Walnut Hills Restaurant, described as “a Vicksburg icon,” has been sold to two Vicksburg men who are expected to keep “everything the same — even the fried chicken.”

“I just had an opportunity, and I’m at the age that I’m ready to move on,” said Joyce Clingan, who purchased the restaurant with a partner from its founder 14 years ago.

“Bob and I want to do some things,” she said of her husband, retired dermatologist Bob Clingan, whom she married two years ago.

The new owners are Barry Palmertree and John Boland, both familiar with the Vicksburg hospitality scene through Palmertree’s family catering business.

“It’s incredible,” said Boland of the opportunity to own Walnut Hills. “We’re humbled and honored that Joyce thought of us when she thought about retiring and moving on.”

“It’s a great opportunity for us,” Palmertree echoed. “And it also helps Miss Joyce — she gets to retire. She’s earned this.”

Palmertree pointed out that the restaurant has won national awards and recognition from food industry magazines. “The Walnut Hills staff, which has been there for many years, is staying,” he said. “We’ll run it like it’s always been run. It’s a staple of Vicksburg and that’s where people like to go eat.”

The transfer of ownership was finalized Thursday.

Palmertree, whose family has owned a Vicksburg catering business for 30 years, is a 1991 graduate of Warren Central High School. After graduating from Mississippi College, he went to work waiting tables at the old Red Lobster. He worked his way up in the industry and spent a number of years as food and beverage manager at Ameristar Casino, he said.

He’s been doing full-time catering with his mother, Betty Palmertree, for about seven years and the company also has had the contract to provide meals and beverages at the Vicksburg Convention Center since June 2006, Palmertree said.

Boland, a native of Birmingham, Ala., also worked in the food and beverage industry at a country club after college, then went into sales. He’s been with Palmertree Catering since 2002.

Both will continue working with the catering business since the staff at Walnut Hills will be staying on, Palmertree said.

Walnut Hills, operating in an old home at 1214 Adams St., was opened by Kim Ferris, a lifelong Vicksburg resident who had the idea for a restaurant with Southern cooking, Southern charm and Southern music, in 1980. A wide, east-facing porch overlooking the front garden offers a cool spot for sipping mint juleps, as well.

Ferris opened the house with three dining areas — two with Lazy Susan-type round tables — and a bar. She made standard Southern fried foods and vegetables the main fare.

They became a mainstay with a woman who has been the head cook since the beginning, Herdcine Williams, whom Clingan described as “wonderful.”

“Herdcine and I always said we’d go out together,” Clingan said Friday afternoon. “We just didn’t factor in Bob Clingan.”

Joyce Clingan said she is pleased for Vicksburg’s tourists that Walnut Hills will continue. “It’s an icon of Vicksburg, and the tourists come to town knowing about it. They love it.”

“Nothing’s changing, same fried chicken, everything,” Clingan said.

“It’s like a buffet but you don’t have to get up,” Palmertree laughed.

*

Contact Pamela Hitchins at phitchins@vicksburgpost.com