Resa Bates used to walk by the old restaurant in downtown Greenville and stop to peek through the windows.
The Alabama Grill, a Greenville institution that first opened in 1947, had been shuttered since around 2000, but when Bates peered inside, she could envision it coming back to life.
“For 10 years, I used to come and look in the windows,” she recalls. “I could look in the windows and see it with the lights on and people in it.”
Eventually, a little more than three years ago, Bates and her partner, Allan Bloodworth, quit their respective jobs and spent the next eight months gutting and rebuilding the restaurant before they reopened the Alabama Grill in April 2019.
“It’s ours,” Bloodworth, a carpenter, cook and all-around handyman says. “We built this from scratch after we tore the place out.”
And just as she had imagined when she used to stare through the glass into the vacant building, the old restaurant has brought a new energy to this southern Alabama town of about 7,400 people.
The cozy, narrow restaurant seats about 50 diners inside and another 12 on the back porch, and on weekend nights, it’s not unusual for dinner guests to have to wait an hour or more for a table, Bates says.
Earlier this year, when the local Greenville Advocate newspaper announced the winners of its annual “Best of Butler” readers’ choice awards, the Alabama Grill cleaned up, winning for best steak, best salad, best pizza and best chicken sandwich -- as well as for best place to take an out-of-town guest.
And folks in Butler County will tell you the Alabama Grill’s parmesan-crusted snapper with lemon caper sauce is as good as anything you can get on the Gulf Coast.
“It’s just something that (Greenville) needed,” Bates says. “Maybe they didn’t know they needed it, but I knew they needed it.”
The Alabama Grill seats about 50 diners, and on weekend nights, it's not uncommon for guests to wait an hour or more for a table. (Bob Carlton/bcarlton@al.com)
‘I’ve done it all’
If Resa Bates’ last name sounds familiar, it is.
Her grandparents, the late Bill and Teresa Bates, owned and operated Greenville’s iconic Bates House of Turkey for decades, and as a teenager, Resa helped out around their restaurant, as well as on the family’s turkey farm in Fort Deposit, where she grew up.
Later, after graduating from Fort Dale Academy high school in Greenville, Bates worked in restaurants in Birmingham, Montgomery, and Charleston, S.C., before she headed west to Laramie, Wyo., where she eventually got a degree in art education from the University of Wyoming.
At her various restaurant stops along the way, she did everything from washing dishes to tending bar, waiting tables to baking bread.
“If you learn how to work in restaurants, you can always get a job wherever you move,” Bates says. “I’ve done it all.”
Bates moved to New Orleans in the late 1990s and worked as an art instructor there before she came back home to Alabama in 2005 and taught art in the Greenville and Montgomery public school systems.
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Bloodworth, meanwhile, grew up in Lake City and Fort Myers, Fla., where his family was in the produce business. He came to Montgomery when he was 19 and worked for restaurateurs Harriet Crommelin at Kat & Harri’s and Bud Skinner at Jubilee Seafood.
Both Bates and Bloodworth credit Crommelin and Skinner for teaching them the ins and outs of running a restaurant.
“As far as really learning stuff, we learned a lot from Harriet and Bud because we both worked for them in Cloverdale,” Bates says. “How to run a restaurant, what to expect from your staff, the service, the quality of the food and all of that -- we learned from them.”
While Bates was living in Wyoming, Bloodworth and a business partner opened Tomatinos Pizza & Bake Shop in Montgomery’s Cloverdale neighborhood, followed by the fine-dining restaurant the Olive Room and the more casual El Rey Burrito Lounge.
After later selling his interest in those restaurants, Bloodworth became a restorations and renovations carpenter -- a trade that proved handy when he and Bates decided to dive back into the restaurant business and reopen the Alabama Grill.
“I did (carpentry) for 12 years,” Bloodworth says. “That’s how I learned how to do all this other stuff. That’s something I can use for the rest of my life -- both of them, cooking and construction.”
This vintage photograph shows what the Alabama Grill used to look like several decades ago. The space had been vacant since 2000 but owners Resa Bates and Allan Bloodworth opened the new Alabama Grill in April 2019.(Photo courtesy of the Alabama Tourism Department)
‘There was no stopping’
The old brick building at 109 West Commerce St. dates to the 1800s, Bates says, and in its earlier years, it was home to a bakery and a general store.
Then, in 1947, a Greek immigrant named Mack Liveakos moved to town, married a Greenville girl, and opened the original Alabama Grill.
Liveakos sold the business in 1960 to a new owner, James Arthur, who ran it until the restaurant closed about 20 years ago.
The building sat empty until Bates and Bloodworth -- both of whom were tired of their daily commutes to Montgomery and ready for a career change -- brought it back to life in 2019.
“We were driving to Montgomery every day, and it was a long drive,” Bates says. “We wanted to be here and do this and be our own boss. So, we just decided to open this up.
“We spent August (2018) through March (2019) tearing it apart and putting it back together,” she adds. “And then we opened up April 1 of ‘19.
“It took a lot of work, and we had no break. So, we jumped right from construction to running a restaurant. There was no stopping in between.”
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Conscious of the building’s history and what it means to Greenville, Bates and Bloodworth restored and repurposed as much of the old restaurant as possible, including preserving the original bar and bar stools, as well as the circular mirrors along the wall.
“We had to put a new bar top on, but it’s the original bar,” Bates says. “We put everything back in place.”
Bloodworth also salvaged the floor joists and repurposed them to make baseboards, door frames and shelves. The restaurant’s old tin ceilings now cover the walls and ceiling in the women’s restroom.
“We like old, fixer-upper kind of places,” Bloodworth says. “We like to do it the hard way.”
The Greek-style Liveakos pizza at the Alabama Grill is named in honor of Mack Liveakos, a Greek immigrant who moved to Greenville and opened the original Alabama Grill in 1947. The pizza is topped with Roma tomatoes, roasted garlic, spinach, Kalamata olives, artichoke hearts, grilled red peppers, grilled red onion, mushrooms, capers, feta cheese, mozzarella cheese and a light red sauce.(Bob Carlton/bcarlton@al.com)
‘Eat Local, Eat Fresh, Eat Healthy’
The Alabama Grill’s motto is “Eat Local, Eat Fresh, Eat Healthy,” and to that end, Bates and Bloodworth prepare all their sauces, dressings and soups from scratch using local ingredients whenever possible.
They make their pizza dough fresh daily, hand-pat their burgers and butcher their fish and steaks in-house. Nothing on the menu is fried.
They also source such Alabama producers and suppliers as Domestique Coffee (Birmingham), Harmon & Sons Coffee and Water Service Company (Prattville), Piper & Leaf Tea Company (Huntsville), Sweet Brew Tea (Loxley), Wickles Pickles (Dadeville), Conecuh Sausage (Evergreen) and Royal Lagoon Seafood (Theodore). They get much of their produce from the Butler County Farmers Market, and their smoked turkey from Bates Turkey Farm in Fort Deposit, naturally.
Cammie’s Old Dutch Ice Cream Shoppe in Mobile also makes a special raspberry-cheesecake ice cream flavor called “Camellia” in honor of Greenville’s designation as “The Camellia City.”
“That’s one of the things we wanted to do -- use as many Alabama-based products as we could,” Bates says.
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Among the highlights of the dinner menu are the 16-ounce ribeye steak, a quarter-pound burger, a grilled Mahi sandwich, shrimp rigatoni and, depending on availably, either Gulf snapper or grouper.
Pizza selections include a classic Margherita with Roma tomatoes, mozzarella and fresh basil; the Meathead, with Italian sausage, Conecuh Sausage, pepperoni, meatballs, ham and bacon; and the Liveakos, a tribute to the restaurant’s original owner that’s topped with Kalamata olives, artichoke hearts, grilled red peppers, spinach garlic, Roma tomatoes, mushrooms, feta and capers.
“We sell equal amounts of all of it,” Bates says. “On Friday nights, our biggest sales are split down the middle between steaks and snapper. Some nights, we are heavy on pizzas.
“We sell out of snapper every time we have it. If we don’t have snapper, we sell out of steaks.”
The Alabama Grill is at 109 West Commerce St. in downtown Greenville, Ala.(Bob Carlton/bcarlton@al.com)
‘We’re here all the time’
The Alabama Grill is very much a mom-and-pop operation, with Bloodworth handling most of the cooking and Bates taking care of the customers.
“I run the front, and he runs the back,” Bates says. “Both of us, we’re here all the time. He does everything with the food, and one night, I could be making salads, bartending, busing tables, delivering food and waiting tables.”
Allan’s son, Sam Bloodworth, a senior at Fort Dale Academy, and Resa’s daughter, Lily VanDyke, a junior, help their parents at the restaurant when they’re not busy playing sports.
Sam makes pizzas and washes dishes, Bates says, while Lily serves as a hostess and helps wait tables.
As much as the restaurant means to them, family is always more important.
So, when Sam played his final home football game at Senior Night a few weeks ago, Bates and Bloodworth closed the restaurant to be there.
“We can do that,” Bates says. “We can say this is more important than the money we would make.”
Greek immigrant Mack Liveakos opened the Alabama Grill in Greenville, Ala., in 1947 and ran it for 13 years before he sold the restaurant in 1960.(Photo courtesy of the Liveakos family; used with permission)
‘We believe in Greenville’
To honor the legacy of Alabama Grill founder Mack Liveakos, Bates and Bloodworth hosted a reunion at the restaurant for his descendants in 2019 and again this past summer. Bates hopes to make it an annual tradition.
“The first summer we were open, we had all of the Liveakos grandchildren come,” she says. “A lot of them live in Montgomery, but they are spread around. This summer, some of the great- grandchildren came. . . . We do pizzas, and they just come and visit like a family reunion.”
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Like all restaurants, the Alabama Grill has had to navigate the uncharted waters of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused staffing issues and supply shortages.
In March 2020, less than a year after it reopened, the restaurant closed for in-person dining for six months and only served take-out orders.
“We had to have local support to stay open,” Bates says. “We got two PPPs (Paycheck Protection Program loans) to help us keep our employees and keep us going because it definitely took a toll. The price of goods went up. We had to purchase about five times as many to-go containers, which is a lot more (in) costs.
“Then we opened back up, and we’ve been open ever since and gotten busier and busier.”
Just as Greenville has been good to them, Bates says, they’ve also been good for Greenville.
“We shop local and live local,” she says. “We believe in Greenville, and we know that Greenville believes in us.”
The Alabama Grill is at 109 West Commerce St. in Greenville, Ala. The phone is 334-371-4745. Hours are 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 to 8 p.m. Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, and 5 to 8 p.m. Saturdays. For a menu and more information, go here.
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