Former owner of famed Biloxi restaurant remembered as warm, joyful & devoted to hospitality
Some days, Virginia Mladinich would pick her daughter up from kindergarten to shop and eat lunch at the Woolworths counter. It is a happy memory.
“That was the kind of mom she was,” Debbie Holstein said.
Mladinich, the former co-owner of the famed White Pillars Restaurant and Lounge in Biloxi, died peacefully last month with her family by her side. She was 92.
An optimistic and determined daughter of Billings, Montana, Mladinich excelled in the arts and came to Biloxi because she fell in love. She studied ballet in Portland, Oregon, after high school, danced with the San Francisco Ballet Company and eventually met a Biloxi native named John Mladinich. They married in Virginia in 1953.
John and Virginia Mladinich are seen here in a photo from 1988. The couple married in in 1953, moved to Biloxi and ran White Pillars Restaurant & Lounge for many successful years.
The couple soon moved to the Mississippi Coast. Virginia Mladinich taught private ballet lessons, became an instructor in Sacred Heart High School’s fine arts program and was crowned Queen of Biloxi’s Young Matrons Carnival Ball.
They opened the White Pillars in 1970.
The building by then was five decades old. The property had become a duplex, Holstein said, and her parents restored it to its original design.
Hurricane Camille hit during the renovation. The structure survived even though so many other landmarks were gone. The Mladinich family was determined to preserve what the storm had spared.
“It was a necessity,” Holstein said.
Virginia Mladinich was a longtime bookkeeper and accountant for the family businesses. She despised it, but did it with a smile. After the storm, she became a hostess at White Pillars. She loved customers and her co-workers, her daughter said.
Running a restaurant was “very demanding,” Holstein said. But “you do every practice the same way as you did the day before and you just continue to evolve. That was her approach.”
They worked long hours: lunch through midnight, sometimes later. Mladinich would return each morning to count the receipts and check on deposits.
Virginia Mladinich, the former co-owner of the famed White Pillars Restaurant & Lounge in Biloxi, died peacefully last month with her family by her side. She was 92.
People used to save up for special occasion dinners at White Pillars, and she wanted to make the experience worth it. When students came in for prom, Mladinich told the staff to treat them like adults.
Many of White Pillars’ signature dishes were John and Virginia Mladinich’s ideas, said Brooks Holstein, Debbie’s husband. Virginia, he said, worked every day but Sunday and saw the restaurant business as artistic expression.
“She had a saying that every meal at the White Pillars should be an event,” he said. “That was her mantra to commit to the communities we got to serve for so many years.”
One highlight of John and Virginia Mladinich’s career came from winning Travel Holiday Magazine’s 1989 Distinctive Dining Award. It was the highest recognition for restaurants at the time, akin to the Oscars of fine dining. They were deeply proud to bring the honor to a Mississippi restaurant.
Virginia Mladinich, pictured here in 1950, was born in Billings, Montana. She studied ballet in Portland, Oregon after high school and danced with the San Francisco Ballet Company.
Mladinich still focused on the arts: She supported the Gulf Coast Arts Council and won the Gulf Coast Opera Salon’s Opera Buff Award. She also earned respect in the business world. She was appointed to The Jefferson Bank’s Advisory Board.
The restaurant needed restorations again after Hurricane Katrina. It is now open again under new owners who run the restaurant with the same values as the Mladinich family.
“My mother’s legacy should really be the White Pillars,” Debbie said.
“No question,” Brooks added.
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