Down Home Dining
Checking In At Two Must-Visits In South Alabama
Just a short drive west from the glitz, the towering high rises, the restaurants and tourist-trap shopping where Panama City beach reaches to Pensacola Beach on the Gulf Coast of Florida, you’ll find the more laid back area where Mobile Bay hooks up with the Gulf of Mexico in Alabama.
Popularly known as Gulf Shores, it, too, has the high rise condos and hotels and its share of places willing to take your money for tacky T-shirts and to fill your empty stomachs hastily.
But stray away northward and you’ll discover two must-visit destinations: Lulu’s at Homeport on the Intracoastal Waterway just three miles north of the beach, and further north in the town of Fairhope, Ala., Panini Petes.
Lulu’s at Homeport Marina
When you cross the bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway a couple of miles north of the beach at Gulf Shores, your eyes will be drawn to the right (unless enamored by the passage of a shrimp boat or barges on the canal) and a marina filled with boats of all sizes and shapes. Just next to that sits a long building with the LuLu’s sign on the front.
It wasn’t busy when we arrived at Lulu’s in early January, but the towering palms were no less impressive. Chairs rest in the sand and a ship’s bell seemingly guards Lulu’s entrance.
Inside, the place is huge but divided into several areas that does not give an overall impression of a huge dining room. Opting for a table on the canal, we were awed to walk first by the rogue’s gallery of Lucy Buffett, the owner and founder of this now famous restaurant.
The walls are also decorated with mounted fish of all kinds, and framed magazine stories about Lulu’s. Oh yes, there are few photos of Lucy and her brother, Jimmy.
Both Jimmy and Lucy grew up in the area. When she was in her 40s, Lulu returned to her native coastal area and started a small restaurant, lost her land lease there and literally moved the entire restaurant by barge, complete with palm trees to be replanted, to the present site of her restaurant.
Johnny Fisher is the manager of Lulu’s. He migrated back to Alabama through restaurants in Louisiana when Lulu’s new place was becoming more than she could handle.
Popular local bands are scheduled frequently but Lulu’s is not a night party place —it closes at 10 p.m. “The food is what brings people back again and again and we hardly advertise,” Fisher says. “We get people here from our reputation of having a nice family place to eat with good food.”
The gumbo is delicious and there is even a special menu for allergies and a gluten-free offering. The children’s menu is extensive, and while a full bar is part of the sprawling place, it is family-friendly.
As we sat there one beautiful day in January after an early arrival, the place began to fill. It is easy to see how, as Fisher said, “We served over 1,900 people here New Year’s Day. That doesn’t count those who were just milling around, listening to the music and having a good time.”
There is a landing strip just to the north of the restaurant and marina and “brother Jimmy flies in occasionally.” Lest you think the brother is financing the place, the answer is no, although he and his agent do own a 20 percent interest. Lucy lives in the area, is there frequently and “loves to cook and write about cooking,” Fisher says. “That is her true love and what she spends most of her time doing. She leaves the business in Fisher’s capable hands.
We were headed north and Johnny said we should visit Fairhope, just a few miles north. “
“What’s Fairhope?”
He told us.
Panini Pete’s
We headed north and made our way over to the east coast of Mobile Bay. We saw beautiful homes, partially hidden in plush greenery on either side of the drive that was canopied by overhanging trees, moss clinging to their branches.
The scenic road stretched until we reach Fairhope, a town founded on a belief of a utopian, single-tax society in 1894.
“The purpose of the single-tax colony was to eliminate disincentives for productive use of land and thereby retain the value of land for the community” according to the city’s website, which is a bit more complicated than I comprehend. While still retaining the single-tax concept with artists and intellecuals to a degree, the small village (16,000) has become a boutique city and affluent suburb of Mobile.
Located down an alleyway and hard to find even in the small village, it is the entry to what is called the French Quarter. Hardly a quarter block in size, the small courtyard is framed with a couple of boutique shops and that’s where we found Panini Pete’s.
Pete Blohme has been around the food business since he was a teenager. Eventually he attended the Culinary Institute of America and worked for a corporate chain outfit, but always had a hankering to have his own place.
His wife found a little joint in the French Quarter of their hometown of Fairhope that had been the site of a succession of failed restaurants. Blohme’s perfected recipe for beignets, which add his mother’s suggestion of a squeeze of lemon (optional, but advised), make me want to throw rocks at the famous Café DuMonde in New Orleans.
The restaurant, which initially seated 10 people, expanded with the addition of a greenhouse where an outdoor patio existed. This expansion increased seating capacity to “around 50,” according to Blohme.
Now, in that small place in a quaint, definitely understated, upscale town, Pete’s serves from 30 to 300 customers daily.” Blohme says publications, nationwide and throughout the South, tout the vittles there, including sausage gravy and fluffy biscuits and, of course, the paninis.
Blohme has become friendly with Guy Fieri of the Food Network and “Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives” who has visited with his camera several times and invited Blohme to appear on the Food Network.
Just two, but two very good reasons to visit South Alabama.
Ray Speckman can be found cleaning powdered sugar from his clothes or at rayspeckman@emmesannex.com
