MeatN3

10110 CAMP OLIVER ROAD ADGER, AL 35006

Friday night Patti and I went out to celebrate the completion of my basic firefighter class (160 hours spread over two years and three hunting seasons). We met some folks from the Warrior River at Donnie’s Supper Club on Camp Oliver Road near Oak Grove.

Donnie’s is a restaurant/bar with a stage and dance floor but without an obvious no-smoking section. Its building is located on the old lot where once set the more notorious Hilltopper, a honky-tonk eatery that mercifully burned to the ground a few years ago. If you live on the river, Donnie’s is one of only two places where you can eat out. The other is the River Café, a bar which recently upgraded from a single-wide to a double-wide.

After dinner and a few drinks, Patti and I headed home to relieve the babysitter. Somewhere between dinner at Donnie’s and home on the farm I lost the $40 I planned to pay the sitter — just two $20 bills wrapped in a receipt. Yesterday it showed up in the mail with a note that it was found outside Donnie’s.

It was moment to smile about the good nature of people.

Contributed by Sean Kelley

(Five Points on Andrew Jackson Way, Huntsville, Alabama)

My first teaching job was in Huntsville only a few blocks from Euince’s. I would often sneak off for a little breakfast. I don’t think there was a menu, just small, medium, or large size country ham with eggs, biscuits, and gravy.

Well, as anyone who has eaten there knows, you don’t wait for a table, you wait for a seat (more unwritten rules - ed.). You get put in whatever empty chair comes up.

One day I went in and was seated at the liars table. Oh JOY of JOY!!! As I was introduced to my tablemates, who were named David, Jason, and Randy, I placed my order and was all set for my ham. As folks will do when they first meet, people
begin exchanging information. Asked what I did, I said I was a band director at a local school. Across from me Randy said he was in the music business. I asked him what he did, he told me he was in a band. I asked him what they were
called, he told me, “Alabama.”

I was sitting across from Randy Owen and had not a single clue.

Breakfast was good too.

(For those who care David was a car salesman and Jason worked for the state government.)

Contributed by Jarrett Farrell

See a lovely memorial to the now passed Aunt Eunice , proprietress and gossip columnist, which includes lots more stories, and a virtual tour of the restaurant.

Once my Dad walked into a (supposed) BBQ place in Florida and asked for “6 pork sandwiches; three inside, and three outside”. The girl at the counter asked “You want three to eat here, and three to take away!?”

The folks at Ken’s in lovely Pinson, Alabama (reviewed here) would never make such a vile error. They truly know the ways of pulled pork. Freaking awesome place.

This place is now known as Pat James Full Moon Bar-B-Que. But as I recall the original, Southside branch, it was a concrete block building with a huge smiling moon face on the exterior wall. We’d skip school to go there. Great ‘Q. And it had the first PacMan machine to appear in B’ham (we thought the graphics were so awesome!).

It was one of the tabletop models, so you could sit your coke and paper plate on it while you played. That was, until the owner’d yell from back behind the counter for us kids to settle down and not get slop on his machine.

The first time I went to Archibald’s was when I was a high school senior, visiting the University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa). My sister was already studying there, and she and her friends took me to The Sidetrack the night before, where I had two “Derailers.” A Derailer was big plastic cup, filled with a sub-Jim-Jones level of KoolAid and 5 kinds of liquor. So we didn’t make it to Archibald’s until about 3PM the next day, and my head was still feeling like it had a knife in it.

I expected a restaurant, but Archibald’s was a concrete block building in some guy’s backyard. It had a Formica counter, and high metal garden chairs. You watched the meat cook in the pit, right in front of you. There were three things on the menu: pulled pork sandwich (which came on plain white bread, no buns, and enough sauce to make the bread a little soggy), pulled pork plate (which was two sandwiches), and the jumbo pork plate (three sandwiches).

The smell of meat and sauce was amazing, even through my Derailer hangover. So I ordered a pork plate and a coke. When I got the coke, I noticed the inner liner on the cap had already been removed, to check if any prizes had been won in the recent soft drink promotion. The inside of my cap said “Sorry, Try Again.”

One of the guys I was with asked Archibald if you could buy sauce, and he said “Yup, if you bring me a jar.” He also told us he’d cook you a chicken, if you brought him a chicken.

Needless to say, the BBQ was freaking amazing. I walked out full, firmly back on the rails, smiling rather than smarting in the sunshine, head held high.

While for ribs I’d hit the infamous Dreamland, and for “The Blade” I’d go to The Rib Cage, for pulled pork, Archibald’s was the place.

From Greeks in Birmingham:

The Fish Market
611 21st Street South
Birmingham, AL 35233
(205) 322-3330

The only thing I always ha[d] a hard time [with in] southern cooking, one product: corn. We never use corn in our cooking, at least in—where I come from. And we always thought corn, it was for the animals only. And I [didn’t] eat cornbread for the last fifteen—the first fifteen years I was in the United States. And actually, I like it.
–George Sarris

George Sarris came to Birmingham from Greece in 1969. After a few years of working in restaurants owned by relatives and fellow countrymen (Niki’s West and John’s included), he partnered with his uncle in The Fish Market Restaurant on South 21st Street downtown. In 1982 he bought the business from his uncle and has since become a veritable ambassador of Greek food and culture. In addition to running the restaurant, George has an import company that deals in Greek products from his native Tsitalia. But with everything from fried green tomatoes to baklava on the restaurant’s menu, it’s apparent that his place is as Southern as it is Greek. His father, Kostandinos Sarris, has retired from his days running Sarris’s Hot Dogs and can often be found visiting with friends at his son’s place. The joint is always bustling with an eclectic crowd, so plan to stay a while to take it all in. And make sure to check out all of the fantastic photographs hanging throughout the restaurant that beautifully document George’s many visits back to his hometown.

From Greeks in Birmingham:

Gus’s Hot Dogs
1915 4th Avenue North
Birmingham, AL 35203
(205) 251-4540

In Chicago they have different style [of hot dog]. They put [them] in the water,[and] they put mustard, onions, tomatoes and pickles and, uh, relish. Stuff like that. And, uh, in the southern—the southern states like here, we have different. But here is better because they cook with a grill, you know?
—George Nasiakos

Gus Alexander, a native of Greece, opened Gus’s Hot Dogs, sometime in the late 1940s. Alex Choraitis (current owner of Andrew’s Bar-B-Q) took the place over in the 1960s, when Gus and his wife returned to live in Greece. Then, George Nasiakos took it over soon after his arrival to Birmingham in 1997. George came to Birmingham from Tripolis, Greece, via Chicago, where he worked at his brother’s restaurant, Chris’s Grill. Aleck Choraitis recruited George from Chicago, where their brothers knew each other, so that he could concentrate on his barbecue business. The hot dogs served at Gus’s are your typical Birmingham fare: a grilled dog with mustard, onions, and the elusive special sauce. The sauce recipe used there today is the original concoction that Gus Alexander created and then sold to Aleck and later George. George says he’s added his own touch to the sauce in the intervening years. No matter, it’s still one of the best dogs to be found in the Magic City.

From Greeks in Birmingham:

The Bright Star
304 19th Street North
Bessemer, AL 35020
(205) 426-1861

The Bright Star, when it first opened up [at this location] in 1915, used to be open close to twenty-four hours a day. It was just people coming from mining towns[for] coffee, doughnuts, chili—whatever…Even when I was a child, [Bessemer] was so crowded that] people couldn’t walk the streets.
–Jimmy Koikos

Opened by Greek immigrant Tom Bonduris in 1907, The Bright Star is Alabama’s oldest restaurant still in operation. The restaurant has seen three other locations over the years, but The Bright Star has been in its current location in the mining town of Bessemer, just outside of Birmingham, since 1915. Bill and Pete Koikos (Tom Bonduris was their great-uncle) took over the restaurant in the 1920’s, and Bill’s sons, Jimmy And Nick Koikos, are still there, greeting regulars and overseeing the expansive menu that includes fresh fish, steak and some outstanding pie. The Bright Star’s Greek-style snapper and Trout Almondine are legendary, but you can also find a rare delicacy like snapper throats or the unusual pineapple cream cheese pie. The interior of the restaurant is true to its 1915 glory, with handpainted murals on the walls, a marble-tiled floor, and even a couple of private curtained booths—a tradition that, as it turns out, is not unique to Mississippi. The Bright Star will be celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2007, and you can bet there will be one heck of a celebration.

The Sneaky Pete’s in Tarrant used to have a Pepper Dog; a hot dog covered in a hot relish made from 5 pepper varieties. You broke into
a sweat with the first bite, and it was heavenly. I miss them terribly.

Written by Robin Newberry: “when we were in High School, I can remember my girlfriend’s Mom pocketing the sat and pepper shakers from the Sneaky Pete’s in Hoover; I don’t know why”)

Ate there all the time in the 80’s - back when it was Burly Earl’s, not The Burly Earl.

Originally it was “Dagwood’s”, and it changed names a couple years after it opened either because of legal reasons or they thought “Burly Earl’s” was cuter.

I never thought of it as a dive, but then again, I am not easily swayed from good food because of location. I used to eat at that stand outside of the Elyton Meat Market all the time in the 90’s (the one with the Bear Burger).

Written by Robert McCrary