‘The right place & right time’ brings Star Ruby Cafe and other businesses to South MS town
A ring passed down to her from her grandmother is the inspiration for Star Ruby Cafe in Vancleave, says Brandi Barlow, who is shooting to get her restaurant open in August.
A star ruby is a red gem that looks like a star when light shines on it. Barlow said she hopes her new restaurant will be something special for the community.
“Vancleave is growing and to me it needs a place like this,” she said. With the bypass under construction and other businesses opening nearby, she says it’s the right place and the right time for her first restaurant.
She’s worked in the restaurant business for years, starting at Six Miles Out restaurant in Vancleave that her grandmother and aunts operated for several years.
Ruby Star will be at 12655 Mississippi 57 at Jim Ramsey Road, where Georgia’s Corner Market closed a year ago. Business was good, but the owner said after four years, she couldn’t hire enough people to keep the popular restaurant going.
Barlow said she has a big family to help her open and she will start taking job applications on Monday, July 15.
The restaurant will be open for lunch and dinner and Barlow said she’s working on the menus now. The will be serving po-boys, lunch specials, she said, along with some seafood, steaks, soups and salads to become the kind of restaurant to add what Vancleave doesn’t now have.
The town is undergoing a transformation as construction of a bypass has brought workers who eat at local restaurants and frequent other businesses.
Just up the road from Star Ruby Cafe, a 1st Place Fuel station is under construction at the corner of Mississippi 57 and Poticaw Bayou Road.It will have a Krispy Krunchy Chicken franchise with Cajun fried chicken, wings and sides.
Up the street from that on Poticaw, a Dollar General Market is being built.
South on Mississippi 57, an urgent care is opening in the building where Wells Fargo closed several years ago and Singing River Health Center expanded into a much larger new building.
The town is seeing some growing pains as it expands. Dump trucks travel through town all day, bringing more dirt to the $212 million road project and silt from the new grocery store is impacting the adjacent creek.
Work on the bypass began in early 2023 and is expected to continue for about five years.
