Our roots
Four generations of flavor
A grocery counter in Crichton in the thirties. A landmark restaurant in 1971. Four generations later, back on the shelf.
Mack's Wheelhouse began behind a grocery counter.
LR Flowers opened a grocery store in Crichton in the thirties. His son Mack Sr came home from the naval shipyards in San Francisco to run it with his wife Margarete, served two terms as president of Mobile's independent grocer association, then spent the fifties opening restaurants. In 1971 he opened Mack's WheelHouse. Locals called it the Crichton Country Club.
Their son Tyler Sr took the restaurant over in 1990. His own son Tyler Jr was washing dishes there at twelve and cooking the recipes beside him by 1999. The doors closed in 2004, but the recipes, the technique and the seasoning blends stayed in the family. That is four generations, and the fourth is the one putting them back on the shelf.
The recipes started with Mack Sr, then his son Tyler Sr, the 3rd generation Tyler Jr, and the newest generation, Caroline. Four generations have cooked these recipes.
From the archive
The wheel was
always there
This worn red cover, featuring a ship's wheel and Mack's name in script, was once handed to guests at the beginning of dinner.
Half a century later the wheel and the script are still on the label. Time passes but the Wheel, and our recipes, stay the same.
See what is in the jarHow we got here
Pick a year.
Behind the counter
The grocery in Crichton
The story of Mack's begins with the Flowers family, when L.R. Flowers opened a small grocery store in Mobile's Crichton community. His two sons, Dick and Mack Sr., grew up in the store, learning the values of hard work, service, and dedication that would shape their lives. Dick went on to play football at the University of Alabama before building a distinguished coaching career. Mack Sr. took a different path, traveling to San Francisco during wartime to work as an engineer in the naval shipyards, where he helped design the gun systems used on America's warships. From a neighborhood grocery store to football fields and shipyards across the country, the Flowers family's journey was built on perseverance and purpose. Those early experiences would become the foundation of the legacy and traditions that continue through Mack's today.
Home to Mobile
Taking over the store
Mack Sr and Margarete came back to Mobile to take over the family grocery store. He served two terms as president of the Independent Grocer Association. He opened up a few restaurants and started experimenting with recipes. He was the first to bring in fresh New Orleans poboy bread from several well known New Orleans bakeries every few days via a Greyhound bus.
Early 70s
The doors open
Mack Flowers Sr. and Margarete Flowers opened Mack's WheelHouse in Mobile, bringing their family's love of Gulf Coast seafood and hospitality to the table. Mack Sr. became a pioneer in Mobile's seafood scene, introducing crawfish to a local restaurant menu for the first time.
Always focused on creating the very best, Mack Sr. spent months perfecting the recipes that would become part of the Mack's legacy. The famous fish meal was developed over six months using six carefully selected ingredients, designed to reduce sticking in the fryer barrels and help maintain the quality of the cooking oil through repeated use.
Mack Sr. also believed sauces should be made with the same attention to detail. He wanted a cocktail sauce with bold flavor and a true seafood bite, not what he called “dressed-up ketchup.” This was the birth of Mack's Cocktail Sauce.
Inspired by his love of Greek food, he and Margarete spent months perfecting a Mediterranean-inspired tartar sauce that could be enjoyed with seafood or as a dressing. This was the beginning of Mack's Tartar Sauce.
late 1970-1980s
The Crichton Country Club
Nobody made it official. It stuck anyway. The same faces filled the same tables every week and the fish fry became the reason people drove across town on a Friday.
1990
The next shift
Tyler Flowers Sr. carried on the legacy of The WheelHouse, with his son Tyler Jr. learning the family business from the ground up. Starting at just twelve years old, Tyler Jr. spent weekends washing dishes before moving into the kitchen by 1999, where he worked side by side with his father mastering the recipes that had been passed down through generations. As the next generation stepped forward, Mack Flowers Sr. and Margarete retired to Dauphin Island, where they continued operating the Bayside Motel.
2004
The kitchen closes
After thirty-three years the restaurant serves its last plate. The recipes, the technique and the seasoning blends stay in the family.
2026
Back on the shelf
Four recipes go to retail across the Gulf Coast: gumbo, fish fry, tartar and cocktail sauce, made the way the south expects seafood to taste!
