- 9 months ago
In this episode of the Biscuits & Jam Podcast, Southern Living's Sid Evans sits down with Lucy Buffett, sister of the great Jimmy Buffett, about her journey from Key West to Gulf Shores, and how she found her calling in the kitchen. Lucy shares stories of opening her beloved restaurant, Lulu’s, on the Gulf Coast and how her grandmother’s gumbo recipe inspired her culinary career. Discover her favorite Jimmy Buffett song, and how she’s honoring his legacy while serving up seafood classics!
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Lucy Buffett, welcome to Biscuits of Jam.
00:03Thank you, Sid. I'm so happy to be here.
00:06Where am I catching you right now? You look like you're in a kitchen, maybe.
00:09I am actually in my office at the Gulf Shores restaurant.
00:14Oh, okay.
00:16There's a tiny kitchen behind me, so I can make a latte when I want. Yes.
00:21So just down the road from us, not too far?
00:25Not too far.
00:25Well, you know, I know that you came to Birmingham a few years ago,
00:31and it was when you had just come out with Gumba Love, I think.
00:36And somehow I missed you.
00:38And I don't know how I did, but we made a video of you in the kitchen,
00:42and I'm so sorry that I did not get to meet you that time.
00:46I love coming up to that kitchen.
00:49I'm like, oh my gosh, it is the dream test kitchen of the world
00:53for anybody who ever dreamed about having a restaurant or cooking.
00:58So I've loved doing that.
01:00And I did a lot of traveling when I had written the book and got out and promoting it.
01:05And then the restaurant business happened.
01:09And so I have been pretty much working in the restaurants since that time, actually.
01:15Well, you've got three restaurants, right?
01:17In three different locations.
01:18That's right.
01:20Three 500-seat restaurants in three different states.
01:24My gosh.
01:25And how many employees now?
01:28Well, post-COVID, you know, probably 200 at each restaurant.
01:33But pre-COVID, we had 300 at each restaurant.
01:37That is a lot of people to manage.
01:40Yes.
01:40And you've got, so you've got one in Destin and one in North Myrtle Beach.
01:47That's correct.
01:48And then one in Gulf Shores.
01:49That's right.
01:50The Gulf Shores restaurant, we call the Mothership.
01:53And that's where sort of our executive office is, meaning that all the support staffs,
02:00the HR and the accounting and my office is in Gulf Shores.
02:05Right, right.
02:05Well, I've never been, so I need to get down there and pay you a visit at some point.
02:10Yes, you need to come see us.
02:13Well, Lucy, you know, it's been almost a year, just over a year since you lost your brother.
02:21Right.
02:22And I just want to say that I'm very sorry for your loss and for everyone's loss.
02:26Thank you, Sid.
02:28You know, Jimmy was, Jimmy had a bandwidth wider and larger and deeper than anybody that
02:39I have ever known.
02:41And he also was always on the move and he was always creating something.
02:48So he had so many tribes of people and so many families of people.
02:53He had work families and he had songwriting families and he had a family family and he
02:58had boat captains and he had billionaires that wanted to, you know, shuffle.
03:05It's funny, everybody who's very successful seems to always have wanted to get on stage.
03:13People like Ed Bradley, who was so successful, but he was happiest if he could get up on stage
03:19with Jimmy.
03:19So he just, he touched so many people and we had a beautiful week, the week of his passing.
03:28We got to, he sent the plane for my sister, myself, my two daughters.
03:34And then the day after, well, we got the message on a Saturday, we'd be leaving on Monday.
03:39And on Sunday, I got the text that said, please bring the dog.
03:43And so that's who he was.
03:45And so I had a puppy that he adored that he had met down in Key West.
03:49And so we went up there and Jimmy was totally not preparing to leave, but he had also in
03:57his own way prepared, gone back and visited places.
04:03He came to Fairhope because his high school best friend and girlfriend, who had now been his wife for 50 years,
04:14had moved recently from Birmingham to Fairhope.
04:18And so he just popped in for a day and stayed at my little house that I have in Fairhope.
04:24And I know that was like a year and a half before all of this, during the period that we knew he was sick, but he was not overt about it.
04:33He was a worker.
04:34And so he got up and did the work and he played well, but he did go back and visit those places.
04:41He played jazz festival in New Orleans within that time, just in case he was never going to be able to do it again.
04:47And then he played Key West.
04:51He did four shows there because the two shows he had booked at the amphitheater completely sold out within moments.
05:01And it's you can't even you know, they sold out, but they also sold out with people buying big blocks of tickets,
05:07that kind of scalpers mentality.
05:09And that pissed him off so much that he scheduled two more shows in a very small theater where you had to come buy your ticket at the box office like the old days.
05:19And it I think I think it held 400 people and you had to just be in line to go buy your ticket.
05:27So, you know, he was a there's a lot to miss about him, but I'm not sad about his life because he he lived such a wonderful life.
05:39And and he left us so much if I sort of just pretend like he's still on a on a trip like he would be.
05:48And he'd be saying, hey, I'm coming in because I got to stop in and get some gumbo or, hey, I'm coming in for a night.
05:54And can you cook some gumbo? And that's sort of how it used to be.
05:58So I sort of I pretend that he still going to come out and do that.
06:02But I have a very peaceful heart because we had a beautiful goodbye.
06:05You know, I know there were a lot of tributes and celebrations of his life on September 1st, which was which was the day that that he passed away.
06:18How did you mark that day?
06:21Well, Jimmy took me to Key West in the mid 70s.
06:25He came to visit me and Mobile where I was living with my parents.
06:30He said, you're sort of a mess. You need to go to Key West and and get yourself straightened up.
06:38Not many people go to Key West to get themselves straightened up.
06:42But he and at that point he was driving himself in a rented Chevrolet.
06:48I mean, yeah, I don't know, but it was a station wagon.
06:52And then he'd drive himself and do, you know, coffee houses and he'd get to a certain point and then he then he would fly.
07:01So I took the car, the rental car, and I drove to Key West and I had never been east of Pensacola.
07:08So I just drove to Key West.
07:10And the only place I wanted to be to for that was in Key West.
07:16And then I actually was there when they unveiled the sign, the official signs for the Jimmy Buffett Memorial Highway.
07:26And so I was the family representative that did that because the Florida legislature had passed those those bills, both in the in the Senate and in the House.
07:38And both of those were unanimous, which had never happened before.
07:42So that's amazing.
07:43Especially, yeah, in this day and age for them to agree on anything.
07:48Yes, yes.
07:49And this is Lucy, this is A1A is the highway you're talking about, right?
07:54That's correct.
07:55And it's now going to be known as the Jimmy Buffett Memorial Highway.
08:00Is that right?
08:01That's correct.
08:01And A1A actually goes from Key West all the way to Fernandina, Florida.
08:07So it will I mean, on the map, it'll still say A1A, but it will be the Jimmy Buffett Memorial Highway all the way.
08:16And, you know, some of those districts kind of fought, but they got them on board because the people who introduced the bill really wanted it to go the full length.
08:24So it goes almost to Georgia.
08:26Well, that's a beautiful thing and a beautiful tribute to him.
08:29I want to come back to your brother in a minute, but I wanted to ask you a little bit about growing up in Mobile.
08:37Tell me a little bit about the house and the kitchen where you grew up.
08:42Well, the house, we grew up in very middle class, post-World War, three bedroom, one bath, brick homes that they all looked alike.
08:57And my parents, it was a big deal when they could buy that house.
09:03And so it was, you know, it was very humble.
09:07It was very humble out in West Mobile, working class parents.
09:12Both of my parents worked at the shipyard in Mobile, the Alabama dry docks.
09:17My dad was an estimator and he did special projects for naval ships that were either being built or refitted.
09:26And my mom started as one of those sort of madmen, 1940s, smoking cigarettes at the desk secretaries, right?
09:37And that's what she did.
09:40And she worked there for 30 years and my dad worked there for 35 years.
09:45So we were real, it was like hardworking Gulf Coast, which I think is a little different.
09:52It's southern coastal and Gulf Coast is a little different, say, than if you grew up in Birmingham or somewhere in the north part of the state.
10:01Because you've got all this water recreation, all the coastal recreation, where we would, they would work really hard and they would play really hard.
10:10Yeah.
10:10Different world, different world down there.
10:12It is, it is.
10:14And Catholic, my dad was Catholic.
10:16And so, of course, my mom had to convert and we grew up going to Catholic schools.
10:22My mom was a stickler for education.
10:24She, we got our talent from our mom, who is a brilliant and beautiful writer.
10:31And we got our passion and drive from our dad.
10:34Were you all church goers?
10:35Well, we were Sunday church goers.
10:38But, you know, those Catholics like to drink a lot and play around a lot.
10:42And so, yes, but I wouldn't say we were like over, well, my grandmother, who is my inspiration and my gumbo recipes, the legacy from her is I got the gumbo recipe.
10:56She went to church every, every day.
10:59But we were more about family.
11:03My mother's family was from Gulfport, Mississippi.
11:07My dad's from Pascagoula and I'm the only Buffett that's not born in Mississippi.
11:13I'm the only Alabama born Buffett.
11:15So it was early 50s that they moved to from the Ingalls shipyard in Pascagoula to work at Alabama Dry Dock in Mobile.
11:25And so what we did do religiously was two Sundays a month.
11:32We drove either to Pascagoula for lunch on Sunday after church or we drove to Gulfport after church and spent the day there.
11:43So that was like set in stone.
11:47And my Pascagoula grandmother grew up in a boarding house.
11:53And so she cooked as if it was a boarding house.
11:58So we had several meats, a lot of different vegetables, lots of dessert, and always what was the leftover seafood gumbo from Friday because we were Catholic and you couldn't eat meat on Friday.
12:12And so it was real casual with a lot of cousins and it was running around.
12:18And it was a lot of people eating, talking out loud all the time.
12:24So this is where you got your cooking education, really, was from your grandmothers.
12:31And I've heard you say that your mom was not as much of a cook, necessarily.
12:36It was really your grandmothers that you...
12:38It was my grandmothers because, yes, my mother worked all of my life.
12:42My mother went back to work when I was like six months old.
12:46That was pretty unheard of back then.
12:48My other grandmother was the dietician at a girls finishing school in Long Beach, Mississippi, which was called Gulf Park College.
12:59And Gulf Park had very...
13:01It was a girls finishing school.
13:03So we would go and eat in the large, beautiful cafeteria with very fancy food.
13:09Crab meat au gratin and big steamship rounds of beef being, you know, carved by chefs with big hats.
13:19And so it was more of the fancier food.
13:22And so both of those influences are still alive and kicking in me today because I love both of those kinds of cuisines and food.
13:31This is your mother's mother?
13:34My mother's mother.
13:36And that's how my mother's...
13:37My grandmother on my mother's side, that's how she educated all of her girls got to go to that girls finishing school, which is now a part of University of Southern Miss.
13:48Oh.
13:49Yeah.
13:49And it's right on the beach in Long Beach.
13:51And it's a beautiful campus.
13:53So, Lucy, with all this family, and it sounds like, you know, there were a lot of you, what did the holidays look like in your family and what was on the table?
14:07Well, the holidays were we either...
14:09We had to go to one of those grandmothers.
14:13It was expected.
14:14Did you alternate?
14:15Did you alternate?
14:15Every other week...
14:16One week, it was one and one.
14:18And over the years, it'd be like, okay, well, we did Thanksgiving at this one, so we have to do Christmas at this one.
14:25And my father hated to go to the stuffy one.
14:28He wanted to be at his mother's house, although he was terrified of his mother until almost the day she died.
14:36And he was like, wouldn't tell her that he smoked or wouldn't tell her...
14:40I mean, she was a tough old gal, man.
14:42And my father was freaking fierce, I'm just telling you.
14:48So, for him to be afraid of somebody, you kind of have to imagine that.
14:51So, it was all about the food.
14:54In the holidays, it was all about the food and multi, multi dishes of classic holiday food, and especially southern and coastal food.
15:06Lots of seafood, always, you know, we're going to have a crab meat dressing, or a lot of shrimp, and then it would always be whatever those classic dishes were, but all of them were handmade and done by hand.
15:24There was no cranberry jelly out of a can.
15:29None of that.
15:30So, and not my mother.
15:32Now, my mother was all about frozen TV dinner.
15:36That was the best thing that ever happened to her in her life.
15:41Well, so, that's interesting about the seafood, because you don't think about most people who don't live on the coast are not necessarily thinking about seafood as a big part of the holidays.
15:53But would you have something like an oyster casserole, or...
15:57Right, oyster dressing, or...
15:59Oyster dressing.
15:59Or like eggplant and shrimp casserole, you know, one of those.
16:03Or you'd have some boiled shrimp to begin with.
16:06The old shrimp cocktail.
16:08You know, the shrimp cocktail was such a fancy starter, right?
16:15So, but again, we'd have the seafood gumbo.
16:18Oh, I mean, I, my grandmother in Pascagoula was always cooking.
16:23It was just what she did.
16:25And I was always up in there, even as a little girl.
16:29And she was making her cakes, and I got to do the batter, and I got to, you know, I just loved all the busyness of her kitchen.
16:38And she was like a maestro by herself in there.
16:41My, she is the wife of the captain of Jimmy's famous song, The Captain and the Kid.
16:48And Jimmy's other song, The Son of the Son of the Son of the Sailor.
16:53Well, my dad was the son of the sailor, but my grandfather was a ship's captain.
17:00And he's, he, he was a master of steam and of sail.
17:07So, he started in these big, huge sailing vessels.
17:12He was a merchant seaman, worked for the, like, Waterman and some of those steamship companies.
17:20And then he went on to do the, the bigger, you know, more modern day ships.
17:27And what were their, what were their names, Lucy?
17:29My grandfather?
17:30The Pascagoula, yeah, grandparents.
17:32Those are the Buffetts.
17:33Well, he was James Delaney Buffett, senior.
17:37And then my grandmother was Hilda, but we called them Mom and Fufu.
17:43And so, Mom and Fufu.
17:45And I mean, I know Jimmy would sometimes call, I'd get a text and he'd say,
17:49what's that ingredient that Mom would put in?
17:51And we knew that wasn't our mother, that was our grandmother.
17:54That Mom put in her potato salad that we loved.
17:56And I'd say, she would, she would chop up little, tiny, little pieces of cheddar cheese.
18:02And he said, yes, that's right.
18:04And so, he was quite the foodie and he was also quite the cook, as was my father.
18:11My father was a good cook.
18:12He had like eight dishes that he cooked.
18:14And he cooked our Sunday dinner, not my mom.
18:18Well, when it came to Christmas, your brother was born on Christmas Day, right?
18:23He was, he was.
18:24So, that had to be a bit of a factor, a little bit of an extra reason to celebrate, maybe?
18:29Or did he get kind of, did he get a little brushed under the rug?
18:33He did not get bumped off.
18:35My mother was very adamant that we had a cake and a celebration for Jimmy.
18:41Now, I also like to tell everybody, he was a lot older than me.
18:45He was seven years older.
18:46So, by the time I could remember things, but I remember that we always had to have a cake
18:52and a celebration.
18:53He had his own birthday presents, as well as his Christmas presents.
18:59So, I know.
19:00I don't ever remember it being any big discussion, except for it was his birthday.
19:07And he got his presents.
19:09He got a few extra presents.
19:11Yeah, and he was the oldest and the boy.
19:12He got a lot of, he got a lot of extra on some level.
19:16It was my sister, my middle sister, who was the star of the family, though, which is interesting.
19:21Yeah.
19:21Right.
19:21Laurie.
19:22Laurie.
19:23Yes.
19:23Yeah.
19:24You know, I love that you started your last cookbook with dessert.
19:30That was, that was the opening chapter of the book, which I have not seen in a cookbook before.
19:36So, did you have a favorite dessert when it came to the holidays?
19:40I mean, was there something that you kind of look forward to more than anything else?
19:44I loved my grandmother's, she always had a fresh cake.
19:49So, I loved her having a cake.
19:52Um, I love there being pie.
19:55I'm a chocolate cream pie person.
19:58Or, a few things that my mother would make.
20:01Like, my mother could make West Indies.
20:04And that's not too hard.
20:05It's about five things.
20:06And you just put it in a thing, in a container, and shake it up, and leave it alone for a day.
20:11But she also loved butterscotch pie.
20:14And I, and she would make that.
20:16And I'm a big butterscotch pie person.
20:20I don't make it myself, but I loved that.
20:24That was great.
20:25Yeah, that is, that is good.
20:28Is that, is that in one of your cookbooks?
20:30No, I should do it.
20:31I need to write another.
20:33Maybe, maybe.
20:35I've been, I've been working a little bit too hard to write any more cookbooks.
20:40So, anyway.
20:42So, Lucy, you had this, you know, you had this incredible background in food with your, your grandparents.
20:49And you'd been around it, you know, growing up.
20:52And then you kind of decide that you want to actually get into cooking a little bit.
20:59And I read somewhere that you, really, your first kind of big food experience outside of, you know, Mobile and growing up was, it was in Key West.
21:13There was a restaurant in Key West.
21:15Is that, is that right?
21:17That is right.
21:17In terms of broadening my awareness, actually, of other cuisines or other, even local specials, because Jimmy had a friend who loved this French restaurant because he was also French.
21:36And he, they were, his name was Guy Valdine.
21:40I know him.
21:41Yes.
21:42Yes.
21:42So, Guy, and, you know, he's a, he's a player in that, in that documentary that was released last year.
21:52All that is sacred.
21:54Guy is, was the director of this, of that original film that the documentary was about, the making of a fishing documentary.
22:04And, but Guy was a wonderful cook and, but Guy was a wonderful cook and he asked the, the proprietor, whose name was Rene, to, if he would make a huge bouillabaisse for a bunch of people that were coming in from fishing.
22:20And I happened to arrive during that and Jimmy said, come on, we're going to go to, we're going to go to this.
22:25I've never in my life been to a French restaurant.
22:29Now, we went to New Orleans once a year.
22:34That was our big outing.
22:35And we went to Two Jacks and we went to Commander's Palace, maybe, maybe, depending on how close to payday it was, right, for my parents.
22:46And, and I got to find out about what I would have called fancy food then.
22:52Um, and by this time I had become very interested in food because I realized I had a small family.
23:01I had to cook and I loved learning new recipes and I loved it, but I was real still much a novice.
23:08And, um, I had moved to, to Key West in that mid seventies and we went into this beautiful little French restaurant and it was bouillabaisse and they had, you know, caught the lobster.
23:20They went out and actually went lobstering, got the shrimp and by, you could go to the docks back then and get the shrimp, the Key West pinks, you know, out of, off those boats actually.
23:33And so.
23:34You sound like you just had it last night.
23:35No, but I, I love it.
23:38I, you know, I didn't know about, I didn't know about certain spices and what they were.
23:44And, um, I just remember going and it was so cool because everybody was so casual, which is why I still love Key West and still have, you know, took me 39 years to buy a home in Key West from the time I lived there before.
23:59And I always wanted one.
24:00And I, I did that about 10 years ago.
24:03Um, but it was so casual, I mean, people were in cutoffs and the t-shirt and, you know, we were all hippies back then and, but we were drinking really delicious wine and having this beautiful, this seafood stew with this beautiful crouton with the rouille on top.
24:24And it was just like, I'll just never forget.
24:27It's like the, the explosion of a different palate that I had never tasted.
24:33And that just kept piquing my curiosity about food.
24:38And you were living with your brother.
24:40You were basically crashing with your brother for a while, right?
24:43I was, but he was on the road.
24:45So I got to live in this great little apartment right next to Louie's backyard.
24:49So it was great.
24:50Then I'd go get an apartment of my own.
24:53And then, then when he'd go on the road, I'd go be a gypsy in this little tiny palace, which by the way, was a tiny two bedroom apartment, but it was on the water back then you could get things like that.
25:05Well, Lucy, um, fast forward a few years and, um, you've got your own restaurant.
25:12Um, and you opened Lulu's when you were 46.
25:19Is that right?
25:20That's right.
25:20That's a pretty, uh, bold thing to try and do.
25:24And especially on the scale that you were doing it.
25:27Um, I know it didn't start out immediately that big.
25:30Um, but when you decided to go into the restaurant business and open your own place, did you have a lot of support from the family or were they all telling you you're crazy?
25:42Don't try this.
25:43I was telling myself I'm crazy.
25:46Like, why am I, I mean, this is the hardest business in the world and yes, I'm a good cook, but, uh, and it was tiny to begin with.
25:54It had 21 seats inside, but the family thought my, my mom, I had moved back from Los Angeles to be with my parents who were ill.
26:04And so they were delighted that I had come back and I naively said, oh, this will be a piece of cake.
26:13We're just going to sell a lot of drinks and beer and we'll have a hamburger and a shrimp loaf.
26:20And, and, which is what we call pull boys down right there in Fairhope.
26:25Um, and you know, we'll, we'll, it's just going to be easy and I'll sit out on the front porch and I'll, you know, I dreamed of being a writer, not a restaurateur.
26:35And so I quickly had to change and shift from that mentality.
26:40Um, you know, but I had worked since I was 20 years old.
26:45I had done all kinds of different jobs, trying to find my niche in life and every job I ever had prepared me to do that one, which is like, first of all, how to work and then have some skill sets of more admin skill sets.
27:00And I was a good cook now trying to figure out how many French fries you need all day long.
27:06I just, you know, I was used to, I learned by the seat of my pants and I could do that.
27:12Um, I didn't plan for it to be huge.
27:15I planned for it to be just small and easy and it has never been easy, but, um, that's okay for that.
27:25I was trained.
27:26It is very rewarding.
27:28And, um, I had some good support with some neighbors who said, come on, we'll, we'll go in on the lease with you and we'll run the bait shop.
27:38There was a bait shop next to it.
27:40So they said, we'll do that and you do this and we'll help you get started.
27:44And then Jimmy came by and he was like, well, you know, do you want, if you want an investor, I'll help you.
27:57Um, and he gave, he invested a very small amount and then he turned around to immediately to his, um, manager who was with him at the time and said, do you want to buy half of my five of my 10%?
28:09And so I had his manager and Jimmy as partners for a very long time until I did buy them out.
28:18Not well before, after a while, not long ago, maybe, I don't know, five, six years ago.
28:25Um, so I did get, because for Jimmy, that is where my dad used to go.
28:31We would rent a house on Mobile Bay.
28:33You could rent a boat at this particular dock where this particular restaurant was and you could rent a boat.
28:40And my dad being just working class, he couldn't really afford a boat.
28:44And every guy who lives on the coast, they dream of having their own boat.
28:49So he would go down there and he'd take Jimmy down there and he would rent a boat for the week that we were at on Mobile Bay.
28:57And that touched Jimmy because Jimmy was very nostalgic.
29:00And he was a Gulf Coast boy till the day, you know, he flew on somewhere and he loved that.
29:08It was just a real defining piece of him.
29:12Um, and when he saw that the restaurant was at a place that he used to go rent a boat with daddy, he wanted to, he just said, yeah, how can, you know, if I'm going to invest in something, why not in family?
29:23And so it was, it was sweet.
29:26I was a good return on his investment too.
29:28Yeah, I'll say, Lucy, I'll say.
29:32Well, um, you know, one of the founding recipes of that restaurant, and in a lot of ways, it seems like your whole food career was gumbo.
29:45Um, I mean, that's, that's something you've got, you know, a cookbook, gumbo love, you know, it's, it's a recipe that you knew.
29:54Um, and you'd seen people make growing up.
29:58Tell me a little bit about your, about your gumbo recipe and what that has kind of meant to you.
30:04I think the fact that gumbo is not for the faint of heart, but it's not rocket science either.
30:11It's a recipe.
30:12So you follow it.
30:14Um, anybody can do it.
30:16But for me, I realized I was pretty good at it.
30:21And every single time I would fail, because you fail making gumbo.
30:25If you take, you know, you scorch that root, you either fail by not taking it to the limit, the root.
30:32So then, then it's sort of a, I mean, it tastes good.
30:37It's a color, but it's not as good as it could be.
30:39Or you fail.
30:40You can't be too timid either, right?
30:42Yeah.
30:42You can't be too timid.
30:43And if you take it over, it's over.
30:45You had to start all over.
30:47And so you, you kind of stay in denial for, well, I don't know.
30:51You smell that burn and you like taste it and you're like, wait, wait a minute.
30:55I think it'll be all right for about five minutes.
30:57And then you're like, we got to start over.
30:59And I, you know, it was a place that I felt, I, you know, personally being able to accomplish
31:06that and do it with so much joy and do it in big, or I mean, I could feed a hundred people.
31:12I could cook a gumbo for a hundred people.
31:15I love that.
31:15It taught me so much in it.
31:17And then it also really helped my self-esteem, grow your self-esteem as a, as a human being.
31:24Um, but later when I wrote the book about it, um, you know, became, it was an homage to
31:32my family because it's, it's how we grew up, but it also became such a metaphor for living
31:41for me and how I had lived my life and how to be, you know, organized in it and how you
31:49have to prep, prep, prep, and sometimes you're going to fail and it's always different.
31:55And so many of those pieces that have kept me going through times that were not easy.
32:02I mean, I have a, I don't like to, I don't stay in the rear view mirror much.
32:07Um, but you know, I had my children very young and the marriage didn't work out and all my
32:12dreams for some of those other things.
32:15It took me a while.
32:16And so I dreamed about, um, wanting to, to write.
32:21And after my restaurant started and I thought, well, wow, this is doing okay.
32:28Look, I sold, you know, how many t-shirts?
32:32I don't know.
32:33I sold a hundred thousand dollars worth of t-shirts.
32:35Well, what if, or if I sold that, then maybe I could sell some books.
32:40So maybe I'll write my own book.
32:42So I don't know how to do that, but I think I'll make it up and we'll figure it out.
32:47And so we write a book, the first book, not the gumbo love book.
32:50And it sold 70,000 copies a lot through my restaurants.
32:55But I just, um, so I got to achieve my writing dream right through my restaurant.
33:02Um, I did have to, at a certain point, get focused and not wanting to be, I had to say,
33:11all right, you have an opportunity here.
33:13Something is working here.
33:15You need to put these other dreams over here on the side.
33:18They can still be there, but you got to put your energy and you got to put your focus.
33:24I have a hard time focusing because I have a lot of creative energy.
33:28And you put your focus in this running a business, kind of boring, but I got good at that too.
33:38So when you're good at stuff, you kind of like doing it, right?
33:41Yeah.
33:42And then I was able to go, okay, well, I want to do this, or I want to go have a, I'd like
33:48some people growing tomatoes for my restaurant.
33:51And we did that for a long time.
33:52Um, so I could try a lot of different things by having a sustainable restaurant that supported
34:00me doing those things.
34:02Well, I know you got three.
34:04I got three.
34:05That's plenty.
34:06It was never for me about how many.
34:09It was about how can I do what I'm doing now, spread a little joy, introduce people to my food
34:14and make a living, you know, make a livelihood for myself and all the other people that work
34:19with me.
34:20Um, Lucy, the, um, restaurant has also kind of become a place for, you know, parrot heads
34:29and, and fans of your brother, um, to come and, and gather.
34:35Um, just tell me about that, you know, kind of on a day-to-day basis, you know, do you see
34:42a lot of people coming through that kind of want to pay tribute to him or that, you know,
34:46particularly since he passed away last year, has it become kind of a gathering place?
34:50Well, I think it's, it's a stop on their agenda, no matter if they get close to a Lulu's, they
34:56want to stop.
34:58And we were outside of Fairhope, Alabama for five years, and I lost my lease on the original
35:04small Lulu's that probably at the very end had about a hundred seats and 80 of them were
35:11outside.
35:12So, and it got cold, but people would find me because they would come from Gulf Shores and
35:19they would find me.
35:20And that was mainly Jimmy's fan base, the parrot heads.
35:24And I give them a lot of credit for sustaining me through, you know, a, through winters and
35:31through seasonal, I'm a seasonal restaurant.
35:34Seasonal restaurants are not easy to do.
35:36And I always love, you know, they had events at my old restaurant.
35:42They had events here.
35:44And then they have recently brought another event back, the Meeting of the Mines, which
35:49was in Key West for 25 or 30 years.
35:52I'm not sure.
35:54They, Key West as a, as a event place became a little unsustainable because of the prices
36:00down there.
36:01And the one hotel needed to do renovation.
36:04So they moved it to Gulf Shores last year.
36:06And it was very different because Gulf Shores doesn't have that town where, little town center
36:13where you can drive, ride your bicycle around, but it was hugely successful because first of
36:19all, it's still connected to Jimmy and the Gulf Coast and it's where he went as a kid.
36:25But also we have great venues up here and great restaurants and a lot of great music up
36:30here.
36:31So the Parrothead piece is, is in the foundational blocks of Lulu's.
36:38They supported me because they wanted to get close to anything that Jimmy was connected
36:45to or where did Jimmy come from kind of thing.
36:48Yeah.
36:48Yeah.
36:49And I have great gratitude and give them a lot of credit for that.
36:53Music is a big part of the restaurants and obviously it's a big part of your life.
36:59Um, when you're not listening to, um, your brother's music, um, what do you listen to?
37:09What do you like to, you know, play in the restaurant?
37:12Um, and what are you drawn to?
37:15Well, what we, now I'm a, I'm, I'm a hippie from the seventies.
37:22So I am always going to revert to some of my comfort music from back then.
37:29And a lot of my Motown and my James Taylor and all of those that Joni Mitchell and all
37:37of that.
37:37However, um, you know, in the, in the restaurant, what we have found, it's kind of like six degrees
37:45of separation from Jimmy and one of my daughters actually, we, we do, um, and design playlists
37:54that's that play in every restaurant.
37:56And we do them for four different seasons.
38:00Um, like every three months, there's a new place for, for my employees too, because let
38:06me tell you something, when they're there day after day after day, listening to the same
38:10music, it can get, you know, they tune it out.
38:13And I believe so firmly that the dining experience and for Lulu's it's become more than just
38:21dining, it's a destination place for kids and family.
38:25And so the music is so, um, important to the experience and it can't be too loud.
38:35It can't be too soft.
38:36It can't be too much in the background.
38:39And so we designed these that are more about what Lulu's is about.
38:44And it, it, as it does with Margaritaville, I mean, I'm the sister to Margaritaville, but
38:49I am not Margaritaville, but there is a piece that Lulu's was designed specifically to escape
38:55for some escapism.
38:57So it's about summer beach vacations.
39:00So you're going to have all of that kind of playlist going on and it just, it can be
39:07all over.
39:08Um, I listened to Margaritaville when I'm in my car.
39:11I listened to a lot of Kenny Chesney because I think he's a wonderful guy and so talented
39:18performer and he's just a, he's a good guy, but he, his, his radio station is a little
39:25more eclectic and it's not just country because he loves all kinds of music.
39:30A lot of good folk music.
39:33Um, you know, I'm always listening.
39:35I'm always up for a little New Orleans music for sure.
39:38Um, you know, I, I like a little bit of my little rap, uh, I, I'm also like a little
39:44rap music if it's pretty good sometimes.
39:47Um, I love, you know, I, um, and we grew up on Broadway musicals.
39:55My mother, I always say Jimmy would have, you know, probably without the culture of my
40:00mother and introducing us to, she loved theater and she loved musicals.
40:05And so when she would get an album and we'd be listening to that every Saturday morning
40:10and then she got us all into community theater and we were all in little plays that, you know,
40:16if she hadn't been around, you know, he might still be at some Mississippi state line honky
40:23tonk instead of where he ended up around the world.
40:28But, uh,
40:29So that found its way into his music for sure.
40:32He, he, he attributed, he always attributed my mom to part of his big, big success.
40:39Lucy, of all the songs that your brother wrote and so many, so many good ones, is there one
40:47that has, um, particularly strong meaning for you?
40:51Well, the, the ones that my favorite song is Havana daydreaming.
40:56Um, I was in Key West at the time that he wrote that and, or it came out, I can't remember,
41:02but I love that because that's about the opening the eyes to travel and adventure and the going
41:08for the horizon, right?
41:10We're going out toward the horizon.
41:13Um, and that came from my grandfather and my grandfather spent time in Cuba.
41:18And I, I just, I love the whole, um, that's my favorite Jimmy song, but the meaningful songs
41:26are the songs about, um, my, my, the captain and the kid, which is about my grandfather,
41:34the son of a son of a sailor, which is about my father.
41:37And he wrote one beautiful song about my father when he had Alzheimer's that he, he, he recorded
41:44in one take and he never did it again.
41:46And very, very, um, I don't think he hardly, I don't, he never did it at a concert.
41:52And then the other songs that I really love are, um, trying to reason with hurricane season.
41:58The ones that have meaning to me are those early songs from Key West, um, because I also
42:04have a home there and it was, you know, it's like so much gratitude and so much miraculous
42:11where we came from that tiny house out in Sunset Hills.
42:16And my sister, my brother and I, regardless, we would find ourselves in Mobile.
42:22And if we were ever anywhere out in West Mobile, we drive by that house, take a picture, send
42:28it to each other and say, we've come a long way from Sunset Hills.
42:31And, um, um, so, you know, I, uh, those, those are very special to me, but I love his ballads.
42:44Um, his ballads are beautiful.
42:46His popular songs that everybody wanted to hear.
42:50So, which is why he did them.
42:51They're great songs, but there is, um, I think his wife said this in, and it was quoted in
43:00his daughter's email or social media posting after he died that his wife said, if you're
43:07ever having a problem, go listen to your dad's songs.
43:09The advice is all in his songs and mainly in those ballads.
43:14And because he had a lot of life and death, um, you know, if it all goes to hell tomorrow,
43:22or if, you know, uh, the death of an unpopular poet, he had a lot of those themes running through
43:30there, but he was much the person who was positive and kept moving forward.
43:35He was a move forward kind of guy.
43:37Yeah.
43:37Yeah.
43:38Yeah.
43:39I love that notion that it's all in there.
43:41It's all in the songs.
43:42It's all in the songs.
43:43And I will listen.
43:45I mean, there've been times in my life where I'm like, Oh my God, I can't listen to another
43:49Jimmy song or I'd be like, Oh, and, and, you know, he was not a, I mean, he was my brother.
43:55So we had, um, you know, we could, we could sort of annoy each other.
44:00Right.
44:02Uh, he wasn't perfect, but he was, you know, he was a, he was a pretty great guy.
44:09Um, and he had a lot, he wasn't going to prophetize and he was smart and he was a reader.
44:16Oh my gosh.
44:17He read and read and read and smart and could remember, um, he loved history.
44:22His minor was history.
44:23And so he loved history and he had a memory like a trap and my sister and I don't have
44:30that.
44:30We, we have a different set of, of blessings, right?
44:35We all have a lot of different blessings, although we're a lot alike in, in a lot of ways.
44:40Um, but you know, he was, I, I think I wrote somewhere once that, you know, he was just a
44:44very normal person that did extraordinary things and touched millions.
44:49And so that's pretty cool to think that I got to, um, you know, witness that and be
44:57a part of that.
44:57You know, he cared so much about the environment.
45:01That was a big part of his, um, life's work.
45:06Um, especially when it came to taking care of beautiful places on the coast.
45:15And I'm wondering if that's been a cause for you as well.
45:19Well, yes, indeed.
45:21I, um, I, I sort of moved more over to the arts cause I figure if Jimmy's got that taken
45:26care of, I don't need to be.
45:28Yeah.
45:29He's got a little bit more cachet than I do.
45:31Right.
45:32And a lot more, he had a lot more money.
45:34So if he's taking care of that, I'll, I'll put mine over here somewhere.
45:38But if you live on the coast and you live on the water and you love the water and you
45:44have that ability, cause I've lived in New York city and I've lived in Los Angeles and
45:49I needed to get near the water so I could be reminded of nature because I love a fast
45:56moving city, but there's nothing more than being able to get back to some kind of nature.
46:02And Jimmy loved animals and he loved the, he loved the beautiful places and he did all
46:09of his stuff very quietly in the background.
46:13Um, and he really loved being able to help disenfranchised people and, um, causes, uh, little
46:22known causes.
46:23And so those are the things that he, and, and, you know, he did a lot of charity within
46:30his immediate, all of his families.
46:33He up-leveled all of us, took care of, took, sent so many people that worked for him's children
46:41to college that nobody ever will, will know about.
46:44My, my children went to college because of him and Tom McGuane, my sister's husband.
46:50And they, they sent my children to college.
46:54Um, he just, you know, he loved that giving back.
47:00He, I mean, he, he loved going forward fast too.
47:03So you had to yank him back.
47:04He had some really good people in his life who said, hold on, how much is, is enough enough
47:10and let's start giving back.
47:12And a couple of those people started his, um, singing for change foundation.
47:17They were at that, um, they were, uh, at that sign unveiling, um, and that's still going
47:25on.
47:26Part of the, one of those initiatives in Florida is the, um, the Margaritaville, um, uh, carb
47:34tag.
47:35And once there's a, there's a level, once they sell so many after that, they, the states recouped
47:41the prices of the setup situation, and then that, that money will go funded to his, his
47:48foundation.
47:49And that foundation gives away to all those causes that we were just talking about.
47:54And I think it's given away, they said $17 million.
47:58Wow.
47:59That's great.
47:59And small grants that actually get to people, not get to big organizations.
48:04So, you know, all of that was done, it's called singing for change and all that was done quietly
48:10in the background.
48:11Hmm.
48:12Well, Lucy, I just have one more question for you.
48:14Yeah.
48:14What does it mean to you to be Southern?
48:16Oh my gosh.
48:18I mean, it's the, it's my identity.
48:22It's part of my identity.
48:24Um, and being a baby boomer Southerner, it was about, for me, um, grace and pride and,
48:34um, uh, manners and character and characters to be Southern.
48:44Then you're reading Southern literature and the Southern character.
48:48So it's very much a part of my identity, even in spite of its very complicated past.
48:56I'm very proud to be Southern.
48:58And I also love the opportunity that I've had to grow and open my eyes to other environments
49:08and other cultures to me travel.
49:11I mean, and I had to learn that living on the, I lived on the West coast.
49:15I lived on the East coast.
49:16I lived on the Gulf coast.
49:18And to really understand that it's a big old melting pot in the world.
49:23And, and, and, and, uh, Key West, they have a slogan that's called one human family and
49:29the bumper stickers are everywhere.
49:31And I sort of love that piece, but I feel like my identifier is the Southern piece of
49:38me and all the good that is about being Southern is part of, of part of what I carry into everything
49:46that I do.
49:47Well, Lucy Buffett, I knew this was going to be fun and it sure, it sure was.
49:53Thank you so much for being on biscuits and jam.
49:56Oh, I loved it.
49:57And thank you.
49:58I love what you're doing.
49:59And I'm a big Southern living fan.
50:01You know, that for a long time, I'll, I'll, I'll come up and cook in that kitchen anytime.
50:05Oh my gosh.
50:07Come visit us again.
50:08We need to do it again.
50:09Thank you, Sid.
50:10I look forward to meeting you.
50:11Please come visit me here.
50:13I'm going to do it.
50:14Okay.
50:14Peace out, buddy.
50:16Peace out.
50:16I'm going to do it again.
50:17I'm going to do it again.
50:18I'm going to do it again.
50:19I'm going to do it again.
50:20I'm going to do it again.
50:21I'm going to do it again.
50:22I'm going to do it again.
50:23I'm going to do it again.
50:24I'm going to do it again.
50:25I'm going to do it again.
50:26I'm going to do it again.
50:27I'm going to do it again.
50:28I'm going to do it again.
50:29I'm going to do it again.
50:30I'm going to do it again.
50:31I'm going to do it again.
50:32I'm going to do it again.
50:33I'm going to do it again.
Comments