‘He had the character of 50 people’: Macon remembers Famous Mike

A beloved downtown restaurateur died unexpectedly last week from heart-related causes.

Mike Seekins, owner of Famous Mike’s on Poplar Street, was 63.

A handwritten note taped to the front door of the Poplar Street eatery soon after his death on June 25 informed customers that the restaurant would be closed for the rest of the week.  

In the days after Seekins’ death, people out and about downtown and in nearby businesses could be heard mourning the chef’s passing, speaking wistfully about his sausage breakfast biscuits and cooked greens that did not come out of a can. Some wondered aloud whether Famous Mike’s would continue business now that “Big Mike” won’t be in the kitchen.

Seekins’ son, Sam Seekins, plans to continue running the business for now.

Seekins, 63, opened Famous Mike’s downtown in 2018.

Nearly every morning since then, a small cohort of older gentlemen could be found “holding court” in the small restaurant. 

Newton Collier is in that group, which usually splits a meal of three eggs over easy, bacon or a salmon bowl. 

“Between 10 and 10:30 a.m., you must be there because, if not, there will be a fine; the one who gets there last will pick up the tab,” Collier said with a laugh. “Not really.”

Seekins fed Collier and the other three or four men breakfast for years and never once charged for it. 

Collier, who walks from his apartment at the Dempsey on Cherry Street to Seekins’ restaurant every morning, played trumpet with the Sam and Dave duo in his younger years. His pictures are hung on the walls of the restaurant with portraits of other musicians including the Allman Brothers and the Grateful Dead. Collier said he met Seekins decades ago “through the Allman Brothers system.”

“One day, Mike said, ‘It seems like y’all know the story of The Brothers eating with Mama Louise,’” Collier said. “We didn’t think about that.”

Whenever there was a lull during breakfast, Collier said Seekins would come out and join the group’s conversation. He loved to argue about sports. 

In busier times, Collier said Seekins might stick his head through the kitchen window, “and holler at us and say, ‘eat up the damn food and quit talking so much!’”

“This guy had the character of 50 people,” Collier said. “Tough, tough character. He just had fun. He’d come up with some joke or something all the time.”

‘A mushy little soft core’ 

Despite his sometimes rough demeanor and brusque delivery, Seekins had a soft, generous side.

“He had a way of feeding homeless people,” Collier said, adding that Seekins would pass out some of his Sweet Melissa cinnamon rolls — named after the Allman Brother’s famous song — to people who looked hungry. “He had that heart. He had that way.”

Collier compared the late cook to Mama Louise, the legendary original owner of H&H restaurant who fed the Allman Brothers Band before its come up. 

Candis Wilburn, a manager at the Your Pie pizza joint a couple of doors down from Famous Mike’s, recalled last year when Seekins put up a small poster board encouraging patrons to buy a homeless person a meal along with their own. 

“Well, it got through the streets to the homeless community and then they started lining up at his door, waiting for someone to put something on the board, and it started making his customers mad,” Wilburn said. 

Seekins had to take the sign down because patrons told him they didn’t like having to wade through a crowd of homeless people to get a table inside. The negative reaction from his customer base broke his heart.

“Mike had to find a different way to do it,” Wilburn said, adding that he didn’t want to take down the board. “He eventually did take that board down and then just started feeding people when they come.”

Seekins continued feeding people he knew were in need of a hot meal.

“We know who is truly in hard times out here in these streets and we know who’s got the Colt 45 and two Zig Zags out here smoking and doing their thing,” Wilburn said. “Mike wasn’t about that.”

Seekins looked for people who were down and out and told them, “Come on in. Yes, I got you right here,” Wilburn said. He would “give them a glass of orange (juice.) Whatever that he could do. Feed them. Love them. Take them to Daybreak if he had to. He would always be willing to give someone advice on where they could get their next set of help from.”

“I think that that’s what made Mike an even better person is because he didn’t broadcast what he was doing down here,” she said.

Seekins and Wilburn, 35, struck up a friendship of sorts when he lent her a tool to fix an emergency leak at Your Pie.  

Since then, when Your Pie ran out of lids or straws, Famous Mike’s would lend some to tide its neighbor over. If the health inspector was knocking at the door and an employee was missing a hat, one would provide for the other to avoid any deduction of points.

“He used to always give me hell when I’d come in for being a Saints fan,” Wilburn said. “We could get along on Saturdays and he used to always say, ‘Glad I’m closed on Sunday and don’t have to see you,’ because the Saints would always play on Sunday.”

Wilburn noted Seekins was an emotional and tender man, even if his rough exterior didn’t always reflect that.

“He didn’t have the filter to process, ‘Don’t say it that way because I don’t mean it that way,’” Wilburn said. “So he spent a lot of time backtracking, (saying) ‘I’m sorry. Hey, hey listen, I didn’t really mean it that way.’

“Like an ogre and an onion,” Wilburn said, “We get to the middle and there’s like a mushy little soft core of Mike, you know.”

Wilburn said Seekins’ funeral on Saturday was more like a celebration of life.

“There were a few tears shed, but it was more laughter and chipper and not one person there could find anything bad to say about Mike,” Wilburn said.

According to his obituary, Seekins was born in Miami and graduated from Stratford Academy. He was an athlete and played football on scholarship at Presbyterian College. He was known for his ability to hit a long drive when golfing with friends. Others have said he also was a skilled tie-dye artist.

Before opening Famous Mike’s, Seekins owned Biscuits, Burgers & More, on Millerfield Road in the C&J Supermarket near the Jones County line.

In the early 2000s, he owned Take Me to the River, a canoe rental and shuttle business based in Juliette. 

In 1995, he and two business partners opened United Karma, a since-closed eclectic vintage and knick knack store in Ingleside Village. 

Seekins is survived by his two children, Sam and Kendall Seekins, two sisters and multiple nieces and nephews.