MeatN3

I may have missed it, but I don’t think anyone has mentioned “downstairs Romeo’s” across the street from Burly Earl’s and down some stairs. Not that I ever ate there, but this was a place where you could buy alcohol on Sundays, even if you were underage (I’ll have some of the house coffee, please — dark). Wine out of a stainless coffee pitcher and into coffee cups.

At UAB in 1979, I became a member of “Romeo’s Flaming Amaretto Society” — I even got a membership card — earned by downing a pony glass shot of Amaretto topped with flaming Bacardi 151. I caught my beard on fire once. Ah, the memories.

written by Ken McCoy: “never more Dionysian since”

This place was amazing. The mother would come by and talk to you, suggest wines for the evening, ask you personal questions, etc. etc. all while rubbing your back. The decor was really crappy - the waiting room was a ripped and torn couch with a TV, and the tablecloths were your requisite white and red check with candle wax ALL OVER THE WALLS due to accumulation and neglect over the decades. I liked that it was downstairs.

It didn’t last a wink when they moved near my house in the 80’s (where the original Jim and Nicks moved into later, and what is now a dry cleaners) because all it really had going was charm and a sense of theatre. In the open, there was no real reason to eat there.

Written by Robert McCrary: “Never got to sit in the enclosed rear booth”