Peasoup’s Lott-A-Freeze has been one of the pillars of the 82 corridor in Indianola for 50 years.
The restaurant is celebrating its golden anniversary this week. It originally opened in a 900-square-foot building on May 10, 1968 under the ownership of Emmitt “Peasoup” Lott.
Today, Emmitt’s son Thomas, and wife Brenda, still operate the restaurant at 809 Highway 82, a place known for its steak fingers, shrimp and of course its ice cream.
“We’ve always had a really good ice cream business,” Thomas said.
In fact, Peasoup’s is still using the same ice cream machine that was churning out treats for Indianola decades ago. It’s that kind of consistency, in both food and service, that has kept the restaurant going, Brenda said.
“We do a lot of prep work,” Brenda said. “We do a lot of homemade stuff here.”
The restaurant’s salad dressings are all made in-house, and the steak fingers, which are popular with the local farmers, are all cut and made fresh daily, she said.
“If you do that kind of stuff, it’s a lot you have to do ahead of time,” Brenda said.
The Peasoup’s Story
Long before Emmitt Lott opened his restaurant, he was an aspiring football player on Joe Green’s junior high team at Indianola School.
A July 13, 1978 article in The Enterprise-Tocsin suggests he got the name Peasoup from the coach, who saw him “running a bit sluggish.” Green said he was “moving around on the field as if he were filled with pea soup.”
Thomas said Green had a nickname for all of his players, and that one stuck with Emmitt for the rest of his life.
Emmitt would go on to work as the meat market manager at Indianola’s Piggly Wiggly store for over two decades before he decided to open his restaurant in 1968.
At first, he ran two businesses.
One was Peasoup’s Lott-A-Freeze on the highway, and the other was a meat market where the Blue Biscuit sits today.
He eventually gave up the meat market and he and his wife Connie dedicated their lives to the restaurant.
Emmitt passed away in the early 1990s, leaving the restaurant to Thomas. In 1999, he made the decision to move from the original location to the western side of 82.
Brenda, who dated Thomas for eight years prior to marrying him, worked as a beautician for a number of years before getting her real estate and broker’s license.
She worked in real estate until the most recent housing crash.
She had always worked at the restaurant in some capacity, but since giving up her other endeavors, she has been full time at Peasoup’s.
Quality Food, Quality Service
Peasoup’s has been able to retain a lot of the same customers throughout the decades, but it has also done something a lot of restaurants struggle to accomplish.
“We’ve had some employees stay with us for 40 years,” Brenda said. “We have had some who have started here and passed away here. Our kitchen staff is unbelievable. We hire somebody, and they don’t leave.”
Brenda said that a lot of the high school students who come to work part time end up staying until they leave for college.
The same can be said for many of the restaurant’s customers.
“We have one customer who eats here just about every night of the week,” Brenda said. “We have a lot of repeat customers.”
Thomas and Brenda were able to pass the emphasis on quality to their son, Preston, who is a co-owner in Lost Pizza Co.
“I tried to keep him out of the restaurant business, because I knew it is such hard work,” Brenda said.
After Preston graduated from college and worked for a year, Brenda said he and his business partner Brooks Roberts approached them about opening another restaurant.
Lost Pizza has since flourished into 14 stores.
Brenda said one of Preston’s biggest contributions to Peasoup’s was insisting they convert to a Point of Sale computer system for orders.
For most of Peasoup’s existence, orders were tallied on one ticket, by hand.
“The most challenging part was figuring out how to do it with a computer,” said Brenda, who now says she couldn’t imagine the business without the system.
“If we ever had a problem in the kitchen, 99 percent of the time it was because of miscommunication,” Brenda said. “Now, every station gets their own ticket for what they’re supposed to fix.”
Another popular addition in recent years has been the Flavor Burst machine, which has the ability to swirl in a number of flavors around the ice cream.
With lines still stretched out the door at lunch time, and hours of food prep done head of time to ensure the highest quality, Peasoup’s is fresher than ever at 50.
