21 responses so far ↓

• 1 Claudia // Mar 6, 2008 at 3:19 pm

  There used to be this awesome Put-Put Golf place on Hwy 31 in Hoover…where Krispy Creme Doughnuts is now. I remember going there as a child and having so much fun, and when it shut down, I was devastated. I miss it…

• 2 Kelli // Mar 6, 2008 at 8:50 pm

  The Ensley Grill.

  My grandparents used to take me there when I was really young — probably two or three years before the owner was shot. It was just a cafeteria style place, but the food was awesome, and the people were always so nice.

  And I’m with Claudia. I miss Putt-Putt. We used to go to Magic Mountain on Hwy 150, and now there’s not one anywhere.

• 3 betsy // Mar 6, 2008 at 10:16 pm

  Metropolitan Deluxe - Loved their great greeting cards and funky furniture.

• 4 George // Mar 7, 2008 at 12:42 am

  I miss Ollie’s Bar-B-Que. Ollie’s was to Birmingham what The Varsity is to Atlanta.

• 5 StephenS // Mar 7, 2008 at 6:30 pm

  3 StephenS // Mar 6, 2008 at 10:25 am

  I miss Magic Platter. In middle school, we used to skip track to run and buy all the cds we couldn’t get when our parents were around (who thought that Stone Temple Pilots was that controversial…). I also miss Noise in homewood - walking in , I instantly felt like I had left the suburbs and was in someplace unique.

  I miss New York Pizza’s old location where cool beans is now. It had an authentic, lived-in feel that the new location, with its generic tables, booths, walls and five TVs blasting sports twenty-four/seven, has lost.

  I miss highland coffee too. Why is that place still empty??

  Um, and am I allowed to miss all the historic buildings that have been torn down in this city, even the ones I never saw? Terminal Station being at the top, others include the Morris Hotel, the Court House on 4th next to St. Paul’s, the Temple to Vesta on Shades Mtn., etc, etc. I miss them almost everyday, even though I’ve never seen them.

• 6 Lindsey // Mar 7, 2008 at 8:50 pm

  I miss Magic Platter, too, more than I can adequately verbalize. It was my default music store in high school, even though it was a good 25 minute drive from my house (of course, gas cost 97 cents back in those days, so it wasn’t such a sacrifice).

  I also miss Celestial Realm in Southside. It was the first coffeehouse I remember coming across in Birmingham and was around long before any Starbucks showed up.

• 7 Andre // Mar 7, 2008 at 9:05 pm

  I miss Highland Coffee Company. Evening runs through Highland just aren’t the same…

• 8 Charles Amos Horn // Mar 7, 2008 at 9:13 pm

  I miss the ingalls iron works facility in Titusville. It was torn down, supposedly to build a “neighborhood center” wal-mart. I loved that place, i spent hours rambling around, exploring, photographing, and fantasizing about things to do with it. There were a number of installations and works by art students out there…in addition to all the graffiti. It was the kind of place that could have became the Tate Modern of birmingham. There were two awesome corporate buildings, too, that were wonderfully terrifying. But it’s all gone now, except for the foundations and one of the corporate buildings…

• 9 Hope // Mar 10, 2008 at 6:57 pm

  I miss Berman Mercantile, and now I also miss Massey’s. Their new place just isn’t the same as the old one.

• 10 austin // Mar 11, 2008 at 6:57 pm

  i miss the mill in 5 points. birmingham needs a new brew pub.

• 11 Erin // Mar 11, 2008 at 8:14 pm

  I miss Highland Coffee Company like crazy. It really gave you a “cozy”/”art district” feeling when you got off the exit. That’s right where I live, and I think we all agree.

• 12 Jennifer // Mar 12, 2008 at 7:05 pm

  I miss the 5 points Music Hall. It was a great mid-size venue that hosted some pretty fantastic bands during a unique time for music in Birmingham.

• 13 Todd // Mar 13, 2008 at 3:35 am

  I miss Magic Platter as well, but the old Lion and the Unicorn back when it was first where the Golden Temple vegan place is now and then when it moved over to the Pickwick Place was somewhere I went once or twice a week as a kid. The one where Golden Temple is now was sketchy and my parents didn’t ever let me go in there alone, but the Pickwick Place one had more than one light in it and I spent many a time in there buying comic books and just generally being a total nerd/loser. Once it moved out to Hoover and their focus shifted from comics to RPGs and Card Games it was just never the same.

• 14 thyme // Mar 17, 2008 at 7:40 am

  ♨ Romeo’s (Italian restaurant). We need you Herb!!!! First, just being located downstairs downtown on 7th Avenue South for decades — before everyone could spell l-o-f-t — was really as good as any home-grown dining experience can get, only the better with its bare bones Italian flavor. Second, even the final location on Clairmont Avenue in Forest Park was better than no Romeo’s at all. For all of you out there born after 1969, let me break it down for you: Two brothers and a Mama running the whole show: waiter, cook, check-out, ambience. You could smell the garlic before you entered the building and it felt like Mama calling you home even if you were born a middle-class, white child in the South. Romantic lighting, with tall, dripping candles setting the mood at each table. Tall, red vinyl booths to get lost in and find your love in. Very few items on the menu because it was all made-to-order and all you could ever digest with a wine “helper.” Ugh!! That is as far as I dare go before I start crying in my nostalgic glass of Chianti. Where’s my warm, buttered, garlic bread? Sniff-sniff.

• 15 brendan // Mar 17, 2008 at 9:28 am

  I miss Reunion the coffee place and even Highland coffee place too!! What is going on in this town!

• 16 Final Taxi // Mar 21, 2008 at 9:54 pm

  I miss Brother’s Music Hall- It was across from BrookWood Village.
  Great place to see bands that were too small to play the BJCC and too big for a nightclub.

  I saw many new acts there- the Police, Pat Benatar, Elvis Costello, Warren Zevon, the Ramones and Tim Curry to name a few.

• 17 Terry // Mar 23, 2008 at 12:24 am

  I really miss the old Eastwood Mall. Back in my teenage years, everyone would cruise around the mall and just socialize with everybody. It was the place to see and be seen. Then, you could grab a burger at Kelly’s Hamburger’s along Monclair Road.
  Additionally, I miss the WSGN Sock Hops at the Oporto Armory. What a time it was…

• 18 G Man // Mar 24, 2008 at 3:50 pm

  Jennifer - I miss the Five Points Music Hall too. I saw some great shows there - Michael Hedges, Galactic, Govt Mule, just to name a few (I missed the infamous Ben Harper concert).

  I miss Dugan’s. It was a great place. Food was good (excellent burgers), and at night, it was just a great bar to have some drinks with friends. I spent way too much money there, but I loved it.

• 19 Nicole // Mar 25, 2008 at 3:59 am

  I miss Dilli’s Deli (I think that was how it was spelled). It was located by Eastwood Mall. HUGE ice cream cones! My mom was pregnant with my sister and she craved a cone. We had to open the sunroof to fit the ice cream cone in the car. (Not the actual cone just the ice cream was piled high on the cone)(:

• 20 Steve // Mar 28, 2008 at 6:49 am

  This may be ancient history to most of the readers, but I miss all the wonderful “mom and pop” antique shops that dotted our community before the days of the antique super malls. Estelle Shelton’s Anteeks and Junque in Norwood was located in an old house with an iron porch rail made from the legs of treadle sewing machines. Clarice Roddam owned Roddam’s Antiques on 18th Street North and combined unusual collectibles with clothing alterations.

  Roberta’s Browse and Buy in East Lake offered a full line of wonderful antiques and collectibles and was willing to work with starving young collectors because she understood our “needs.” Her daughter, Trisha, carries on the tradition in her fascinating shop located on a side street in the heart of Homewood’s business district. I can never get out of there without buying something.

  Bryant’s Antiques was located on First Avenue North in Woodlawn in a huge rambling house that had belonged to an Alabama governor. He didn’t even mind young kids exploring the dark dusky rooms piled high with inventory. I bought my first postcard there for a nickle.

  There were many others with colorful names and equally colorful owners: The Sewing Machine Exchange, Jim’s Junk, and maybe the most unusual of all, Jim Anderson’s Seeds Four - The Never Before Store. God, do I miss those places!

• 21 BrianW // Mar 29, 2008 at 7:50 pm

  Smith and Hardwick bookstore

  Roger’s Army Navy store back when they stocked camping supplies instead of $200 pants

  Pacific Islander on Valley Ave where Sammy’s is now. Best sesame chicken ever.

  Amen to Ollie’s.

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