Morgan Freeman revives historic Mississippi store as a blues club with 400 shows a year

On Howard Avenue in downtown Biloxi, Mississippi, a building that once housed a department store now echoes with blues guitars, clinking glasses and the murmur of diners settling in for an evening. Ground Zero Blues Club opened here in February 2022, with actor Morgan Freeman among its co-owners. The venue has since expanded into a 20,000-square-foot destination for live music, Southern cooking and private events. Its production manager told the Sun Herald in July 2026 that the club hosts as many as 400 performances a year. The venue has become part of a wider effort to revive Biloxi’s historic commercial district, where vacant storefronts once reflected years of economic decline.How Morgan Freeman helped give Biloxi’s historic Kress Building a second lifeThe building at 814 Howard Avenue was constructed for the S.H. Kress department store in the 1920s. Its brick exterior and decorative façade reflect an era when downtown streets served as important centres of shopping and social life. The Mississippi Department of Archives and History identifies the property as a contributing building in the Biloxi Downtown National Register Historic District. Its records document a fire in Novemb...