Woodlawn High School Birmingham Alabama — Woodlawn High School urban farm leaders

What are Bham Now‘s most popular restaurant and food stories in 2017?

With only 3 days left in 2017, Bham Now surveyed the number of visits to our website, Facebook and Twitter to determine which stories interested you, our readers the most.

The answer: A sports bar, food trucks, cajun food, school gardens and the legendary Frank Stitt.

Birmingham Alabama — Bottega – Photo by Pat Byington

Food and Wine Magazine moves to Birmingham

Let’s start with not only the most popular, but most significant story that impacted the culinary movement in Birmingham, the re-location of Food and Wine Magazine from New York to Birmingham.

On June 23, the New York Times broke the story about Food and Wine moving to the Magic City. Bham Now wrote three stories that monumental week about the national implications of a prestigious magazine going to the Bham.

Food and Wine is moving from New York to Birmingham

Frank Stitt and others react to Food and Wine’s move to Birmingham

“We have clearly arrived” – @Foodimentary’s John-Bryan Hopkins on Food & Wine move

Frank Stitt, the owner of Highlands Bar & Grill, Bottega and Chez Fonfon summed up the importance of the re-location to Birmingham’s food movement when he stated:

“Food and Wine is one of America’s most influential magazines and their move here cements Birmingham as a food and wine destination. With Hunter Lewis at the helm, this gives us an opportunity to shine on a much larger stage. It will be great to have the media leaders of both coasts coming through and thinking of Birmingham.”

Woodlawn High School’s Urban Farm

Bham Now’s second most popular story was about the highly successful Woodlawn High School Urban Farm. The story titled – Woodlawn High School Urban Farm “school-grown” vegetables on sale every Tuesday in May (photos) had the most visits on the Bham Now website from January to May.

Birmingham AL — Woodlawn students selling produce from their school farm, which is part of a group of Jones Valley Teaching Farms

The inspirational story is about the partnership between Jones Valley Teaching Farm and Woodlawn High School. In just a couple of years, the program is operating a two acre working farm, state-of-the-art greenhouse, classroom, office, and produce processing and storage facilities. They also sell the fresh produce weekly to the neighborhood.

Food truck mania

I Love Bacond Food Truck Coming to Birmingham AL — via I Love Bacon Food Truck

Stories about Food trucks in the Magic City continue to be very popular with Bham Now readers. Two of our most “liked” stories on social media were about the new Food Truck Park downtown and the “I Love Bacon” Food Truck.

Birmingham Food Park – Grand Opening July 1!

“I Love Bacon” Food Truck will debut in Birmingham

It is unscientific, but it seems Bham Now’s most popular food stories on social media always involve the words doughnuts, bacon and tacos.

Pizitz Hall Food Hall “foodie heaven” opens

Another major restaurant and food story in 2017 were the articles about the opening of the Pizitz Food Hall. The hall, which is across from the McWane Science Center, has one of the most diverse offering of restaurants in the region. Bham Now captured the sights of the new food hall when photographer Larry O. Gay took photos of “foodie heaven” in February and Bham Now did a staff “takeover” of the place back on March 30th.

Bham Now Pizitz Food Hall takeover

Bham Now photographer Larry O. Gay gives us a sneak peak inside “foodie heaven” – The Pizitz Food Hall

Everyone loves gumbo

Rougaroux house — The former Pink House cafe turned Rougaroux is now serving up cajun dishes to Forest Park

Rougaroux, formerly the little Pink House, a place where children participated in dance classes, is now one of Birmingham’s hottest new restaurants. Bham Now’s story about the new authentic cajun restaurant went viral back in October.

Rougaroux is bringing Poboys to Birmingham: Forest Park’s newest and cutest restaurant

Dave and Busters – our lone 2018 story

And finally, Bham Now’s most popular single post in 2017 was about Dave and Busters plan to open its first Alabama restaurant at the Riverchase Galleria in the summer of 2018. The sports bar/arcade is trendy primarily in the North. It looks like their reputation has made down to the South with that particular story garnering over 100,000 page views.