Welcome to Santini's

Mickey Poulos was born and raised in Biloxi, Mississippi. The youngest son of a Lebanese immigrant, he married Dorothy Comeaux, and they had daughter Diane and son Roger. Mickey was a bachelor most of his adult life, but he loved his family and animals. He especially loved dogs, owning 13 at one time!

In the late 60s, he built a house in “the country,” where his daughter Diane and son-in-law George would bring their two daughters on weekends, holidays and summers. In 1972 Diane and George—much to the dismay of a football coach—welcomed their third daughter, Michelle, named after Mickey. Mickey gave granddaughter Michelle the nickname “Turtle,” and it stuck.

When Michelle (aka Turtle) was three years old, Mickey moved into a house he built in Biloxi on Santini Street. Situated at the dead end on Keegan Bayou, the property was located as close to the country as possible without leaving the city.

From then on, weekends and summers were spent on Santini Street. Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas…Santini Street. On Saturday nights, the family would dine together, and the menu rarely changed. Diane would prepare poboys Old Biloxi style—pressed and dressed. After dinner they would play games or watch television together. Good coffee, good food, something sweet (Mickey had a sweet tooth) and love could always be found on Santini Street. Here, Michelle’s most precious memories were spent with her family and PawPaw Mickey.

In 2000 Michelle and husband Jesse met on a cruise and fell in love. They began their life together in that Biloxi home that Michelle’s beloved PawPaw Mickey left to her when he passed away. They called their home “Santini.”

East Biloxi is a unique neighborhood that doesn’t seem to want to catch up to the hustle and bustle of the rest of the world. Nothing captured that spirit more than Santini.

In Michelle and Jesse’s home, they talked the stress and worries of their world away over a cup of coffee, a cold beer or a bottle of wine. Christmases, birthdays, engagements and new babies were all celebrated with parties in Santini. The laughter of good times and the smell of good food or good coffee always filled the rooms of the house. Michelle and Jesse spent five precious years together on Santini Street, making some of their most cherished memories.

August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina came ashore and changed Michelle and Jesse’s life forever, filling Santini with over 9 feet of a mixture of Keegans, Back Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Michelle and Jesse worked to rebuild Santini, spending two more Christmases there, but sadly realized that it would never be the same.

Then they found Tradition, and sold on the beauty of life in “the country,” they became the first residents to build and move into the storybook neighborhood. Happy and content, the opportunity arose to help open the neighborhood’s first market and café—a place where the smell of good food, good coffee and laughter would fill the air. They drew from their most precious memories of Old Biloxi and Michelle’s favorite childhood memories to name the new market and café. What would they name it? What else? Santini’s.