9 hidden Alabama restaurant gems

We say they’re off the beaten path. Or under the radar. Diamonds in the rough.

Whatever you call them, Alabama has a slew of tucked-away dining treasures, many of which are hiding right under our nose, just waiting to be discovered.

You need to get off the main road and venture outside your normal routine to find most of them, but we’ve learned that they’re well worth the effort to do so.

Here are nine such hidden Alabama restaurant gems that we’ve discovered in our travels around the state.

What about you? What off-the-beaten-path treasures have you found that we need to know about?

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Alabama Rib Shack in Gainesville

The Alabama Rib Shack in the tiny Sumter County town of Gainesville isn’t quite as “hidden” as it was when we first wrote about it two ago -- having since been featured on Season 6 of John T. Edge’s popular SEC Network series “TrueSouth.” But it’s still very much a “gem,” a stately, A-frame log cabin restaurant that was built by hand by owner and pitmaster Jamie Lee Mitchell, who left Boston and moved his family back to his home in the Black Belt on the Fourth of July 2020. He opened his restaurant about a year later. It is a shack in name only, and a trip to the ARS is a transcendent experience. It’s not just about the pork, chicken, sausage, ribs and pig tails that Mitchell smokes from white oak and pecan firewood that he has stacked from the floor to the ceiling of his pit room. It’s about the total experience, from meeting Mitchell and hearing about his fascinating journey from rural Sumter County to urban Boston and back home again to sitting in those old church pews repurposed from Gainesville’s historic Clark Chapel United Methodist Church while surrounded by mounted bucks donated by the deer hunters who eat here during hunting season. “I wanted to create this amazing atmosphere that no other barbecue restaurant has and just let my mind go wild,” Mitchell told us back in 2022. He has done that. And then some.

The Alabama Rib Shack is at 9316 State St. in Gainesville, Ala. The phone is 205-652-1115. For more information, go here.

Homecoming and Company in Guntersville

Jessica Hanners grew up in a little fishing hamlet on Guntersville Lake in northeast Alabama, and after a culinary journey that took her from Portland, Ore., to Charleston, S.C., to Atlanta, Hanners came home and opened what she then called Homecoming Café & Country Store in Langston, less than a mile from where she lived as a little girl. It was, as we have previously written, “worth the trip, by car or boat” – a down-home dining spot best known for its elevated breakfasts, reliable lunches and elegant Friday night dinners. Two years ago, Hanners moved her women-owned-and-operated business to Guntersville and rebranded it Homecoming and Company, but it otherwise hasn’t skipped a beat. The breakfast menu features candied bacon-stuffed French toast and the Dr. Suess-inspired “Green Eggs & Ham,” with collard greens, ham, eggs and onion rings over a bowl of local grits. Lunch favorites include a seasonal vegetable plate, a grass-fed burger and the “Aloha Y’all” sandwich, with grilled chicken, ham, grilled pineapple, slaw and Pepperjack cheese. The dinner menu changes from weekly, but among the main attractions are the smoked brisket with green beans and fried potatoes and the seared red snapped with mashed potatoes and griddled green beans.

Homecoming and Company is at 3637 Lake Guntersville Park Drive in Guntersville. The phone is 256-202-1880. For more information, go here.

The Landing at Parker Creek, Herb Winches — Former Birmingham TV and radio sportscaster Herb Winches is the proprietor of The Landing at Parker Creek, a dining destination on Lake Martin in Coosa County.(Photo for AL.com by Joey McClure)

The Landing at Parker Creek in Equality

Whether you arrive by boat or by car, The Landing at Parker Creek is the place to be on summer weekends at Lake Martin. The lakeside restaurant -- which Birmingham sportscasting legend Herb Winches and his wife, Betty, opened in 2015 -- offers outdoor dining pavilions, an open-air cocktail bar and a sandy beach with spectacular sunset views. Chef Torrey Hall, who earned his culinary stripes working in restaurants in his home state of Hawaii, serves a lake-friendly menu that includes a sushi bowl, shrimp tacos, a mahi-mahi sandwich and pork sliders, as well as such specials as parmesan-crusted snapper and blackened halibut. In the nine years since it opened, The Landing at Parker Creek has proven to be so popular with lake lovers that Winches recently opened a second restaurant on the other side of Lake Martin, The Landing at Harbor Pointe.

The Landing at Parker Creek is at 8300 Parker Creek Marina Road in Equality, Ala. The phone is 205-410-6091. For more information, go here and here. The restaurant is open Thursdays through Sundays from mid-April through Labor Day.

Sac’s Kitchen in Huntsville

Sarah Douglas and her son Carlos Burwell opened Sac’s Kitchen in north Huntsville 11 years ago in a space between a beauty parlor, boutique and tax service in a brick building on Mastin Lake Road. Within two or three years, the demand for their fried chicken and catfish was such that they bought the entire building from its previous owner. “We started getting busier,” Sarah told AL.com’s Matt Wake last year, “so we needed more room.” (A quick backstory: When Sarah was a child, her nickname was “Sack” because whenever a family member brought home a bag of groceries. she would ask, “What’s in that sack?” So, when it came time to name her and her son’s restaurant, they dropped the “k” so it could also stand for “Sarah and Carlos.”) Matt, who knows Huntsville better than most rocket scientists, ranks Sac’s moist, crispy fried chicken the best in the Rocket City. Every piece of chicken is cooked to order, and the piping-hot results are well worth the 15-to-20-minute wait, he says. In addition to the top-ranked fried chicken, the Sac’s menu includes catfish, pork chops, salmon patties and chicken and dressing, as well as a medley of homecooked vegetables, from collard greens to black-eyed peas, fried green tomatoes to mac and cheese. Service is to-go only, but Sac’s also has bar in the back called Sac’s Lounge, where guests may stick around and order from the restaurant.

Sac’s Kitchen is at 6008 Mastin Lake Road, Suite B, in Huntsville, Ala. The phone is 256-746-9030. For more information, go here.

The Shoals Shack, located in the tiny town of St. Florian outside Florence, Ala., features a surprisingly inventive menu for a small roadside stand. — The Shoals Shack, a roadside joint outside of Florence in the tiny town of St. Florian, isn't much bigger than a food truck but packs some huge flavors.Lawrence Specker | LSpecker@AL.com

The Shoals Shack in St. Florian

The Shoals Shack opened four years ago in St. Florian, a tiny town outside Florence in northwest Alabama, and the name is spot-on, AL.com’s Lawrence Specker writes. It’s about the size of a railroad caboose and sits in the parking lot of a Big Star supermarket on County Road 47. There’s no indoor seating, only a walk-up window and a couple of picnic tables. But the little roadside shack packs some big eats, including not just a stellar selection of burgers but also a wildly delicious aha tuna and avocado appetizer; a hearty chicken Genoa sandwich with pecan pesto, tomato and red onion; and braised beef, blackened shrimp and fried eggplant tacos. Plus, owners B.J. Harris and Jennifer Tester are constantly creating new daily specials to mix up the menu and keep things interesting. As Lawrence writes, “As the sign out front says, ‘It’s all good.’ No false advertising there.”

The Shoals Shack is at 4675 County Road 47 in St. Florian, Ala. The phone is 256-284-7480. For more information, go here.

Tally-Ho Restaurant in Selma

Camouflaged by a canopy of trees in a residential area in historic Selma, the Tally-Ho Restaurant is not easy to find but well worth the search. Believed to date back to 1942, the restaurant had been a private dinner club at one time, and on the inside, it has the rustic look of a log cabin, with dark wood, a vaulted ceiling, exposed beams and a wagon wheel chandelier. The menu includes such appetizers as sauteed crab claws, fried artichoke hearts and French onion soup, as well as entrees such as shrimp and grits, linguini alfredo, French country chicken, fried catfish, a sushi menu on Wednesdays, and the house favorite, a hand-cut, flame-grilled ribeye.

Tally-Ho Restaurant is at 509 Mangum Ave. in Selma, Ala. The phone is 334-872-1390. For more information, go here.

Tin Top Restaurant & Oyster Bar in Bon Secour

Bob and Patty Hallmark were newcomers to the restaurant business when they opened their Tin Top Restaurant & Oyster Bar among the Spanish moss-draped oaks in beautiful Bon Secour 20 years ago. Bob had been a general contractor and Patty a schoolteacher, and part of their motivation for opening a restaurant was simply Bob’s frustration at not being able to find a great steak in Baldwin County at the time. Their New Orleans-influenced restaurant – the “Pearl of Bon Secour,” they like to call it -- quickly became known not only for the steaks but also the bounty of fresh Gulf seafood that is at their immediate disposal. One of the house specialties, the Tender Fenton, is the best of both worlds – a 10-ounce tenderloin and an order of Tin Top’s signature Oysters Fenton served together in a bowl of Hallmark’s house-made steak sauce. The dish is crowned with two pieces of toasted French bread for dipping and dredging. For a lazy lunch, let us also recommend the fried oyster po’ boy and a side of seasoned lima beans with andouille sausage.

Tin Top Restaurant & Oyster Bar is at 6232 County Road 10 in Bon Secour, Ala. The phone is 251-949-5086. For more information, go here.

PLEASE NOTE: Tin Top Restaurant & Bar will soon move into a new location at 17451 County Road 49 South, on the Bon Secour River.

Tre Luna Bar & Kitchen in Hoover

Chef Brian Mooney grew up in South Florida, but after he met his future wife, Erin, in Fort Lauderdale, the couple moved to her hometown of Birmingham, where Brian worked for James Beard Award-winning chef Frank Stitt at Bottega before the couple started their Tre Luna Catering business 10 years ago. They added a restaurant, Tre Luna Bar & Kitchen, which they opened in The Village at Brock’s Gap retail center near the Hoover Metropolitan Complex in 2019. The name “Tre Luna” (Italian for “three moons”) has multiple meanings for the Mooneys -- a play on their last name, a tribute to their three children, as well as a nod to the restaurant’s Italian-inspired menu, which features a variety of sharable starters, a raw seafood bar, seasonal entrees, brick oven pizzas, and classic Italian pasta dishes. Whether you’re sitting indoors or outside under the moon and stars, Tre Luna has a casual and energetic vibe, with an efficient and knowledgeable waitstaff. We recommend you start with the beef carpaccio and/or the sautéed mussels for an appetizer; order the chicken francese with Brussels sprouts and McEwen & Sons polenta or the braised pork shoulder orecchiette with mushroom, spinach, Bechamel cheese sauce and mixed greens for your main course; and save room for the restaurant’s signature dessert, the Breakup Brookie, a collaboration pairing Tre Luna’s in-house chocolate brownie with recipe developer and food stylist Emily Hall’s Breakup Cookie, served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Tre Luna Bar & Kitchen is at 1021 Brock’s Gap Parkway, Suite 145, in Hoover, Ala. The phone is 205-538-5866. For more information, go here.

Wheelhouse restaurant in Opp, Alabama — The Wheelhouse in downtown Opp is located in a 90-year-old building that the restaurant's owners renovated and reopened in late 2019. (Photo by Merrill Culverhouse; used with permission)

The Wheelhouse in Opp

Chef Jon Gibson grew up in the small Covington County town of Opp before embarking on a culinary journey that took him from California to the Florida Keys before he came back home and opened the Wheelhouse restaurant with his childhood friend, pharmacist Merrill Culverhouse. “I’ve been after him for years to come back,” Culverhouse said in a 2021 AL.com feature on their restaurant. “We were starving to death in Opp for different food.” The old friends spent eight months renovating a 90-year-old downtown building that, at various times in its history, had been home to a post office, a bakery and a peanut butter factory, and they opened the Wheelhouse in late 2019. Gibson -- who, while cooking in California, earned the nickname “Guerrilla Chef” for his passionate approach to food, sustainability and the environment -- serves what he calls “Coastal Comfort Cuisine,” and his menu features Alabama Gulf Seafood and Wild American Shrimp dishes -- as well as fresh takes on old favorites, including a seafood pot pie, a grilled chicken mac and cheese, and a chicken-fried hamburger steak. As he said in our 2021 story: “I take stuff that I grew up with as a kid and people around here grew up with as a kid and I just twist ‘em enough that they’re unique but still familiar.”

The Wheelhouse is at 105 East Hart Ave. in Opp, Ala. The phone is 334-764-6482. For more information, go here.