Someday, the partners who brought The Blind Tiger restaurant to Fairhope’s Municipal Pier will find out what “normal” looks like. Hopes are high. But that day is somewhere down the road.

Bringing a small Gulf Coast seafood chain to the Eastern Shore sounds pretty normal. But there has been nothing normal, or easy, about renovating and upgrading a pier-mounted facility in a post-pandemic world. Nor about having the city rip up the parking lot right after the restaurant finally opened, as part of a deep park rebuild that has restricted supplier and customer access.

Everybody involved knows it’s been a hard road to get this far. Everybody knows the struggle isn’t over. Everybody is looking forward to what comes after, when the park’s makeover is complete. But not everybody knows something important: The Blind Tiger is up and running, and it’s really not that hard to get to, despite the impression you might get looking down from the top of the bluff at a maze of orange construction fencing.

The conch fritters are waiting, and they’re tasty.

The situation goes back to August 2022, when Thomas Genin announced plans to open a Blind Tiger in Fairhope. “This location is amazing,” Genin said at the time. “I have driven from Slidell to Apalachicola looking for locations and, from a waterfront standpoint, I haven’t seen anything that compares to this.”

Genin had some local partners of note in Brent and Lauren Barkin. Brent Barkin was then an executive with Shoe Carnival, the company that had recently bought the Shoe Station retail chain founded by his father, Terry Barkin. Brent and Lauren had moved to Fairhope in 2018 with their three children and wanted to invest in something that would make a difference in their new hometown.

The pier caught their eye, in part because its restaurant had been shut down since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We from time to time as a family would venture down to the pier area. And we just found, and I think the mayor and her team would agree, it just is not yet in keeping with what the rest of Fairhope represents,” Brent Barkin told AL.com in a 2022 interview. “That piece of Fairhope was not matching the rest of Fairhope.”

“The investment they’re making in that facility is good for the pier area,” Mayor Sherry Sullivan said at the time. “We’re going to be starting work on a waterfront project, probably sometime next year, to rebuild the fountain and help with the parking and the aesthetics of the pier … I think in the next several years there will really be a transformation of that area.”

Things were looking up at the end of summer 2022. The worst days of the pandemic were fading into the past; major events such as the Fairhope Arts & Crafts Festival and the Hangout Music Festival had taken place without disruption in the spring.

Barkin and Genin said they expected The Blind Tiger to open in early 2023, after a few months of work. Sullivan’s remarks likewise reflected an expectation that work on the park would at least get started that year. But their optimism was about to run into a perfect storm: As post-pandemic inflation drove up the cost of materials, a surge in demand stretched the construction industry thin.

The Blind Tiger did not open in early 2023. It did not open in early 2024, either.

“We did everything that we could do to try to open as fast as we could,” said Genin. “It was just not possible. It was a very hard renovation. Very technical.”

Between the need to bring the building up to current building codes, and the desire to make it an inviting place to be, there was a lot of work to be done: Adding a restroom, improving access for patrons with disabilities, adding an exit, raising the roof on the back deck — all on a worksite over water, meaning contractors couldn’t bring trucks and trailers close.

So it was the tail end of summer 2024 before the restaurant could open. When it did, a fresh obstacle loomed: The park renovation plan had gone through delays and unexpected growth of its own. Its scope had grown to include rebuilding bulkheads and seawalls damaged by 2020’s Hurricane Zeta. The cost had soared too, with the Alabama Gulf Coast Recovery Council adding $3.5 million to the $6.2 million initially allocated. It wasn’t until April 2024 that Fairhope awarded the construction contract – and on Aug. 13 the city issued the notice for work to proceed.

“We opened, we had a few weeks, I think we had maybe two weeks of business,” said Genin. “And then the city gave us a 72-hour heads-up that they were gonna tear the parking lot out. And that’s made it very hard, very stressful. On the employees and on the customers. It’s been very difficult to get deliveries, it’s just been very hard.”

Talking with Genin, it’s clear the situation has been simply agonizing through the winter season, when things probably would have been slow anyway. It has meant operating on an irregular schedule, coping when supply trucks couldn’t get in, subsidizing salaries to retain trained employees.

“We were as frustrated as anybody could be because of how far behind this project fell,” he said. “We’re doing everything. We’re spending extra money [getting] contractors to hurry up and finish jobs for us so we can hurry up and open. And then it was like, ‘Oh yeah, great, okay. Oh, y’all been open two weeks. In three days we’re tearing the parking lot out.’ ‘Okay, well, thanks.’

“I mean, maybe we should have opened in the middle of the summer 2025, right?” he said. “I’ve got a bunch of gray hair over that project, you know, we were doing everything we could do to open quick and we had already fallen behind and then it was like, you gotta be kidding me. Wait, what are y’all doing now? We thought this was gonna start like a year from now.”

Sullivan is sympathetic, to a point.

“From the city’s perspective, obviously we want The Blind Tiger to be successful and appreciate the renovations they’ve made on that building out there on the pier,” she said. “There were clear conversations when they started that project about the waterfront project and the amount of construction there would be, so they knew it was coming. I will say that I think they were planning to open it probably about a year earlier than they did open, so unfortunately the construction and their opening kind of coincided.

“That was not the intent from the beginning,” she said.

The city has done what it can, she said, starting with signage to let people know that the pier is open and that parking is available, even if it’s not ideal. For example: On a recent weekday, signs guided visitors to a parking area serving the portion of the park that’s north of the pier.

Prime parking on the roundabout directly in front of the pier wasn’t available, because that area is part of a construction site stretching southward. So the walk to the restaurant was a little longer than it otherwise would have been, but there were no major obstacles in the way for anyone who could walk the distance. The pier and the restaurant were enjoying moderate visitor traffic at lunchtime.

Sullivan said visitors also can catch a shuttle ride from the city’s parking deck to the pier. And this week the Fairhope City Council approved a temporary reduction in rent for the restaurant.

“We did take action last night to reduce their rent, [which] is $5,000 a year or 3% of their gross sales, whichever one is greater, so while they were under construction they were paying $400 and whatever dollars [monthly] that equates to $5,000 a year,” she said. “We did reduce that percentage to 1.5% for six months. … I do feel like the city is doing whatever we can to help them be successful.”

The break goes from Feb. 1 to July 31, when the arrangement reverts to the previously agreed 3% of gross sales.

In the meantime, there have been glimmers of sunshine amid the clouds. Barkin said that the restaurant had a very profitable month in October, when the weather was still conducive to tourism and the work in the park was just getting started. He and Genin said February had gotten off to a good start, despite everything.

“We’ve talked to a lot of people who either are waiting for the parking situation to be done or [who] think that it’s not open because of the parking situation,” said Barkin. “But you know, it’s funny, last week was the best week we’ve had all year. We had a number of days just in the last week that were among some of the best days we’ve ever had, so I think … people are starting to figure it out.”

Genin said that thanks to unseasonably warm weather, some of those customers had come by boat.

“The people that can come by boat would definitely prefer to come by boat than by car,” he said. “And that might save us, you know, until this is halfway finished.”

The restaurant experience itself reflects Genin’s philosophy on what a local waterfront seafood restaurant should be. His experience ranges from working in high-end New Orleans restaurants to co-founding another chain, Shaggy’s, before selling his interest and launching this one in 2013. The Blind Tiger now has three locations in Mississippi, including this one.

The small chalkboard menu reflects his guiding principle that if you want to prioritize freshness, you can’t try to be all things to all people.

“The whole idea is, keep it simple, keep it fresh, don’t try to have a giant menu, get the food to people in a timely manner,” Genin said. “We don’t have freezers. Well, we do have freezers for certain bar juices and stuff, but we don’t buy premade, out-of-the-bag food. We just don’t do it. We don’t buy cheese sticks and egg rolls and pre-breaded shrimp and oysters, any of that stuff. We make all of our sauces and we source the best seafood that we can find.”

The more options you have on the menu, he reasons, the more of them will be slow sellers. Keeping those slow sellers in stock means keeping stuff in freezers.

“We’re sourcing the best products that we can get and pass on to our customers for a value,” he said. “If we call up Bon Secour Seafood and we say, ‘What you got?’ and they say, well, you know, ‘We’ve got redfish, speckled trout, tuna, wahoo,’ whatever, it’s like, ‘Okay, let’s do wahoo, all right, send it to us.’ And then we clean it, grill it, and we have fresh grilled wahoo tonight. It might be speckled trout next week.”

Fairhope has its own tastes, he said.

“We can sell more big pieces of fresh grilled fish in Fairhope than in any other location,” he said. “It seems to be maybe a little bit more of a healthier crowd.

“Now, fried shrimp sells, too,” he said. “We had to start doing fried shrimp and if people ask us to do it, sure, we’ll do it. Because that’s your tourist.” The restaurant serves both Gulf shrimp and red Argentinian shrimp, Genin said, and he plans to begin offering local Royal Reds as a weekly special.

Another tweak for Fairhope: Because the layout of this location means that the chalkboard can’t be seen from everywhere, paper menus are coming.

That’ll be especially handy for the people sitting outside, enjoying an expansive view of Mobile Bay. The park construction hasn’t significantly infringed on that experience, which is a big part of the restaurant’s drawing power.

“We want people to be in the same mindset as they are when they go to the Bahamas or they go to the Caribbean or they’re sitting in the resort down in Mexico,” Genin said. “Like, let’s pretend we’re on vacation. You’ve had a hard day at work, come down here in a pair of shorts and flip-flops, kick it, relax.

“We don’t have the biggest menu in Fairhope,” he said. “We don’t want the biggest menu in Fairhope. I think we have enough of a selection to where you can see something and go, ‘Oh yeah, let’s do some conch fritters and some oysters and drink some beer.’”

Though small, the menu offers decent variety, including smashburgers and fish tacos. The conch fritters bear out Genin’s emphasis on doing things right. They’re not just some weird hush puppy variant with a little conch flavor: They have the chewy, substantial quality of the real Caribbean deal.

“Ninety-nine out of 100 restaurants that serve conch fritters, that s— comes right out of a bag,” said Genin. “It’s frozen and you throw it in the fryer. That’s why we never served them. … [But] when I think of a pier, the first thing that comes to my mind is conch fritters. You know, you see it everywhere in Key West. Well, in Key West they have conchs everywhere. We had to source that. … It’s a lot of conch meat bound together with batter, basically. It’s not a pre-frozen conch fritter that has just a little bit of conch in it, enough to pass USDA guidelines to where they can call it that.

“We don’t sell tilapia, we don’t sell Vietnamese fish, we don’t sell Asian fish, we don’t sell Asian shrimp,” Genin said. “If we tell you it’s wild-caught Gulf shrimp, it is. If we sell you triggerfish, it’s triggerfish. … We don’t want to be a tourist trap, but we want to appeal to locals and tourists. Because when you’re just a tourist trap, the locals don’t support you.”

Behind the focused menu is some flexibility, he said. “We might be doing a blackened mahi po’boy,” he said. “If they want a fried redfish po’boy, if we’ve got it, we’ll do it. Give us a few minutes, we’ll get try to get it to you as fast as we can. You know, like, it’s just like the oysters. ‘Hey man, can you grill me up some oysters?’ Yeah, we’ll grill them for you. You know, we buy all of our oysters from Bon Secour.”

Genin’s frustration is mingled with excitement about what lies ahead, and getting past the traffic disruption isn’t the half of it. The restaurant owners have oversight of the adjacent marina as well, and Genin said they recently received permitting to revamp the finger piers inside the marina. At least some of the high piers meant for long-term sailboat tenants will be replaced with lower piers suitable for the powerboats of short-term restaurant visitors.

Genin envisions the marina as a nexus of services for tourists and residents alike: The possibilities include parasailing, boat rentals, sunset cruises and more. He sees the marina not just as an attraction adjacent to downtown, but as an entry point.

“Our plan has always been … You have boats that come and go, they can come in, they can rent a golf cart and go up to town, they can walk to town,” he said. “They can make arrangements for their friends to pick them up in a golf cart. We saw a lot of that before it got cold.”

Barkin shares the sense that the possibilities are bright, partly because the city is doing what it’s doing.

“It’s a massive project,” he said. “To give the city credit, it’s a lot more complicated than even I thought it was … They’ve had to redo all the utilities under that area, redo all the lighting, redo all the trunk lines, redo all the drainage, rebuild the seawalls on the north and the south. And that’s just to rebuild what was decrepit. Then on top of that, they’re upgrading it, they’re updating it, there’s going to be another set of bathrooms down there.”

“I’m getting more excited,” Barkin said. “It was kind of perceived as a low-end area, for really a decade or more. And I think it’s really going to be reimagined. … I really think the whole area is just going to be totally revitalized.”

He imagines the park being used more as a beach, by tourists and residents alike. And he envisions The Blind Tiger, especially once the marina is fully up and running, as being both a beneficiary and a driver of that traffic.

“There’s no reason that park down by the water shouldn’t be packed in the summer,” he said. “With people actually down there in the water. The park just hadn’t been known for that, but there’s no reason why not. I feel like, once the parking lot is done and open, I think there’s going to be a sea change in people bringing their children down to that park to be in the water and to be on the sand.”

So when will The Blind Tiger get a taste of normal? Genin’s hoping the dust settles by late summer, at which point marina development can move forward. Barkin is hoping for a break this spring, if the focus of construction shifts from the south beach to the north beach.

“Thomas and I kind of keep each other in check,” he said. “We go, hey, I know what we’re dealing with, I know this is insane, but if we just had our best week of the year and they dug a trench across the park and we’re missing 80% of our parking and when you drive down the hill, most people think it’s closed … To me, where we’re going to get a real indication of it is, it’s quite possible that sooner rather than later the south part of the park will be open. When you drive down the hill right now you see the chain-link fence. Well, theoretically they could move that fence [as work shifts to the north side]. I think the second that happens, I think it’s, it’s very possible our business could pick up 30-40% the instant they do that.”

Sullivan’s forecast splits the difference. She said as work began, she hoped the project would be substantially complete by the July 4 holiday, so the park and pier could once again serve as a prime fireworks viewing area. That’s still her desire.

“We’re hoping to have July 4th down there so we’re expediting that,” she said. “There may still be some renovation going on in the south end, like with the with the restroom facility, but for the most part the circle and all the parking would be available.”

Sullivan, like Genin, has little idea what a “normal” winter would look like for The Blind Tiger. Previous pier restaurants closed during the offseason, she said. Genin thinks that between the restaurant, the planned marina attractions and the revamped park, year-round operation will be feasible.

“I think the biggest thing is, obviously what’s good for The Blind Tiger is good for us from a revenue perspective,” the mayor said. “So we want them to be successful and we think they’re a great addition to the pier and just hope that they’re there for years to come.”

“I think the pier location, even in the wintertime, will be pretty good,” Genin said. “But I have no way of gauging that right now. It’s just a very un-ordinary situation. We don’t know what to expect when it’s just a normal old parking lot.”

“We’re just kind of trying to just get past this,” he said. “But the big picture is what we’re doing this for, and the big picture will include all types of cool stuff.”

For updates on The Blind Tiger’s hours and offerings, visit the restaurant on Facebook.