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Posted Jan 17, 2016, 10:21 PM
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Join Date: Jun 2014
Location: Tuscaloosa
Posts: 515
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301 Bistro restaurant opens in 1912 L&N train station
Quote:
A new name -- 301 Bistro, Bar and Beer Garden -- lit up last month over a venerable downtown building.
The 1912-1913 L&N Depot, which has seen numerous incarnations since the 1970s, contains not just 20-foot ceilings, a massive central gasolier and original tile floors, but memories. Owner-operators Bill and Bebe Barefoot Lloyd spent six months of hands-on work renovating, but seeking to maintain architectural integrity and ties to the past.
"There's a lot of nostalgia associated with the building," Bill said. "We wanted a different feel, a different vibe, so we wanted to sort of change it without changing it."
"It needed to feel updated and fresh, but with a nod to its history," Bebe said. Working through the Tuscaloosa County Preservation Society, which sought to buy the then-abandoned station in 1972, and L&N Railroad archives in Louisville, Ky., they found more paperwork than photographs; some of the early photo finds adorn 301's walls.
"We did find correspondence that kind of filled in the gaps," she said.
The Tuscaloosa News of Aug. 12, 1912 celebrated completion of the rail line, originally Tuscaloosa Mineral Railroad, a few years later turned over to The Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company. When Bill Burnett and Marshall Carpenter began restoring the former train station in the '70s, windows had been shattered, and birds were nesting in the rafters. Much of the marble that once adorned the walls had been removed.
"We tried to put back the station as near to the original as possible," Burnett was quoted as saying in a front page story from The Tuscaloosa News, Oct. 19, 1977, announcing the opening of Hadda Call Station, a restaurant and bar opened for lunch and dinner. The menu was printed on a copy of the 1912 newspaper. Its operators were former employees of Sailmakers restaurants in Birmingham and Nashville, and one from Joe Namath's stable of venues. It changed hands two years later, becoming McQue Station in November 1979, with the owners of then-popular Clancy McQue's restaurant.
That seemed to set the pattern: Early success followed by a change of hands in a few years. Not necessarily in this order, the depot became: J.R.'s Crystal Palace, following the brief trail of the urban cowboy, complete with mechanical bull; Hooterville, a restaurant; The Old L&N Club, a private club with food service, hosting musicians including The Neville Brothers, Lee Dorsey and Delbert McClinton; The Old Train Station; The Cotton Club; and The Station. Most worked within the feel of the building, and usually, though not always, sought a more grown-up crowd.
Early visitors to 301 appreciate the new focus.
"A lot of people have come up to me and said 'Thank you for opening an adult bar in town,' " Bill said.
He bought the building from longtime owner John Curry in 2005; Bill Lloyd also owns Green Bar, and Wilhagan's restaurants here and in Nashville. For the past decade, he rented the train station for private events, providing services through his Casual Class Catering business. With a capacity of 300, it served weddings, reunions, proms, charity parties, fashion shows and more. As landlord, he kept up restoration and preservation work. Curry and others had labored extensively on one of the toughest problems, heating and cooling the massive space, especially the central room. And it stayed in solid shape, as its renters were mostly respectful.
"We did have the occasional person seeing the gasolier, and me having to tell them, 'No, you cannot hang things from that,'" Bill said, laughing.
But recently, the Lloyds began brainstorming about 301, named for its Greensboro Avenue address.
"Mainly, I thought downtown was ready for another venue," Bill said. One of the issues Joe Ezell felt hurt his Cotton Club was the location, perceived as out of the way from other downtown life. That's changed in the past several years, with the Tuscaloosa Amphitheater down the road; the new Embassy Suites across the street, with The Side By Side Restaurant designed by Chris Hastings just up the hill; and the future Hotel Indigo planning to open this year just down the street.
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