Spring inches ever closer, and to coincide with the season of renewal, let's review a list of recently opened businesses that have breathed new life into some older buildings and spaces in the Jackson metro.

Native Coffee

Matt Flinn, a former North Carolina resident who moved to Jackson with his wife, Anna, will open a new coffee shop in Belhaven called Native Coffee in March 2020. The shop is at 1800 N. State St. inside the former location of Deep South Pops, which closed in November 2019.

The space is currently undergoing renovations, including the installation of a new oven in the kitchen for breakfast items such as biscuits and pastries. Native Coffee will also offer pour-overs, espressos and craft beers, and will later expand into lunch service, Flinn said.

Flinn formerly worked for a North Carolina coffee roaster called Back Alley Coffee Roasters, which has since changed its name to Black and White. While the Flinns will roast their own coffee at the shop, they also plan to carry Black and White coffee.

Native Coffee will be open Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, call 662-397-4583, visit the shop's website or find the cafe on Facebook.

Sweetie Pie's Reopens

Sweetie Pie's, a St. Louis-based soul-food restaurant that became famous after landing a reality show on the Oprah Winfrey Network, opened for business in Jackson in January 2020. Sweetie Pie's originally attempted to open at the Plaza Building in downtown Jackson in August 2019, but a series of problems led to that location closing in December that year. The new location, called Sweetie Pie's Live, is at 100 E. South St. in downtown Jackson, which formerly housed South Street Live.

The menu at Sweetie Pie's includes items such as baked or fried chicken, smothered pork steak, fried pork chops, chicken wings, short ribs, catfish, roast beef, meat loaf, oxtails and more, as well as sides such as baked beans, coleslaw, okra, potato salad, mac and cheese, mashed potatoes and more. The restaurant also offers daily specials with different menu items and a choice of two or three sides each day.

Sweetie Pie's is open Tuesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. For more information, call 769-524-4843 or visit sweetiepieskitchen.com./sweetie-pies-live.

Elvie's Restaurant

Hunter Evans, a Jackson chef who previously worked as chef de cuisine at Lou's Full-Serv in Jackson since 2015, held a grand opening for his own restaurant, Elvie's (809 Manship St.), on Feb. 3.

The restaurant is located inside a remodeled house in the Belhaven Town Center. The 1850-square-foot space includes both indoor and outdoor porch and patio seating for up to 62 people.

Evans named the restaurant after his late grandmother, Elvie Good, who Evans said instilled a love of cooking in him when he visited her in New Orleans when he was 8 years old.

The restaurant's breakfast and lunch menu includes items such as house-made breads and French omelets, fresh oysters and crab claws, beef tartare and duck fat frites, while the dinner menu features duck confit cassoulet, redfish meuniere, Gulf Coast bouillabaisse and more. Elvie's also has cocktails such as the pepper jelly julep and chartreuse daiquiri, boozy iced coffee and Apple Jacks milk punch.

Elvie's is open Monday through Saturday. The restaurant serves breakfast and brunch from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., then closes until 4 p.m. and reopens for dinner. The dinner menu includes small plate specials and a cocktail and wine bar.

For more information, call 601-863-8828, visit elviesrestaurant.com or the restaurant's Facebook page, or find them on Instagram at @elviesrestaurant.

District Drugs & Mercantile

Whitney Harris, a Jackson native who formerly worked as a pharmacist at Beemon Drugs, which closed in June 2019, held a grand opening for her own pharmacy inside The District at Eastover (1200 Eastover Drive, Suite 175), District Drugs & Mercantile, on Monday, Feb. 3.

District Drugs is inside the BankPlus Building near Cultivation Food Hall in The District. The pharmacy offers curbside pickup for medications, immunizations, a retail shop that sells Mississippi-made items such as candles, fashion accessories and art. It also offers medication therapy management services, which is a service where pharmacists help people better understand their health conditions and the medicines required to manage them, Harris said.

The pharmacy also offers free delivery to patients in Hinds, Madison, and Rankin counties and has an app that allows patients refill prescriptions and communicate directly with Harris for questions about different medicines. District Drugs & Mercantile is open Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The pharmacy has a 24-hour emergency line at 601-500-0443.

For information, call 601-953-3368 or visit districtdrugsjackson.com.

Hungry Goat Fondren

Flowood residents Jordan and Paul Yamas opened a second location for their restaurant, The Hungry Goat, in Fondren (2939 Old Canton Road) on Monday, Jan. 27, in a space that formerly housed an antique shop.

The original Hungry Goat opened in Flowood (671 Grants Ferry Road, Suite A2, Flowood) in January 2019. The restaurant does not have seating inside, offering only carryout and catering. The Fondren location is what Jordan Yamas refers to as a "retail site." The restaurant contains coolers and freezers for carryout items shipped from the Flowood restaurant.

The Fondren Hungry Goat does not have its own kitchen, but all menu items and sizes from the Flowood Hungry Goat are available for purchase. All food is available on a first-come, first-served basis only.

The menu at The Hungry Goat includes entrees such as beef tips, poppyseed chicken, chipotle meatloaf, homemade lasagna, chicken or beef enchiladas and chicken and dumplings; sides such as loaded potato casserole, cornbread dressing, green beans, creamed spinach and country potato salad; desserts such as buttermilk chocolate cake and banana pudding and more.

The Hungry Goat in Fondren is open Tuesday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, call 601-398-4286 or visit thehungrygoatcarryout.com.

Yakiniku Grill Now in Flowood

Yakiniku Grill (275 Dogwood Blvd., Flowood), a Korean barbecue restaurant located inside the former Mellow Mushroom in Flowood, which closed in July 2018, opened on Saturday, Feb. 15.

The menu at Yakiniku Grill includes appetizers such as edamame, cheese wontons, fried calamari, raw oysters and Korean sushi rolls; vegetable, chicken, beef, shrimp or kimchi hibachi; pork, chicken, beef or shrimp sizzling plates or bibimbap; yakisoba, udon or ramen noodles; and ready-to-barbecue beef sirloin, filet mignon, short ribs, flank steak, brisket, chicken thighs and breasts, pork belly, bacon and more.

Yakiniku offers lunch specials Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., including Korean barbecue plates with a choice of two meats for $15 or three meats for $18, as well as hibachi lunch specials. For more information, visit Yakiniku Grill's Facebook page.

JXN Welcome Center

Visit Jackson opened the JXN Welcome Center, first full-service welcome center in Jackson on Friday, Jan. 10, inside the Electric Building at the corner of East Pearl and West Streets (308 E. Pearl St., Suite 100).

The center features maps of restaurants and attractions in the city, visitor's guides and brochures on events and a shop that sells Jackson-themed T-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, cups, blankets and other merchandise.

The center also has space devoted to local artisans such as musicians and handmade goods.

The JXN Welcome Center is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. For more information call 601-960-1891 or visit visitjackson.com.

Pepper Palace

The Pepper Palace, a store that specializes in hand-crafted small batches of hot sauce, salsa, dips, seasonings, barbecue sauce, marinades, pepper jellies, rubs and more, opened at The Outlets of Mississippi (200 Bass Pro Drive, Pearl) on Saturday, Dec. 7.

Pepper Palace has more than 400 different products on offer, all of which have individual spiciness ratings based off the Scoville Scale, which pharmacist Wilbur Scoville created in 1912.

The Scoville test involves using an exact weight of dried pepper dissolved in alcohol to extract the chemical capsaicin that gives peppers their spiciness. Testers dilute the extract in sugar water and give it to a panel of testers until they can no longer detect the heat in the dilution, then assign it a numerical rating from 0 to 3.2 million based on the spiciness.

The store's hottest hot sauce, called "The End," is made with the Carolina Reaper pepper, the hottest pepper on record with a Scoville rating of more than 1.5 million. Customers must sign a special waiver and be 18 years old or older before they can sample or purchase The End.

Pepper Palace has a wide array of products made from jalapeno, cayenne, habanero and ghost peppers. The store allows customers to sample any product on the shelves to find exactly what kind of spiciness they're looking for, and even keeps complimentary mini nacho chips or spoons on hand to sample with them.

Visit pepperpalace.com, or call the Outlets location at 769-233-7619.