Bob Carlton

2 weeks ago | al.com | Bob Carlton

Downtown Birmingham diners will soon have a new lunch option. Bayonet, the new raw bar and seafood-focused restaurant from celebrated Alabama chef Rob McDaniel and his wife, Emily, will start opening for lunch beginning Thursday, May 1. The restaurant -- at 2015 Second Ave. North, next door to the McDaniels’ first restaurant, Helen -- has offered happy hour and dinner service since opening in March.

2 weeks ago | al.com | Matt Wake |Mary Colurso |Lawrence Specker |Bob Carlton

We all love to rave about spring in Alabama – the weather, the flowers in bloom and the preparation for school to end. But one thing we need to add to our list: The spring concert calendar is stacked with plenty of amazing concerts and festivals. A bunch of us here at AL.com decided to look through concert listings all over the state from Huntsville to Mobile to find some of the most notable ones for the season.

3 weeks ago | al.com | Bob Carlton

The publishers of the Michelin Guide – the influential restaurant travel guides sponsored by the French tiremaker Michelin – made big news a couple of weeks ago with the announcement they will debut a guide devoted to the American South later this year. Michelin published its first guide in France in 1900 to increase tire sales by encouraging French motorists to hit the road, and more than a century later, in 2005, Michelin published its first North American Guide for New York City.

1 month ago | al.com | Bob Carlton

Where can you find the best burgers in town? Everybody goes to . . . Milo’sWith the secret sauce that’s known all aroundEverybody goes to . . . Milo’sNow that you’ve got that catchy Milo’s Hamburgers jingle stuck in your head -- again! -- you’ll want to rush out to Seasick Records on Birmingham’s Southside and get your limited-edition, seven-inch vinyl copy of the iconic Birmingham advertising jingle that first aired on radio stations in 1993 and that you likely sing aloud every time you go to Milo’s.

1 month ago | al.com | Bob Carlton

Folks around Fayette in northwest-central Alabama take plenty of hometown pride in the sweet, golden syrup that has earned their small town of 4,200 the nickname “Syrup City.”As well they should. “It’s a 100-year-old company,” Temple Bowling, a co-owner of Fayette’s venerable Golden Eagle Syrup Co., says.