Road trip to Nashville via Shreveport- Vicksburg- Birmingham

[MissingInAction 25117]

Visiting friend who has drive every route possible to Nashville and he says this is the best way

Spending a night in Vicksburg and will definitely check out the civil war batte site.

Any other must sees along the way?

[4th&Five 41565]

 No. 

[MissingInAction 25117]

1 minute ago, 4th&Five said:

 No. 

No balls of twine or houses of mud?

[SimonBolivar 10958]

Vicksburg itself is fascinating from the courthouse with a cannonball still lodged in it to the desperate poverty all across the area. The battlefield is probably my favorite and we've been to most of the big ones.

 

The Bonnie and Clyde Ambush Museum is along the way.

 

Also you'll pass by the football stadiums of Grambling, LaTech, UL-M, Jackson State, Alabama, and UAB if you are so inclined.

[baboso 6056]

Good bbq ribs at Archibald's in Northport, AL (Tuscaloosa area).

[Surly Bevo 25076]

If you are going to Nashville from Birmingham might as well stop at Bob Gibson's in Decatur and see what all the fuss is about.

[baboso 6056]

10 minutes ago, Surly Bevo said:

If you are going to Nashville from Birmingham might as well stop at Bob Gibson's in Decatur and see what all the fuss is about.

BBQ chicken drenched in mayonnaise.  

[conVINCEd 21469]

32 minutes ago, Surly Bevo said:

If you are going to Nashville from Birmingham might as well stop at Bob Gibson's in Decatur and see what all the fuss is about.

I was underwhelmed.

[Jerry Callo 8707]

Marilynn's Place in Shreveport is a good lunch spot for Creole-Cajun.  Rodney Scott's BBQ in Birmingham is good Coastal Carolina whole hog barbecue. 

Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument is a good stop.   Battlefield in Vicksburg is worth the couple hours - drive through with audio.

 

[MissingInAction 25117]

3 hours ago, baboso said:

BBQ chicken drenched in mayonnaise.  

This would have to be combined with the shart thread.

[Jerry Callo 8707]

38 minutes ago, MissingInAction said:

This would have to be combined with the shart thread.

I had some smoked chicken with the Alabama white BBQ sauce at Saw's Soul Kitchen in Birmingham and it was pretty good.  I think Saw's would be a good stop in Birmingham as well.  We ate at the Avondale location and it had a good mix of southern food including the chicken, pulled pork, and fried green tomatoes.

While I prefer good Texas barbecue, I can appreciate different styles.  We'll be in Memphis and Nashville on the way to Kentucky this Summer - will try some pork ribs in Memphis, probably from a couple different places.  Probably stick to fried chicken in Nashville.  

[Texzilla58 4740]

Personally I would skip the drive to Alabama if I have time and get off at Vicksburg and head up highway 61 to Memphis through the Delta and see where the soul of this country came from.

If you know anything about the blues it all came from these fields. Read a book Rising Tide by John Barry which is about the Great Flood of 1927 which was the catalyst of the great migration to the north and changed southern politics forever. Stop in Greenville at the original Does Eat Place for a big steak and great delta tamales.

[Pescado_Rojo 19426]

Stop in Bossier City at the Margaritaville casino and bang a chain smoking 50 year old Vietnamese lady while her 70 year old husband is losing his ass at the poker tables. Maybe she'll even let you drive his corvette. 

[MissingInAction 25117]

6 hours ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

Stop in Bossier City at the Margaritaville casino and bang a chain smoking 50 year old Vietnamese lady while her 70 year old husband is losing his ass at the poker tables. Maybe she'll even let you drive his corvette. 

That's my go to in Shreveport. 

[MissingInAction 25117]

7 hours ago, Texzilla58 said:

Personally I would skip the drive to Alabama if I have time and get off at Vicksburg and head up highway 61 to Memphis through the Delta and see where the soul of this country came from.

If you know anything about the blues it all came from these fields. Read a book Rising Tide by John Barry which is about the Great Flood of 1927 which was the catalyst of the great migration to the north and changed southern politics forever. Stop in Greenville at the original Does Eat Place for a big steak and great delta tamales.

That's what I'm talking about. Thanks!

[Texzilla58 4740]

The best tamales I’ve ever had are in the Mississippi Delta. Mexican workers brought in a hundred years ago and they’ve been adapted, with cornmeal instead of masa. You can get them from high end steakhouses to diners, soul food joints, and gas stations next to the jo jo taters.

If you make it to Jackson go to Walkers Drive In, one of the best innovative restaurants you’ll ever eat at, without any hipster attitude.

[BHMCruiser 1814]

On 3/14/2022 at 8:22 AM, baboso said:

Good bbq ribs at Archibald's in Northport, AL (Tuscaloosa area).

This is correct. 

[BHMCruiser 1814]

On 3/14/2022 at 9:11 AM, Jerry Callo said:

Marilynn's Place in Shreveport is a good lunch spot for Creole-Cajun.  Rodney Scott's BBQ in Birmingham is good Coastal Carolina whole hog barbecue. 

Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument is a good stop.   Battlefield in Vicksburg is worth the couple hours - drive through with audio.

 

Birmingham Civil Rights museum is very good. The Barber Motorcycle Museum is amazing and world class. As for food, Archibald's in Northport is a billion times better than Rodney Scott's. If you got to Saw's, their best dish is the pork and greens. If you want soul food, order pick up at Eagle's in North Birmingham. The beef tips and ox tails are particularly good. 

[RDCanecutter 26454]

Suggestions for Tuscaloosa/Birmingham, depending on what your bag is, baby:

U of Alabama central campus is a nice place to stretch your road-weary legs strolling around the Quad. Don't miss the original campus just north of the Quad where Woods Hall, Clark Hall, and a couple of other Queen Anne's style buildings survive from when that was almost the entire campus. Woods Hall is art classes now but once housed all the student-cadets back pre-Civil War. Great place to climb up the balconies and watch the sun go down over all the oak trees, barring a retaliatory poisoning from Auburn.

The rest of Tuscaloosa is fairly generic strip malls outside of a few cool things around the downtown, but I am not current on their status. To find out what those might be, go to the Quad like I told you, ignore the students (they don't know shit,) ignore the professors (they don't know shit either,) but if you see some drunk-ass grad-student poet-looking motherfucker, ask them, they'll know.

For Birmingham if you are into BBQ I can't help you because I hate most of that charred greasy shit, no matter where I am, and yeah I said it. As for white sauce being an Alabama thing, yeah, white sauce is Alabama the way El Paso is Texas. It started way up around Decatur, and whether you like it or not, it is an import to the Birmingham lands. Decatur is between Birmingham and Nashville, so maybe that would be a better place to try white sauce if one simply must.

Birmingham is hot dog stands run by the grandchildren of Greek immigrants. Unfortunately those worthies have started taking jobs in the non-hotdog world. For authentic local food, I recommend Salem's Diner (breakfast and lunch, closed Sunday) (Mike Slive of the SEC used to be a regular) or De Vinci's Pizza, a hole-in-the-wall stromboli joint/bar that seems like it should be at a train station in New Jersey. Both are in Homewood, a streetcar suburb just over the hill from Birmingham.

In Birmingham proper I recommend strolling around 5 Points South, an area that looks like a revived Maxwell Parrish painting. Check out the Goat Storyteller fountain with the water jets that form a pentagram, then you can walk one way and get a tattoo, or go the other and get good eats at Chez Fon Fon.

For deeper meaning and the soul of the city, bop up Red Mountain, the ridge that runs along the whole city, and hang out at Vulcan Park with the statue of the God of the Forge. Red Mountain is where they dug out iron ore that led to the existence of Birmingham. Some of the most foo foo neighborhoods now are along that hill where smoking mine pits still existed 100 years ago.

Not far from there, also on Red Mountain, is Chez Lulu restaurant and its symbiotic neighbor, Continental Bakery. It's in the uppermost village of Mountain Brook. You won't find it without GPS. If you like switchback roads, a couple of the ways there are interesting.

[BHMCruiser 1814]

Chez Fon Fon is a good recommendation. The observation that Birmingham barbecue generally sucks is accurate. But again, and I cannot stress this enough, Archibald's in Northport is excellent. 

The hot dog game in Birmingham has also declined pretty dramatically. The hotdogiers of old Birmingham have transitioned to places like Niki's West and Johnny's in Homewood (both good). If you want good dinner at night, Birmingham is a good choice. Chez Fon Fon, Bottega, Highlands, Hot and Hot, Ovenbird, Helen, Automatic are all excellent, if a little pricey. 

[BHMCruiser 1814]

Just now, BHMCruiser said:

Chez Fon Fon is a good recommendation. The observation that Birmingham barbecue generally sucks is accurate. But again, and I cannot stress this enough, Archibald's in Northport is excellent. 

The hot dog game in Birmingham has also declined pretty dramatically. The hotdogiers of old Birmingham have transitioned to places like Niki's West and Johnny's in Homewood (both good). If you want good dinner at night, Birmingham is a good choice. Chez Fon Fon, Bottega, Highlands, Hot and Hot, Ovenbird, Helen, Automatic are all excellent, if a little pricey. 

And you can kill two birds with one stone at Helen: they have a smoked beef rib with white barbecue sauce on it. You can eat there and triumphantly report to your friends in Texas that BOTH Alabama beef ribs AND white barbecue sauce are not good (though in Helen's case it is oustanding).

[RDCanecutter 26454]

13 minutes ago, BHMCruiser said:

Chez Fon Fon is a good recommendation. The observation that Birmingham barbecue generally sucks is accurate. But again, and I cannot stress this enough, Archibald's in Northport is excellent. 

The hot dog game in Birmingham has also declined pretty dramatically. The hotdogiers of old Birmingham have transitioned to places like Niki's West and Johnny's in Homewood (both good). If you want good dinner at night, Birmingham is a good choice. Chez Fon Fon, Bottega, Highlands, Hot and Hot, Ovenbird, Helen, Automatic are all excellent, if a little pricey. 

Johnny's is probably the best meat-and-three I have ever eaten at. Lots of little poke-around shoppes all around and under it. Grab some cookies from Savage's Bakery. In fact that whole area of Homewood is bopping with places to eat especially since they built the Aloft hotel and the Valley Hotel Homewood-- guests get hungry, check their phones, and spill out into the streets looking to spend money.

Also a good place to get an un-ironic Piggly-Wiggly t-shirt at the grocery store. I wore one to Texas and they thought it was a vintage find from when they had the Pig there. Nope. El Puerco Epileptico is going strong here.

[BHMCruiser 1814]

41 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

Johnny's is probably the best meat-and-three I have ever eaten at. Lots of little poke-around shoppes all around and under it. Grab some cookies from Savage's Bakery. In fact that whole area of Homewood is bopping with places to eat especially since they built the Aloft hotel and the Valley Hotel Homewood-- guests get hungry, check their phones, and spill out into the streets looking to spend money.

Also a good place to get an un-ironic Piggly-Wiggly t-shirt at the grocery store. I wore one to Texas and they thought it was a vintage find from when they had the Pig there. Nope. El Puerco Epileptico is going strong here.

Johnny's is very, very good. But for similar (soul, not Greek fusion) food, I think Eagle's in North Birmingham is the best. And Savage's is a great call. They make them year-round now, but they used to only make iced sugar cookies for Halloween and Easter (pumpkins and rabbits respectively) when I was a kid and they are still my favorite cookie. Demitri's has good breakfast (as does Big Bad Breakfast). But yeah that whole part of town is really hopping. 

[RDCanecutter 26454]

7 minutes ago, BHMCruiser said:

I think Eagle's in North Birmingham is the best. 

You just wanna see what would happen when you send an Austinite into North Birmingham. These are modern Texans. They can barely handle Laredo.

[BHMCruiser 1814]

9 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

You just wanna see what would happen when you send an Austinite into North Birmingham. These are modern Texans. They can barely handle Laredo.

well...yeah

[MissingInAction 25117]

2 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:

You just wanna see what would happen when you send an Austinite into North Birmingham. These are modern Texans. They can barely handle Laredo.

I come from some solid trailer lineage, so I'm sure I'll be able to communicate with the natives.

[BHMCruiser 1814]

15 hours ago, MissingInAction said:

I come from some solid trailer lineage, so I'm sure I'll be able to communicate with the natives.

Look, ribs or even sliced meat at Archibald's and oxtails, black eyed peas with okra, collard greens and cornbread at Eagle's and you'll be just fine (though you may have a heart attack and die).

[BHM_Horn 2]

I’ll second the recommendations for the civil rights and Barber museums. Barber especially is a truly world class facility. If you’re a motor sports fan, and motorcycles in particular, it’s a must visit. I know nothing about motorcycles but I still go there every few years and am amazed at the collection. CSB - I was on the design team for the museum expansion that was completed a few years ago. 
 

The civil rights museum is definitely worthwhile, but it’s a somber experience that examines some pivotal moments from the civil rights era, some of which occurred in the surrounding blocks. After you’ve toured the museum walk across the street to Kelly Ingram Park and the 16th Street Baptist Church to see the actual locations of some of the events depicted in the museum. 
 

The restaurant scene in Birmingham is solid, and the restaurants mentioned up thread are all good recommendations.  Highlands Bar & Grill is great and was the national Beard award winner a few years ago.  Chez Fon Fon is next door and is owned by the same restauranteur. It’s also quite good and not as expensive. 

[Capt. Squints 176]

21 hours ago, BHM_Horn said:

I’ll second the recommendations for the civil rights and Barber museums. Barber especially is a truly world class facility. If you’re a motor sports fan, and motorcycles in particular, it’s a must visit. I know nothing about motorcycles but I still go there every few years and am amazed at the collection. CSB - I was on the design team for the museum expansion that was completed a few years ago. 
 

The civil rights museum is definitely worthwhile, but it’s a somber experience that examines some pivotal moments from the civil rights era, some of which occurred in the surrounding blocks. After you’ve toured the museum walk across the street to Kelly Ingram Park and the 16th Street Baptist Church to see the actual locations of some of the events depicted in the museum. 
 

The restaurant scene in Birmingham is solid, and the restaurants mentioned up thread are all good recommendations.  Highlands Bar & Grill is great and was the national Beard award winner a few years ago.  Chez Fon Fon is next door and is owned by the same restauranteur. It’s also quite good and not as expensive. 

No love for The Bright Star? Also a Beard winner.

[RDCanecutter 26454]

16 hours ago, Capt. Squints said:

No love for The Bright Star? Also a Beard winner.

I was down there last week (downtown Bessemer, but not the Bright Star) and the old heart of town is getting a lift back in its step. Seemed like lots of things were opening up. I heard they are making something out of the old depot too.

[BHMCruiser 1814]

On 3/19/2022 at 9:14 PM, Capt. Squints said:

No love for The Bright Star? Also a Beard winner.

That's a nostalgia pick more than anything. I love the Bright Star and it's great, but it's not in the same league as Highlands. They're playing different sports. 

Anyway, Highlands is shut down and won't be reopening until later this spring. 

[BHMCruiser 1814]

19 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:

I was down there last week (downtown Bessemer, but not the Bright Star) and the old heart of town is getting a lift back in its step. Seemed like lots of things were opening up. I heard they are making something out of the old depot too.

What are they making? A trauma center for gunshot victims?

[BHMCruiser 1814]

On 3/18/2022 at 11:25 PM, BHM_Horn said:

I’ll second the recommendations for the civil rights and Barber museums. Barber especially is a truly world class facility. If you’re a motor sports fan, and motorcycles in particular, it’s a must visit. I know nothing about motorcycles but I still go there every few years and am amazed at the collection. CSB - I was on the design team for the museum expansion that was completed a few years ago. 
 

The civil rights museum is definitely worthwhile, but it’s a somber experience that examines some pivotal moments from the civil rights era, some of which occurred in the surrounding blocks. After you’ve toured the museum walk across the street to Kelly Ingram Park and the 16th Street Baptist Church to see the actual locations of some of the events depicted in the museum. 
 

The restaurant scene in Birmingham is solid, and the restaurants mentioned up thread are all good recommendations.  Highlands Bar & Grill is great and was the national Beard award winner a few years ago.  Chez Fon Fon is next door and is owned by the same restauranteur. It’s also quite good and not as expensive. 

You guys did a great job on the expansion. It's gorgeous. Frankly, I don't like motorcycles but I tell people they should go just to see the facility.