The team behind Birmingham’s Le Fresca is bringing another Italian dining concept to Mountain Brook’s Lane Parke.
Locanda Brasato will open this fall in the former Post Office Pies space at the intersection of Rele Street and Jemison Lane.
The restaurant is the creation of Chef Duaine Clements and Marco Butturini and promises “thoughtful, handcrafted cuisine and deeply personal hospitality.”
Le Fresca opened in 2020, serving authentic Northern Italian cuisine under the guidance of Nutturini, the chef and co-owner, a veteran of Birmingham restaurants owned by the legendary Frank Stitt.
“Locanda Brasato is about the kind of Italian food that takes time to make and is worth the wait — food that feels personal and unexpected,” Clements said. “It’s a place where Marco and I can bring all the things we love about Italian cooking and hospitality to the table in a new way.”
Jackie Hollingsworth, leasing associate for Crawford Square Real Estate Advisors, said, “The team’s passion for quality ingredients and exceptional hospitality aligns perfectly with our mission to bring thoughtfully curated dining experiences to Lane Parke.”
Rosetta “Rose” Hughes never forgot the shift she worked at Birmingham’s University Hospital in the fall of 1963.
Klansmen had bombed Sixteenth Street Baptist Church downtown. A little girl was brought and put in Hughes’ care. Her name was Sarah Collins.
The 12-year old child’s body was battered from the explosion. It was Hughes’ job to stay with her.
The two reunited 59 years later and Hughes told Sarah Collins Rudolph how the hospital staff tried to offer comfort to a child whose eyes were covered in bandages.
“It was just joyful to know that she remembered me,” Rudolph told AL.com. “She was the only nurse who I had come in contact with out of all those years.”
Hughes, the retired nurse and longtime Birmingham resident, died this week at age 103.
Rudolph said she appreciates knowing that Hughes and others showed her kindness during an era rife with hatred.
“It hurts to hear that she passed, but she lived a long life,” Rudolph said. “That goes to show you folks live a long life like that they got to be a special person and she was very special to me.”
Hughes in the Birmingham Times story recalled her first time seeing Collins when responders brought her to the hospital.
“[It] looked like she was gone. … I thought she wasn’t going to wake up. … She was not moving,” Hughes said.
Sarah Collins was severely injured, losing an eye, but lived. The four other girls who were with her that morning did not survive. A bomb set outside the downstairs bathroom killed her sister Addie Mae Collins, along with Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley.
Sarah Collins Rudolph remained hospitalized for weeks and missed her own sister’s funeral.
Hughes said the staff cared for young Sarah as if she was one of their little girls, bringing her cake and ice cream at night.
“By me being as young as I was in the hospital, she was really one of the nurses who really spoiled me,” said Rudolph, now 74.
Hughes remained active at New Zion Cumberland Presbyterian Church well after reaching her century mark.
“She loved people, and she was always willing to do for others,” said her daughter Rosa Edwards. “She was very devoted to the church, and it was always interesting to see her doing the bookkeeping at 102 when she was still going every Sunday all dressed up.”
Hughes was born in Eutaw, Alabama, in Greene County. She moved to Birmingham in 1948 and completed the Western-Olin Practical Nursing Program in 1958. Hughes was born in 1921, the same year that her church was founded.
“The church is absolutely saddened, and on a personal note, I am saddened to lose the most dedicated member of our congregation,” said Rev. Roderick Royal, the church’s pastor for the last 11 years.
Hughes’s funeral is 11 a.m. Saturday at New Zion Cumberland Presbyterian Church.
“She was quite a remarkable woman. She was a devoted wife, mother, grandmother, licensed practical nurse, a good neighbor and friend,” Edwards said of her mother. “She enjoyed being in charge of her life up until 102.”
When Southern Living asked a panel of chefs where to find “The Best Biscuits in the South,” one Alabama restaurateur made the list – and he’s willing to share some biscuit secrets.
The state’s biscuit partisans doubtless will have things to say about the inclusion of one, and only one, Alabama venue. But at least the Alabama honoree wasn’t a fluke: Chef Jim Smith of The Hummingbird Way in Mobile says that nailing down his perfect biscuit recipe was “a passion project.”
Smith formerly served as the state’s executive chef. The Troy native is also a veteran of “Top Chef,” was the first Alabama chef to win the Great American Seafood Cook-Off and has served as chairman of the Alabama Seafood Marketing Commission. He opened The Hummingbird Way Oyster Bar about five years ago in Mobile’s Oakleigh Garden District; in 2023, it was among half a dozen Mobile-area venues showcased by Guy Fieri on “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.”
Guy Fieri looks on in the kitchen as chef-owner Jim Smith prepares a fried flounder topped with clams in curry sauce at The Hummingbird Way Oyster Bar in Mobile, Ala., as seen on Food Network’s “Diners Drive-Ins and Dives,” season 38. (Courtesy of Food Network)Courtesy of Food Network
In the Southern Living roundup, Charleston restaurateur Anthony Marini describes Smith’s biscuits as “flaky and rich [and] served with whipped butter, smoked salt and dark cane syrup,” and adds that “the interplay between the fat, smoke and sweet of each bite is why I visit Mobile.”
Strong praise. Marini also says that The Hummingbird Way is “the ONLY place that I will eat fried seafood and biscuits!”
A word about that: You can get biscuits at The Hummingbird Way, and you can get fried seafood, but they don’t come together. The easiest way to get your hands on these vaunted biscuits is the Biscuit Service ($10) on the appetizer menu; that gets you a few biscuits with the condiments mentioned by Marini. The Oyster Bisque ($18) is presented with “petite biscuits.” In the cooler months, the Chicken Pot Pie comes without a crust, but with a big cheddar garlic biscuit in the middle of the bowl – “comfort food redefined,” as Smith says.
Chef Jim Smith opened The Hummingbird Way in Mobile’s Oakleigh Garden District in January 2020. (Elizabeth Gelineau photo courtesy of The Hummingbird Way)Elizabeth Gelineau
When the biscuit service hits the table, the first surprise is the modest size of the biscuits. They’re not sprawling fist-sized catheads custom-made to sop up butter, egg yolk and gravy. They weren’t designed to sandwich a fried chicken breast. In context, this makes perfect sense: They’re appetizers. You don’t go someplace like The Hummingbird Way to fill up on biscuits. That would just be the highbrow version of gorging on chips at your favorite Mexican restaurant.
The second thing that stands out is the light, crusty crispness of these biscuits. Yes, they’re flaky when you open them up. But you get a little crunch in every bite – and to get that, without overcooking the inside, is a delicate thing to pull off.
That crustiness really benefits the petite biscuits that come in the bisque: They stand up to immersion really well, almost like oyster crackers. That pot pie must really be something.
The “biscuit service” at The Hummingbird Way in Mobile includes dark cane syrup, whipped butter and smoked sea salt.Lawrence Specker | [email protected]
The third impression is that Smith was onto something with his trifecta of toppings. The inclusion of smoked salt seems odd – have you ever felt the need to put salt on a biscuit? – but it complements the butter in a big way. You’d miss it if it weren’t there.
All in all, it’s not hard to see why Smith’s biscuits were innovative enough to make Southern Living’s short list.
How did Smith come up with his approach? “The first answer is research,” he said.
When he’s delving deep into some culinary project, he said, he’s willing to pore over hundreds of recipes, from old local church cookbooks to the latest online resources. He’s looking for subtle things that pop up repeatedly, what he calls “some real through-lines.” In the case of biscuits, this meant hints about how cold certain ingredients needed to be, fine points of working the dough and so on.
After putting his findings to the test, he offers three key points of advice:
First, make sure your butter is “ice cold.” Smith said he uses a cheese grater to reduce the butter to slivers scattered throughout his biscuit dough.
Second, he said, don’t overwork the dough. Don’t use a rolling pin, just gently press the dough flat by hand. He said he thinks rolling pins squeeze out too much air. “We never fold the dough more than seven times,” Smith said.
The goal here is to promote that flaky layering you want to see when you pull a biscuit apart. The gentle folding sets the stage, and as the small chunks of butter melt away, they leave behind pockets that add to the effect.
Third comes a tip that’s almost esoteric: Don’t twist your cutter as you cut out the biscuits. Press it down, lift it up. Smith said that the twisting motion, which comes naturally to many cooks, burnishes the outside of the biscuit, creating a band of less-fluffy dough that resists spreading outward as the biscuit rises. The giveaway is a “mushroom top,” where the biscuit expands outward above that band.
The Hummingbird Way is almost an oddity among the dozen restaurants named in the story. Right up front, the editors acknowledge a fast-food chain that would have been hard to ignore even if a couple of participating chefs hadn’t brought it up: Popeyes.
The other 11 are independent, non-chain operations. Most are cafés or bakeries where biscuits fit right into breakfast-oriented menus. Four of them have “biscuit” in the name. The Hummingbird Way would be a complete outlier if not for the inclusion of Chef Nina Compton’s Compère Lapin in New Orleans, another outlet that turns classic Southern fare into fine dining.
Small wonder Smith is a fan. “If you’ve never been there, you should go,” he said of Compère Lapin. Compton is a fellow reality TV alumna: She was runner-up in “Top Chef: Kentucky,” in 2013-14, a few years before he was on the show. “Whenever you’re in company with her, it’s a good place to be,” he said.
He finished mid-pack in “Top Chef: Charleston” in 2018-19. The experience introduced him to Carrie Morey, founder of Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit, another biscuit purveyor that made Southern Living’s list.
Smith didn’t offer comment on the inclusion of Popeyes in the Southern Living list – but he was quick to recommend another Alabama chef’s work: “My buddy Rob,” meaning multiple James Beard nominee Rob McDaniel.
The Hummingbird Way’s oyster bisque features “petite biscuits.”Lawrence Specker | [email protected]
At The Hummingbird Way, Smith shies away from yeasted breads in favor of “the two Southern quickbreads,” biscuits and cornbread. McDaniel takes an alternate approach, he said.
“They’re very different than the biscuits that we do,” Smith said. “It’s definitely a cross between a dinner roll and a biscuit. It’s a yeasted biscuit, which makes it very different.”
Biscuits like that, or like the ones served at The Hummingbird Way, might be worth a road trip. But if you want “a biscuit purveyor that’s quick, cheap, and very easy to find,” as Southern Living puts it, there’s always Popeyes.
Bay Minette Police have charged a man in connection with a fatal shooting that occurred last month.
Decareus Keywon Mallory Andrews, 28, was located Thursday and taken into custody in connection with the May 23 death of Dyrontae Condarrly Booker, 21.
At around 10:20 p.m. that day, a patrol officer heard gunshots on the 900 block of Daphne Road, according to a previous release.
Upon arriving to the scene, the officer found Booker lying in a yard with multiple gunshot wounds.
The officer then saw Andrews fleeing on foot from a house nearby where a large party was taking place, the release said.
The officer initiated a foot pursuit but lost sight of the suspect after several blocks.
Police said previously that the crime was not a random act and that the suspect and victim knew each other.
Andrews has been booked into the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office Correction Center and is charged with murder and certain persons forbidden to possess a firearm, according to this week’s release.
His bond hearing will be scheduled at a later date.
“This arrest marks a significant step forward in bringing justice to the victim’s family,” Bay Minette Police Chief Al Tolbert wrote in the release.
“We thank our law enforcement partners, the US Marshals Fugitive Task Force, the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office, and the public for their assistance throughout this investigation.”
A man convicted of murder for killing and dismembering nine people in his apartment near Tokyo was executed Friday, Japan’s Justice Ministry said.
Takahiro Shiraishi, known as the “Twitter killer,” was sentenced to death in 2020 for the killings in 2017 of the nine victims, most of whom had posted suicidal thoughts on social media. He was also convicted of sexually abusing female victims.
Police arrested him later that year after finding the bodies of eight teenage girls and women as well as one man in cold-storage cases in his apartment.
Investigators said Shiraishi approached the victims via Twitter, offering to assist them with their suicidal wishes. He killed the three teenage girls and five women after raping them. He also killed the boyfriend of one of the women to silence him.
“The case caused the extremely serious outcomes and dealt a major shockwave and unease to the society,” Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki told an emergency news conference. He said he signed the execution earlier this week, but did not witness Shiraishi’s hanging.
The execution was carried out as calls grow to abolish capital punishment or increase transparency in Japan after the acquittal of the world’s longest-serving death row inmate Iwao Hakamada last year.
Suzuki justified the need for the execution in Japan, noting a recent government survey shows an overwhelming majority of the public still supports capital punishment, though opposition has somewhat increased.
“I believe it is not appropriate to abolish execution,” Suzuki said, adding there is growing concern about serious crime.
Shiraishi was hanged at the Tokyo Detention House in secrecy with nothing disclosed until the execution was done.
Japan now has 105 people on death row, including 49 seeking retrials, Suzuki said.
Executions are carried out in secrecy in Japan, where prisoners are not even informed of their fate until the morning of their hanging.
Since 2007, Japan has begun disclosing the names of those executed and some details of their crimes, but disclosures are still limited.
Japan and the U.S. are the only two countries in the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations that retain capital punishment.
Japan’s most recent execution, in July 2022, was of a man who killed seven people in a vehicle crash and stabbing rampage in a crowded Tokyo shopping district of Akihabara in 2018.
Japan’s crime rate is relatively low, but it has seen some high-profile mass killings in recent years.
The brand new thriller series Smoke debuts with a two-episode premiere exclusively on Apple TV+ Friday, June 27.
Those hoping to check out the new series can access the first two episodes by signing up for an Apple TV+ subscription, which kicks off with a 7-day free trial for new users.
What is Smoke about?
Starring Taron Egerton, Jurnee Smollett and John Leguizamo, Smoke follows an arson investigator who begrudgingly teams up with a police detective on a race to stop two arsonists, only to find the hunt ignites a twisted game of secrets and suspicions.
Smoke season 1 episode release schedule
Episodes one and two are set to release Friday, June 27, and in similar fashion to other popular Apple TV+ shows, new episodes will release weekly thereafter. Those interested in keeping up with new episode releases can expect a new episode to hit the streaming platform every Friday.
Season one of Smoke is set to have nine episodes total, each totaling about an hour long.
How to watch Smoke season 1 on-demand
Those interested in checking out the latest thriller to drop on Apple TV+ can stream Smoke exclusively through the platform.
Plans start at just $9.99 a month, but those new to the streaming service can enjoy a 7-day free trial before the paid plan begins.
What is Apple TV+?
Designed by Apple, Apple TV+ is a popular streaming service that offers exclusive Apple Original shows and movies from some of the industry’s top talent. New content arrives each month meaning users will never be short of entertaining content to watch.
Along with new original series such as Smoke, subscribers can catch other popular Apple TV+ movies, documentaries and award-winning shows.
Huntsville’s annual Pride parade is under new management.
Tennessee Valley Rocket City Pride has hosted the Vincent Rutherford Equality March every Pride month since 2018. A new group will be running the parade under the same name this year.
A long-time friend of the late-Vincent Rutherford chose to pick up the baton and continue his legacy. Laura Uselton with the Community Pride Alliance filed the permits to host the parade with the City of Huntsville in April. She was worried that there wouldn’t be a Pride parade in Huntsville in 2025, especially since she helped organize annual Pride parades over a decade ago.
“RCP (Rocket City Pride) had gone dark,” said Uselton. “They weren’t responding to anybody. They weren’t doing anything. So somebody had to do it. And I just happened to be the first one to apply for the permit. And then the current, at that time, Director of RCP emailed me and told me that he was passing the torch along to us because he was going to let us do it.”
The Vincent Rutherford March is at 11 a.m. on Sunday, June 29 in Downtown Huntsville.
Log Cabin Republicans spark controversy
Rocket City Pride faced community backlash after its Pride Fest in October 2024 because they allowed Log Cabin Republicans a table at the event.
Log Cabin Republicans said they represent LGBT conservatives and straight allies. Community members like Briar Wolf said they have taken several transphobic stances, and transgender people won’t feel safe around them.
She said they have no place at a Pride event.
“LCR has supported and aligned with political figures and policies that actively harm the rights of transgender individuals, restrict access to gender-affirming care, and promote discriminatory measures that isolate and target our most vulnerable community members,” said Wolf in a statement in October 2024. “This is not the kind of unity or visibility that Rocket City Pride aims to foster. In fact, LCR’s policies perpetuate division and marginalization, particularly of transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals, undermining the very self-esteem and safety that Rocket City Pride seeks to promote.”
In a statement, Rocket City Pride leaders say they had to allow the Log Cabin Republicans a table at Pride Fest to retain their 501(c)3 status. They have not responded to an additional request for comment.
‘We want to make everybody feel included’
Uselton wanted to provide new leadership for June’s march because she wanted everyone to feel included.
“We can make everybody in Huntsville feel included, everybody in North Alabama feel included, other organizations, other cities,” Uselton said. “Let’s try to get everybody included right now, definitely with the political environment, the trans community needs to feel like they have a place to go. And everybody, not just gay, straight, everybody can socialize and demonstrate and tell Huntsville that we are here and that we belong and that we’re not going to take any bull****.”
Plus, she wanted Rutherford’s legacy to live on. She was close friends with the march’s namesake for many years before he died in 2017.
“I had never seen bigger hearts,” Uselton said. “He was just open to anybody and anything that needed help. I miss him very much. He was a very, very dear friend. I knew them for several years, and when he passed, it was very, very sad. I know today, if he saw what we were doing, he would be compelled.”
Rutherford and a small group of friends founded the first Gay Pride March in Huntsville in 2007. He advocated for LGBTQ+ equality through the creation of groups like Free2Be and CommmUNITY. He was known to always be a helping hand for everyone in the Rocket City. He was the Director of the Pride March in 2017 when he died of cancer.
Now, Uselton is using the skills that he taught her over 10 years ago to lead 2025’s march. She and Community Pride Alliance’s 13 other members are set to make the march as big as it has been in previous years.
Huntsville’s annual march map in the Downtown areaMegan Plotka
She said multiple businesses have reached out to her to show their support, like Yellowhammer Brewing Company, Lipz Lounge and more.
At least 50 groups and individuals will be featured in the parade, including a DJ, karaoke float and a trans activist group that does stormtrooper cosplay.
Texas State has received a formal invitation to join the newly revived Pac-12 Conference in all sports beginning with the 2026-27 athletic year, according tomultiplereports.
The school’s board of regents is set to vote on the issue Monday, ESPN is reporting. Texas State would leave the Sun Belt Conference, of which it has been a member since 2013.
According to a report by Brett McMurphy of Action Network, Louisiana Tech would likely be Texas State’s replacement in the Sun Belt. Louisiana-Monroe athletics director John Hartwell told supporters last week “things are heading in that direction.”
“I think it’s an outstanding opportunity, I don’t think it’s a slam dunk yet. Things are headed in that direction,” Hartwell said, via KNOE-TV. “I would say they are the odds-on favorite at this point, if the dominoes fall like they very well could.”
The first domino is Texas State, which would give the Pac-12 eight football-playing members along with holdovers Oregon State and Washington State and Mountain West imports Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Utah State (basketball powerhouse Gonzaga, which does not play football, will also join the conference). The Pac-12 imploded following the 2023 “power” conference realignment, losing 10 of its schools to the Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC and leaving only Oregon State and Washington State from its previous membership.
Texas State is set to pay the Sun Belt a $5 million exit fee, which would double to $10 million on July 1 according to ESPN. The Bobcats would be the first football-playing school to leave the Sun Belt voluntarily since Western Kentucky departed for Conference USA in 2014 (football-only members Idaho and New Mexico State were essentially booted from the league after the 2017 season, after a four-year agreement was not renewed).
The move to the Sun Belt would be an interesting one for Louisiana Tech, which has long resisted the idea of being in the same conference as Louisiana and nearby ULM. In 2020, then-Bulldogs athletics director Tommy McClelland (who is now at Rice) scoffed at the idea of a potential CUSA-Sun Belt merger, which had been floated by Louisiana AD Bryan Maggard.
“If I were in (Louisiana’s) position, I’d be trying to figure out a way to move up to a level like Conference USA,” McClelland said, via KATC. “Congratulations on that conversation.”
The Sun Belt has since surpassed Conference USA in both national prestige and stability. CUSA in 2023 lost much of its core membership to the American Athletic Conference, which in turn had lost several prominent schools to the Big 12.
Tech’s move to the Sun Belt would drop Conference USA back to 10 members. CUSA is set to add Delaware this season to form an 11-team league along with Jacksonville State, Florida International, Kennesaw State, Liberty, Middle Tennessee, New Mexico State, Sam Houston, UTEP and Western Kentucky.
If you’re looking for an old-school Gulf Coast seafood restaurant, Bayou La Batre seems like a logical place to look: It’s a community where “fresh off the boat” is a baseline expectation, not an abstract concept.
Your search may well lead you to Catalina Restaurant, which is as old-school as they come. Its roots go back to 1965, when local entrepreneur Ora Johnson and his wife Gwen launched their most successful venture in a building that had previously been Johnson’s gas station in Coden.
When a Press-Register reporter visited in 1996, the restaurant was an established local landmark that had expanded quite a bit over the course of 30-plus years. Sister restaurants had opened in Mobile and Pascagoula. The Johnson family didn’t just cook and serve the seafood; they also caught a lot of it themselves on two family-owned trawlers.
There have been hard times too: The 92-foot Jacqueline Diane, which Ora Johnson had helped build in his own shipyard before getting into the restaurant business, sank off Louisiana at the end of 1999. The surge from 2005’s Hurricane Katrina destroyed the original restaurant, forcing staff to shift to the Mobile and Pascagoula locations. After Ora Johnson’s death in 2012, the family downsized the operation and 10 years after Katrina, brought it home to a new location in Bayou La Batre. Jimmy Cobb, husband of Ora and Gwen’s daughter Kathy, said a former Schambeau’s supermarket was “the perfect little spot to open back up.”
Catalina Restaurant in Bayou La Batre almost looks like a hole in the wall — but it’s got more room inside, and more history, than you might expect.Lawrence Specker | [email protected]
It’s not hard to see why: The location is in the heart of Bayou La Batre, easily accessible to workers at nearby seafood processing plants and shipyards. But it’s also on Ala. 188, which carries tourist traffic bound for Dauphin Island.
With 15 years under its belt, the new place doesn’t feel like a new place. You get the sense that the décor of nautical bric-a-brac was accrued over a period of years, some of it perhaps from nearby docks, rather than put up all at once in accordance with some interior design plan. The layout makes it feel smaller than it is. You might recognize folks representing the local seafood industry among the clientele, and that’s a good sign.
The menu is straightforward. There’s usually a blue-plate special: half a ribeye with loaded mashed potatoes and snap beans, to pick one recent example, or sausage and shrimp jambalaya with cream-style corn and baby green limas.
“We do that for the working-class shipyard workers and stuff like that,” said Cobb. “They don’t have a lot of time to eat, so you have try to have something ready for them.”
The gumbo at Catalina has a distinctive reddish color, and a fresh-from-the dock flavor.Lawrence Specker | [email protected]
The main attraction is shrimp, oysters, catfish and crab, all of which probably will be fried unless you make a point of asking for it to be grilled, blackened, broiled or baked. The logical way to start is with some gumbo. Catalina’s isn’t cheap, at $11.99 for a cup. But the shrimp in it are bigger than what you usually find in gumbo these days, and the reddish broth has a freshness that drives home just how close you are to the waterfront.
The seafood dinner selection does offer good variety: It includes Steamed Royal Reds ($25.99 with corn and new potatoes); Snow Crab Legs ($31.99, ditto); Crab Cakes ($23.99); Whole Flounder ($29.99, or stuffed for $39.99); and Crabmeat au Gratin ($24.99). Alternatives include burgers, po-boys, steaks and chicken tenders.
The “half-and-half” section offers more options. Popcorn shrimp and catfish? Oysters and crab claws? Fantail shrimp and oysters? Assuming you aren’t ready to go whole hog with the Seafood Platter ($29.99), this is likely where you’ll end up. And it’s a good place to be.
The fried oyster platter at Catalina Restaurant in Bayou La Batre.Lawrence Specker | [email protected]
I opted for fantail shrimp and oysters ($23.99), while my dining companion went all in on oysters ($22.99). It was a good call, either way: The shrimp were large and firm and the oysters were fresh and juicy.
If you go deep into Coden-Bayou La Batre lore, the restaurant originally took its name from Ora and Gwen Johnson’s three daughters, Jane, Kathy and Zephia Alena: It was called Jane’s KatAlena.
The unusual spelling didn’t survive popular usage: People just called it Catalina, and eventually the owners went along with that. In some old listings you’ll find it as “Catalina Jane.” But there’s no California connection. (Jane died in 2022, four years after her mother.)
It’s still very much a family business: “Zephia makes the crab cakes, I make the gumbo,” said Cobb. His wife, Kathy, also plays a major part in operating the restaurant, and Cobb said the staff includes more nieces and nephews than he can name.
My companion and I were too full to conduct a follow-up investigation of Catalina’s Sweet Side and Ice Cream Parlor. For the record, it’s a newer sister business on the other side of the building. Primarily an ice-cream parlor, it has its own burger-joint menu and blue plate specials, with a rotation that includes mullet and grits, shrimp spaghetti and more.
Catalina’s Sweet Side offers ice cream as well as its own burger-joint menu and daily specials.Lawrence Specker | [email protected]
“We opened that about two years ago,” said Cobb. “And the reason we did that is that when we first started in ‘65, we were an ice cream-hamburger joint. So we had a little bit of experience there, and we just thought it’d be a good addition. The spot came open for us.”
When you’ve been around for 50 years, the line between doing something new and bringing back something from the past can be a fine distinction. Now that’s old-school.
Isolated severe storms are again in the forecast for most of Alabama on Friday.
NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center has a Level 1 out of 5 (marginal) risk for severe weather in place across all of Alabama except for the northwest corner and immediate coast.
A Level 1 risk means isolated severe storms will be possible. The strongest of those could have wind gusts up to 60 mph, heavy rain and lightning. Tornadoes are not expected.
The National Weather Service thinks storms could pop up at any time today but will be most likely during the afternoon and evening hours.
There was also a Level 1 risk for Alabama on Thursday, but there were few storms to speak of.
Scattered rain and storms will be possible across Alabama through the weekend, and some of those could be intense at times, but no organized severe weather is in the forecast for the state beyond today.
Here’s more from the weather service:
NORTH ALABAMA
CENTRAL ALABAMA
The NWS in Birmingham is forecasting a Level 1 severe weather risk for just the eastern part of central Alabama on Friday.NWS
SOUTH ALABAMA
Rain chances will be a bit higher along the coast today.NWS
Here are today’s rain chances for southeast Alabama.NWS
