The Main Table featuring The Dinner Bell benefitting VisitMcComb.org & MMSA
About this Event
THE MAIN TABLE
A Signature Community Dinner Benefiting VisitMcComb.org & the McComb Main Street Association
The Main Table is an unforgettable evening of Southern hospitality, community, food, and fellowship set beneath the lights of historic Main Street in Downtown McComb.
More than a dinner, The Main Table is designed to become one of McComb’s signature community experiences: a gathering where neighbors, business leaders, visitors, community partners, and friends come together around one extraordinary table in the heart of our city.
Guests will take their seats along Main Street for an evening that celebrates the people, traditions, businesses, and shared sense of place that make McComb special. The setting transforms downtown itself into the dining room, creating an experience that is elegant enough to be memorable while remaining unmistakably warm, welcoming, and uniquely McComb.
DINNER BY THE LEGENDARY DINNER BELL
At the center of the evening will be a Southern meal prepared by The Dinner Bell of McComb, one of Mississippi’s most recognizable dining traditions.
The Dinner Bell has welcomed generations of residents and travelers to McComb through its famous communal dining experience, where Southern dishes are traditionally served around large round tables with rotating Lazy Susans. Its history is closely tied to McComb's transportation heritage. Located near the railroad and historic depot area, the restaurant became a natural stopping place for travelers, continuing a Mississippi round-table dining tradition that developed alongside boarding houses and railroad communities.
Its original eighteen-seat table was specially constructed by Loubat Restaurant Supply in New Orleans, and the restaurant's history stretches back more than seven decades. The Dinner Bell's signature offerings have become part of McComb's culinary identity, particularly its fried chicken, chicken and dumplings, seasonal vegetables, Southern sides, desserts, and its famously closely guarded fried eggplant recipe.
The restaurant's guestbook reflects visitors from all 50 states, Canada, Mexico, and countries across much of the world, illustrating how this distinctly local institution has become a destination far beyond Southwest Mississippi.
Its reputation has also received significant recognition beyond McComb. Garden & Gun included The Dinner Bell in its state-by-state Southern fried chicken bucket list, while Visit Mississippi, the state's official tourism organization, has highlighted The Dinner Bell among Mississippi destinations known for exceptional Southern fried chicken. The restaurant has also been featured by Mississippi Magazine and, most recently, by The Associated Press, which spotlighted its increasingly rare communal round-table tradition and the way the restaurant brings strangers together over a shared Southern meal.
That tradition makes The Dinner Bell a particularly meaningful partner for The Main Table.
For generations, The Dinner Bell has demonstrated that something special happens when people sit down together.
The Main Table takes that idea out of the dining room and brings it directly onto Main Street.
ONE TABLE. ONE COMMUNITY.
The visual centerpiece of the evening will be a beautifully appointed table stretching down Main Street.
Guests who may arrive as friends, coworkers, sponsors, neighbors, or even strangers will share one collective experience beneath the downtown lights.
The concept intentionally reflects the spirit that has made The Dinner Bell famous: bringing people together through food, conversation, and hospitality.
The evening is built around a simple but increasingly powerful idea:
When people share a table, they share more than a meal.
They share stories.
They build relationships.
They discover common ground.
They celebrate where they live.
And they become part of the future of their community.
The Main Table will create that experience on a scale McComb has rarely seen.
A DINNER WITH A PURPOSE
The Main Table is also a signature fundraising event benefiting VisitMcComb.org and the McComb Main Street Association.
Proceeds from the evening will help support the organizations' continued work to promote McComb, strengthen its downtown and Main Street district, attract visitors, encourage economic activity, support local businesses, create community programming, advance beautification and placemaking initiatives, promote historic preservation, and tell McComb's story to audiences throughout Mississippi and beyond.
Every sponsorship, ticket, table, and contribution becomes an investment in that work.
For the McComb Main Street Association, that means helping transform ideas into visible improvements, stronger businesses, activated spaces, memorable events, and a more vibrant downtown.
For VisitMcComb.org, it means continuing to position McComb as a destination by connecting residents and visitors with the restaurants, shops, attractions, events, history, culture, businesses, and experiences found throughout our community.
Together, the two organizations share a goal of creating greater visibility, economic opportunity, community pride, and momentum for McComb.
AN EXPERIENCE DESIGNED FOR DOWNTOWN
The Main Table is intentionally being created as more than a traditional fundraising banquet.
There is no ballroom.
There is no ordinary banquet hall.
Main Street itself becomes the venue.
Beautiful tablescapes, lighting, Southern hospitality, music, food, downtown architecture, and hundreds of guests gathered together will transform the street for one evening.
The experience is designed to showcase Downtown McComb as one of the city's greatest assets while allowing attendees to experience it differently: not simply as a street they drive through, but as a place where people gather, celebrate, invest, dine, connect, and create memories.
The Main Table also provides an opportunity to introduce visitors to downtown businesses and attractions while encouraging guests to return long after the tables and chairs have been removed.
CELEBRATING THE BEST OF MCCOMB
The Main Table represents exactly what VisitMcComb.org and the McComb Main Street Association hope to accomplish through their work.
It brings together:
Tourism.
Economic development.
Historic preservation.
Local business.
Food and hospitality.
Community partnerships.
Downtown revitalization.
Civic pride.
And people.
It celebrates an iconic McComb restaurant while creating a new McComb tradition.
It honors the history of a community built around the railroad and gathering places while demonstrating that Downtown McComb continues to have an exciting future.
And most importantly, it creates an opportunity for everyone to have a seat at the table.
SAVE THE DATE
Monday, October 5
The Main Table will be held beneath the lights of Main Street in Downtown McComb.
Because this is an outdoor experience, Monday, October 12 will serve as the announced weather contingency date.
Additional information regarding reservations, sponsorship opportunities, entertainment, menu selections, event details, and participating partners will be announced through VisitMcComb.org and the McComb Main Street Association.
COME TAKE YOUR SEAT AT THE MAIN TABLE
For one special evening, we will set the table in the middle of Main Street.
The Dinner Bell will provide a taste of one of McComb's most treasured traditions.
Our community will provide the conversation, fellowship, and spirit.
And together, we will create an evening that celebrates where McComb has been, where we are today, and where we are going next.
One table. One downtown. One community.
The Main Table
Benefiting VisitMcComb.org and the McComb Main Street Association
Building a Better Downtown & A Better McComb.
Thank you to our Community Ivestment Partners, Pike National Bank, Southwest Health, and The City of McComb.
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
USD 55.20
