Youth Baseball: Nations Baseball National Championship (Part 5)

Nations Baseball National Championship - Gulfport, MS - Where to Eat.

The food in southern mississippi is awesome. I can certainly understand why Mississippi is ranked #1 as the fattest state in the country. (Source Chartsbin.com)

Here is a list of team friendly restaurants.

Hog Heaven has great BBQ served either inside or outside and good music. Our entire team showed up at 8:00 or so after our game and the staff seated and served us quickly. The band was suppose to wrap up their night at 9:00, but they stayed another hour to entertain our large group. That was a smart move by the owner of the restaurant. Several of our group liked the restaurant so much they went back for lunch.

On two different nights after the games ended, our entire team showed up at the Back Bay Seafood Restaurant. This restaurant was able to accommodate a large crowd very quickly and efficiently too. The food is pretty good and very affordable. You have to eat seafood at least once while on the gulf coast and this is a family friendly place to go.

Between games of a doubleheader, my wife and two kids and I ventured down 49 toward the water looking for a cool local restaurant. We stumbled upon Big Mike's Speakeasy nestled next to the abandoned Gulfport library devastated by Katrina. The building had a New Orleans flair to it with a nice deck so we went it and we were glad that we did. The Big Mike's (Grilled Shrimp with caribbean jerk sauce was great. We enjoyed the food here so much that we returned with a big group two days later.

Click Read More - for recommendations for a great burger place and two pizza places.




There is a strip mall across the street from the Edgewater Mall that is mostly vacant giving a sad reminder that this city has not fully recovered from the woes of Katrina, the BP oil spill and the overall lackluster economy. There is one section of the mall parking lot that is packed. The section of the parking lot infront of Mugshots is a bar and grill had cars in front of it all day long. Mugshots was voted best burger in Mississippi 4 years in a row and who ever votes for that has really good taste. Mugshots has a huge burger call the "Mugshot" that is free if you can eat it in 12 minutes or less. We watched 3 huge guys give it a try. One guy missed by 7 fries, the others were not even close to finishing in the allotted time. The Mahi Mahi sandwich with comeback sauce (whatever that is) was great if you are not into hamburgers. Mugshots is made for baseball teams and their families. The restaurant is huge and can easily accommodate an entire team. We showed up without reservations and they were able to sit us in a timely manner.

We had pizza twice during our stay. We ate Tony's Brickoven pizza takeout one day by the pool and the Sienna by the Coast condo and the entire team went to Fox's Pizza Den after a game on night. Fox's Pizza Den is very close to the Gulfport Sportsplex ball fields just north of Route 10 on 49. We showed up with the entire team, parents and siblings and took over the place. It is a chain pizza place but the food was surprisingly good, the portions were large and the prices were very reasonable. We did not eat Tony's so I cannot comment on if their restaurant is family friendly, but we enjoyed the pizza.

The Main Point

Gulfport opened its welcoming arms to us and fed us very well.