Coney Island Cafe on Main Street has been open since 1923, making it one of the longest continuously operating lunch counters in Mississippi. The menu is short and has not changed meaningfully in decades: steak sandwiches, hot dogs, chili, and a few daily specials. The steak sandwich — thin-sliced beef on white bread with optional chili — is the thing to order.
The cafe serves lunch only (roughly 10am to 2pm, closing when things run out) and is cash preferred. The narrow space fills up with downtown workers and regulars every weekday. It is cheap, specific, and exactly what it says it is — a counter lunch from another era that has somehow survived. The building and the counter are originals from the 1920s.