In this edition of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-at-Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with restauranteur Randy Yates. Yates founded and owns Ajax Diner on the Square in Oxford, Miss.

Opened in 1997, Ajax Diner fed Oxford as the city changed and grew. Yates talks about the highs and lows of the restaurant business, including the challenges faced during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wake up informed

Get the latest Mississippi news delivered to your inbox on weekday mornings. Sign up for The Today, our daily newsletter.

WATCH MORE EPISODES

Mississippi Stories: James Storey

by Marshall Ramsey February 4, 2025February 4, 2025

Mississippi Stories: Landon Bryant

by Marshall Ramsey January 28, 2025January 28, 2025

Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.

Free to read, not to produce.

As a nonprofit newsroom, we rely on support from readers like you to make our work possible and keep our stories free for all, regardless of anyone's ability to pay.

If you enjoyed this article, please consider donating today to support our award-winning journalism. We may write the stories, but without you, those stories go untold.

Start a monthly donation today to sustain local independent journalism!

DONATE TODAY >>

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Republish this article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Unless otherwise noted, you can republish most of Mississippi Today’s stories for free under a Creative Commons license. For digital publications:

Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
Editorial cartoons and photo essays are not included under the Creative Commons license and therefore do not have the "Republish This Story" button option. To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.

For print publications:

You have to credit Mississippi Today. We prefer “Author Name, Mississippi Today” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Mississippi Today” and include our website, mississippitoday.org.
You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Michael Guidry for more information). To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.
Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.

If you have any other questions, contact Audience Development Director Lauchlin Fields.

Mississippi Stories: Randy Yates

by Marshall Ramsey, Mississippi Today
October 1, 2023

					<h1>Mississippi Stories: Randy Yates</h1>
<p class="byline">by Marshall Ramsey, Mississippi Today <br />October 1, 2023</p>
					<br />
<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio">
<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
https://youtu.be/pdr2RLPiFpc
</div>
</figure>
<p>In this edition of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-at-Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with restauranteur Randy Yates. Yates founded and owns <a href="https://ajaxdiner.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Ajax Diner</a> on the Square in Oxford, Miss. </p>
<p>Opened in 1997, Ajax Diner fed Oxford as the city changed and grew. Yates talks about the highs and lows of the restaurant business, including the challenges faced during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. </p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />

					<p>This &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://mississippitoday.org/2023/10/01/mississippi-stories-randy-yates/&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; first appeared on &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://mississippitoday.org&quot;&gt;Mississippi Today&lt;/a&gt; and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.&lt;img src=&quot;https://cdn.mississippitoday.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/06074517/MT_icon-logo-favicon-1-200x200.png&quot; style=&quot;width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;&quot;&gt;&lt;img id=&quot;republication-tracker-tool-source&quot; src=&quot;https://mississippitoday.org/?republication-pixel=true&amp;post=1104483&amp;amp;ga4=G-VSX4B701MS&quot; style=&quot;width:1px;height:1px;&quot;&gt;</p>