Well, the home the Foscue House restaurant in Demopolis is in remarkably the same build — minus the porches and the addition of electricity (and the bathrooms, I’m guessing, since they were largely included in construction in the 1920s and 1930s, though if you know better, please do advise) as when it was built in the 1840s. Every room has double brick walls. There’s just something about it that seems like going to a great-grandmother’s house that’s been in the family for ages and has never been renovated.
Check for certain before you go, but the last time I checked, hours were 5p-10p Th-Sa, and Sun 11a-2p.
I’ve only ever been for Sunday lunch, when a meat & two is available. At supper, guests order from the regular menu with choices like NY strip, hamburger steak, shrimp, catfish, grouper…
Everything’s straightforward — no real twists on anything — but it’s just plain good.
I just like supporting places like this. There should be some list of…how to say this…comfort food restaurants in old houses. Big plus if their owner has shown restraint in not over-tchotchkying the place. Huge points taken away if some variant of ‘live laugh love’ is found. More points added if they’re using old china rather than restaurant supply-issued plates. Here are some of the places in Alabama I can think of right this sec, but I know I have to be forgetting some, and just don’t know of others. Kindly contact me with what’s missing. xoxo!
Foscue House in Demopolis
Magnolia House in Scottsboro
Grandmother’s House in Owens Cross Roads
Gaines Ridge Plantation in Camden
Galley & Garden in B’ham (though it’s not ‘homey’)
Buttermilk Hill in Sylacauga
Waysider in Tuscaloosa
Rock House in Guntersville
Mildred’s in Dothan
Speaking of Buttermilk Hill in the list above, here are some pics from my last visit.
Getting back to older homes re-purposed as restaurants, maybe I’ll work on making a Google Map of these. We could also include restaurants in interesting buildings/settings, like Red’s Little School House in Grady. Rattlesnake Saloon in Tuscumbia, Ezell’s Fish Camp in Lavaca…