Jeff Henson, Donna Busby Oliphant, Richard Williams, Craig Gordon, Barbara Bailey Young, Kate Wallace, Danny Toma, and more

Oxford, Mississippi’s oldest restaurant, The Beacon, which opened in 1959, will close on May 10, 2025.

While there have been a few minor modifications through the years to the building exterior, the interior has been largely unchanged over at least the last forty years, and it is one of the few places I can visit and be transported immediately back to my own Ole Miss days with very little imagination required.

I always thought that their fried chicken was some of the best in town.

It is also the last eating establishment that was around during William Faulkner‘s time, having opened its doors just over three years before his death. I don’t know that he ever ate there (he was partial to the Mansion Restaurant, which would burn down in 1967), but he was almost certainly aware of it, as Oxford was much smaller then.

Alas, the reminders of the “old Oxford” are becoming few and far between. With the closing of The Beacon, the oldest restaurant in town will be Pizza Den, which opened on University Avenue in 1966 (it moved to its current location on Heritage Drive around 2005).