When Harry Johnson first visited the remote, run-down bar that would blossom into Pelican Pointe Grill, he made sure it was during daylight hours. The Viewpoint Social Club, as it was known at the time, tended to draw a rougher crowd once the afterglow had faded from what was often a spectacular sunset.
A simple wooden structure, it had started its life as a gas station at the southern end of County Road 1, near the tip of a peninsula where Weeks Bay flows into Mobile Bay. Over time it had evolved into an out-of-the-way dive where people would gather to drink beer and liquor, smoke lots of cigarettes and shoot pool — and sometimes get a little unruly after dark. Like he’s done many times before and since, Johnson saw some possibilities for it that others hadn’t. “It was a ramshackle building on a gorgeous spot surrounded by water,” he says, “and it just had the potential of being something other than what it was.”
With construction help from Kenny Horton, he remodeled the place, and he would incrementally build it into a restaurant and bar that was casual and coastal but with some unexpected style and sophistication. To upgrade the clientele, Johnson had a clever, three-point plan: “We painted the building pink, we charged $3 instead of a buck-twenty-five for a beer and we played reggae music,” he says, revealing just a smidge of a satisfied smirk at the memory.
It was a gamble, but 35 years ago he was able to transform the somewhat-shady Viewpoint south of Fairhope into something that seemed almost magical. Decades later, a mention of Pelican Pointe Grill can instantly raise a smile and elicit a story or two about lively times in a laid-back setting. When talk turns to the best and most beloved watering holes in Baldwin County, Johnson’s imaginative creation often is part of a conversation that centers on the Flora-Bama and Judge Roy Bean’s. Typical recollections include abundant food and drink and dancing barefoot to some of the area’s favorite bands.
Johnson is quick to point to others who helped to make it work. Many of his associates from that time have continued in the food and beverage industry since Pelican Pointe’s big wave of success receded around 2001. That’s when Johnson sold the business, and just three years later Hurricane Ivan wiped away most everything but lots of cherished memories.
Ken Buck was just out of college when he came on board, first as a server and ultimately as general manager. Having grown up nearby, he was well familiar with his new workplace. “I first knew it as a 76 station,” Buck says. “It was a place where you could get Cokes or snacks or a shear pin for your outboard motor. It was a tiny little shack, and they added on to it later and had a few pool tables in there.”
After Johnson’s makeover, visitors found Pelican Pointe Grill to be unique in many ways. For one thing, it was directly on the Bay (a rarity then and now), so they could arrive by land or by water. And it was well outside of town, in an area that seemed much more isolated back then because there weren’t nearly as many houses or year-round residents. The freshly painted pink building with turquoise trim was 14 miles from downtown Fairhope, which meant you still had 10 miles to go once you drove past the Grand Hotel in Point Clear.
Weather was another big consideration. Though there was an indoor bar and dining area, most guests preferred stretching out on the outside decks on beautiful, sunny days. They could enjoy sweeping views of the open skies and shimmering waters as well as clear sight lines to the wide performance stage, which had an abandoned 35-foot shrimp boat (christened the SS Minnow by staff) as an appropriate backdrop.
Sundays were the main event, when several hundred people might gather and enjoy live music in the evenings from popular groups such as the Tip Tops and Banana Republic. Other musical acts included Hank Becker & the Boogie Chillin, Beverly Jo Scott, Chapter 11, Kevin Danzig and the Leavin Brothers. Sometimes the huge parking lot, which also served the state-owned public boat launch, was completely full while 30 or more boats would be anchored along the beach or just offshore.
Former workers vividly remember those jam-packed times. After a busy Sunday lunch, Buck would sometimes have to ride into town to replenish the pantry before the next rush. Toward the end of a 25-mile round trip, some nervousness might creep in as he drew closer to the restaurant and saw vehicles lined up on both sides of the two-lane road. With such overflow from an overcrowded parking lot, he knew the staff was already seriously swamped with no end in sight. “It got Level 10 crazy down there,” says Suzanne Winstead, who worked the outside bar alongside Shelley Arnold. “It was hectic, but we loved that. We had two blenders apiece and we were slinging beers, pouring a ton of shots and making all the bushwhackers by hand, and we were doing this back to back to back for hours.”
She wonders sometimes how they kept it all going, but says the thumping live music helped to energize them. On the flip side, playing music there was a treat for the musicians. Founding members of the popular show band the Tip Tops lit up recently at the mention of Pelican Pointe Grill and wanted to know if it was reopening. While many of their engagements were more formal ones that required a fancier wardrobe, this was where they were able to dress down more comfortably. “We could let our hair down and have just as much fun as the audience was having,” says Eric G, the band’s keyboardist. “It was one of our favorite gigs, but we only got to do it once a month.” His bandmate, trombonist Sir Charles Dandridge, added: “Everybody was dancing and would get up on stage with us and dance with the band. It was a great time out there.”
They almost immediately mentioned the food, too, which is another area in which Johnson seems to have raised the bar. “Harry was really ahead of his time with certain things, such as the steamed royal red shrimp, which he wanted to highlight as a local delicacy,” says Zack Smith, who was kitchen manager. Another star attraction was the baby back ribs that were incredibly tender and sweet after being marinated in a combination of Coca-Cola, Worcestershire Sauce, pancake syrup and various seasonings before being slathered in sauce and char-grilled. “The meat would literally fall right off the bones,” Smith says. “I’m sure that if you were to ask a barbecue guru or something, they would say we were doing it wrong, but people absolutely loved those ribs.”
For $15.95, according to an old menu, guests could get a combo platter with a choice of two proteins served with corn, new potatoes, marinated vegetables and bread. With shrimp and crab and barbecue ribs and chicken among the choices, Smith says, “It was kind of our unique take on surf and turf.” By comparison, you could get a grilled ribeye and the trimmings for $12.95 in those days, and a shrimp or oyster sandwich would set you back just $6.95. Some guests already had their minds made up when they arrived. “Those burgers were out of this world,” says Charles Davis of the Leavin Brothers. “My father, Dr. Billy Davis, would give the menus back to the waitress and say, ‘We don’t need these; just bring us a hamburger and a Bloody Mary.’”
Davis had lived in Fairhope, but the band he had with his brother Evans was based in Nashville at the time. They would join their extended family at the restaurant on Sundays when they visited, and they eventually brought the entire band down to perform. “Harry ended up booking us five times, and we would all stay at Daddy’s house,” Davis says. “I remember people dancing in the sand and absolutely loving it, and the way the stage was situated, the band had a great view of the water, too.”
Looking back, Johnson says he wasn’t confident that Pelican Pointe Grill was a sure thing, and in the very beginning, it wasn’t looking so rosy. “The first year was a struggle, especially when we hit the off season,” he recalls, but when things warmed up in the spring, so did his hopes for his new venture. As they kept expanding and making improvements, people started trickling in more and more until it became a swarm. “The Grand Hotel, after about year two, started recommending it to their customers, so we were getting a lot more of the hotel guests, especially on nights when we needed it, like on a Wednesday or a Thursday,” he says.
But eventually they were stopped in their tracks, literally. “On Father’s Day — and I’m not sure what year it was, it might have been ‘98 — but around 2 or 3 o’clock in the afternoon, the sheriff’s department put up a roadblock after the cutoff from Mary Ann Beach Road,” Johnson says. “People were already down there drinking, and there was one way in and one way out. They arrested a lot of people, and word spread like wildfire.”
In 1999, Lulu’s Sunset Grill opened at the other end of Weeks Bay. Just a few miles or a short boat ride away, it was becoming a worthy competitor and another reason for Johnson to be concerned about his future at the end of County Road 1. He says looking at each day’s sales numbers and seeing their decline from the previous year reinforced his feeling that it was time to put the business on the market. He turned his main focus to the Bluegill Restaurant on the Causeway, which he had revived in 1998. Many of his staffers from Pelican Pointe followed him there (and so did some of the bands) to keep the good times rolling.
On the vacated spot on County Road 1 where the restaurant stood, you’ll find an overgrown tangle of palmetto, pines and vines behind a low fence. That could change, though. Mark White, owner of Moe’s Original BBQ, owns the two-acre site and has eventual plans to build a restaurant. He hasn’t worked out the details or a timeline, but the way he described it sounded like somewhere that Johnson would approve of — and wouldn’t be hesitant to visit after nightfall. White envisions a relaxed, “no frills” vibe and a simple but well-executed menu. He imagines it being similar to a bar-restaurant you might encounter in the Bahamas and with solid construction to withstand storms and meet today’s stricter building standards. There might also be basic tackle, bait, ice and beer available on the premises, he says.
Johnson is often recognized for his lasting contributions to the restaurant and bar business. Besides the enduring impressions he made with Pelican Pointe Grill, he’s also known for earlier successes like his decade-long run at Winslow’s Cafe in Fairhope and his later revivals of mainstays like Manci’s and Market by the Bay in addition to the Bluegill, which he sold in 2010. Just as he was quick to give credit to the people around him, he says he also feels fortunate to have weathered the ups and downs of the industry. “I’m just glad to still be here and to own a couple of restaurants along with my young partners who run the places,” he says. “I love the business, I love the live music and I love the food and tinkering with it.”
His legacy lives on in another way, too. Before his game-changing restaurant came along in 1991 to the end of County Road 1, most people called that area Big Mouth, which is a reference to the inlet where the two bays meet. No one referred to the end of the peninsula itself as Pelican Point back then, but now almost everyone does. It even appears that way on official maps as the location of the public boat launch (but not spelled as Pointe with an “e” on the end — that was Johnson’s touch). He chose the name, he says, in part because brown pelicans had made a noticeable comeback after years of decline because of pesticide use, and he also liked its alliterative nature. “I think it has such a nice ring to it that it stuck, so it’s still called that to this day,” he says. “And it always will be, I hope. So yeah, I’m happy with that.”
