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”

Supposedly (according to my dad and several older Birminghamians I have
talked to) there also used to be a lot of hamburger places downtown
with the same sauce-based philosophy. My dad says they pretty much
died out by the early 60’s.

The best hamburger I ever had in
Birmingham was a holdover from that era - a place called “Giglio’s Eat
Shop” in Bessemer. My one page review of that place (in ICTW) was so
appreciative that the family FRAMED IT in their living room, and called
to tell me!

The owner / artist in residence Tony Giglio got sick, closed the place,
and died within months. And he never told his family how to make the
sauce.

Talk about a place I MISS. Good lord those things were terrific.

(written by Robert McCrary: “I had two, and a coke”)

This is a blog setup to encourage a few friends of mine to offer memories, status reports, and even obituaries on meat and three vegetable cafes, BBQ joints, and other places fitting under the label “EATS”. Primarily in Birmingham, Alabama, and primarily from the 70s.

If you think that when someone orders “three jumbo pork sandwiches, 2 inside and 1 outside,” they plan on eating a third al fresco, there is likely to be writing here you won’t understand.

Otherwise, y’all enjoy it now.