I have a trip to Pensacola coming up soon and I'm gonna check this place out. It's about halfway between PCB and Pcola, north of Destin on HWY 81.

I want some lunch and a hat!



Red Bay Grocery

Here's what Margit Bisztray had to say about it:

"I simply must, must, must try to describe what a gem Red Bay Grocery (in Red Bay, where else?), and how worth a road trip for the day. First of all, the manager Katie is funny and loveable. She left a pretty glamorous, exciting life working in Atlanta to return home to the area, and throw herself into this community grocery store, and center. If you do nothing else, get Katie going on the stories of an average day at Red Bay, which starts with the early morning coffee drinking gang (known as the Red Bay town council) who sit down to figure out what's going on in the world and why, and do so before most people even get out the door. Then there are stories of bait, pig slaughters, dancing girls, wrestling matches, fried squirrels, the three churches, and honey. Go on, ask Katie for yourself. While you're there, try their great, Southern food (collards, fried chicken bbq, biscuit sandwiches, lemon bars, pound cake). When you leave, pick up a few jars of jam (blackberry, peach, fig) or pickled okra, or local honey, or a just a sweet Red Bay Grocery cap. You'll fall in love with it. Next time I go, I'm going on a Thursday night for shrimp boil."

P.S. The Charles Morgan that Katie refers to is also the owner of Harbor Docks restaurant in Destin.

I think I'm in love...

Looks like a fun place to check out. I wonder if they are still selling shares in the business. Their web site gives a hint what a neat place this is.
http://redbaygrocery.com/Red_Bay_Grocery/Welcome.html

Next time we're in PCB, I want to check out this place. How nice that they brought it back to life. It definitely looks worth the drive!

We ate breakfast there last week. Good stuff. Their breakfast plate is awesome. I wanted to try the "Swamp Thing" biscuit... but that will have to wait until next trip. It has everything on it... egg, sausage, cheese and pulled pork... lol!

They have quite a bit of homemade stuff on the shelves. I meant to buy some hot pepper jelley and forgot. We did get some stickers, though. They were mostly out of hats and t-shirts, but expected more soon.

Definitely worth swinging by there on your way to/from PCB... even if it's a little out of the way. Although if you usually take HWY331 or HWY79 it's only a few mins out of the way.

Somebody just reported on the Schooner's forum that the Red Bay Grocery caught Fire

Dang! Hope everyone's okay.

At least I got to visit them before the fire.

Hopefully they rebuild... we'll post about it if we hear anything.

Say it's not so! We LOVE RED BAY GROCERY! What happened???

WMBB said it was a cooking accident... but, the owners said they are determined to rebuild... so, hopefully I get to try the Swamp Thing biscuit afterall!

It is always so sad to hear of such bad things happening to good people but I do admire the fact that this isn't going to stop them. Hope they come back bigger and better. We will go out of our way to drop by when we come back down. Please keep us posted on the rebuilding progress.

I read somewhere a week ago that the fire was contained to the kitchen area...the dining area and store were unharmed.

That should make rebuilding much easier!

Awwwwesome!

I meant to post that I drove by a week or so ago and the sign said "Reopening soon!"

They've reopened. I may check it out on my way down. There is a route that I could take that wouldn't be too much out of the way. But after 11 hours on the road, I just want to get down there.

http://www.wjhg.com/home/headlines/R...121281429.html

Actually, google maps tells me the best route now runs right by there. Does anybody know of any problems driving Alabama 331 south of Montgomery or Florida 81? Are these roads comparable in quality to Alabama 231/87 and Florida 79?

Thanks,
Bob