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Ms. Cheap: Flora-Bama is making a big-time comeback




The iconic Flora-Bama attracts a million visitors a year.Submitted

The iconic Flora-Bama attracts a million visitors a year.Submitted

Like many Middle Tennesseans, our family loves visiting the Alabama/Florida Gulf Coast for fun in the sun and on the beach.

And the Flora-Bama beach bar on the state line, which has been holding its own for almost 60 years, is almost always a draw for us for some waterfront live music, a Bama Burger or fish sandwich and maybe an ice-cold beverage.

While many bars and restaurants on the Gulf Coast suffered catastrophic closures, the mighty Flora-Bama’s resilience has enabled it to make a strong comeback, and now, once again, it is ruling the day (and night) as ground zero of the Redneck Riviera, according to Flora-Bama Marketing Manager Jenifer Parnell.

Perched on the Gulf of Mexico on one side and on the Intracoastal Waterway on the other side of the two-lane Perdido Key Drive, this sprawling iconic dive bar and restaurant seems to have made the best of its COVID challenges by getting creative and sticking with its staff during the COVID down times.

“We are still here and going strong,” said Parnell, who said even with the trials and tribulations of the COVID pandemic, which shut down the Bama for weeks and curtailed its business for months, some good things came from the experience.

Flora-Bama added a beach bar during the COVID-19 pandemic.Submitted

Flora-Bama added a beach bar during the COVID-19 pandemic.Submitted

“We had to get creative. I think it made us more efficient and helped us to find ways we could do things better,” Parnell said.

If you have not been to the Flora-Bama, it is an institution known far and wide as a lively letting-loose kind of honky-tonk that usually serves thousands of patrons a day and offers live music on six stages and has 30 bars and three busy restaurants.

It is hard to imagine this hot spot empty and silent.

But imagine no more, because it’s back!

“Now the Flora-Bama is doing great,” Parnell said. “People are excited to get out and get back to normal. Customers are coming out to support us and enjoy themselves, all the restrictions are lifted, musicians are filling our stages and playing daily, and the vibe is better than ever. The staff is excited to be back working with a full house again.

“Our core owners were determined to stay open, and they paid all of our employees and the musicians through it all,” she said, adding that the Paycheck Protection Program loans helped and the owners were able to help the musicians further by featuring them on Facebook Live.

“They took care of our people,” she said. “We call it the ‘Bamaily,’ and I think it helped the employees knowing that they were being supported during this,” she said. The Flora-Bama has anywhere from a minimum of 250 employees to 500 employees in the busy season.

“This place is like a home to many of them and we are a big family, so to be back together again in full swing is refreshing and fun,” said Parnell, who added that a large number of the Flora-Bama’s visitors come from Middle Tennessee. “Nashville is a big feeder,” she said, noting that the Flora-Bama’s location on the highway that connects Gulf Shores and Orange Beach to Perdido Key and Pensacola makes it a natural destination during families’ beach vacations.

There is no question that the COVID fallout proved to be a challenge with the weeks of downtime and the severe reduction in the number of visitors allowed inside the honky-tonk at any one time — a limit of 300 people compared with thousands in normal times.

But it could have been worse. An important factor was that while the Flora-Bama is on the Alabama-Florida state line (Escambia County, Florida, and Baldwin County, Alabama), the “Lounge on the Line” complex is technically in Florida. That location meant that while neighboring bars and restaurants on the Alabama side remained closed for months, the Flora-Bama was back open much sooner, serving up its famous Bushwackers and Bama Burgers.

“Based on the guidelines and executive orders issued by each governor, it would have been shut down much longer on the Alabama side,” Parnell said.

Another boon was that the Flora-Bama already had a restaurant license because of its oyster bar, “and that’s how we were able to open by operating 100% as a restaurant to follow guidelines,” Parnell said.

Plus, much of the Flora-Bama complex consists of outdoor venues that were able to remain open even when indoor facilities were shuttered.

Even so, it was a struggle, Parnell said. She said the owners and staff put their heads together on ways to survive the challenges, often waiving the usual $5 nighttime cover charge, adding outdoor space to accommodate more guests, converting areas into COVID compliance, adding charity events and working with authorities on new protocols.

She said a long-term good thing that came out of the COVID times was the creation of the Beach Stage, which she says will continue to be open as one of the most popular and flexible of the complex’s live music venues. “The Beach Stage is great!” she said.

Parnell said that during the shutdown “it was sad coming to work every day and not seeing all the smiling customers and musicians on all the stages. It hit (staff) hard those first few weeks getting adjusted to that (shutdown) environment,” Parnell said.

“Now we are rocking and rolling,” said Parnell, clearly happy to have COVID days in the Flora-Bama’s rearview mirror.

Who would have thought to apply the famous Nietzsche quote “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” to the Flora-Bama!

If the quote fits, I say use it!

About the Flora-Bama

This iconic beachfront bar has been in business since 1964. It opened as a small business on the Escambia County, Florida, side of the line, which was “wet” while Baldwin County, Alabama, was “dry.” Over the years, the venue has mushroomed into the sprawling complex that attracts a million visitors a year.

The Flora-Bama, which has been described as “ground zero of the Redneck Riviera” and “America’s last great roadhouse,” has been featured in Coastal Living, Southern Living, USA Today and on CNN.

“The Thrillist” recently included it as one of Florida’s best bars with this description: “Flora-Bama’s multi-story complex is a maze of license plates and hanging brassieres, with multiple music stages and bars stretching from the main entrance to the sand. It’s also home to the annual Mullet Toss weekend festival, a competition to see who can hurl a fish furthest across state lines.”

The original part of the sprawling indoor-outdoor complex is on the gulf side of Perdido Key Drive. The business now spills over across the street facing the Intracoastal Waterway, with the Flora-Bama Yacht Club, Ole River Grille, Flora-Bama Package store and the Flora-Bama Marina, which rents boats and offers fishing “adventures.”

Together the Flora-Bama venues can accommodate as many as 2,500 patrons at a time. They offer six stages of live music between 11 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. daily, 30 bars and three restaurants serving seafood, burgers and snacks. Plus there are Sunday church services (Central Church Flora-Bama) and quirky events such as the Mullet Toss, the Polar Plunge, a rodeo and lots of songwriter showcases. There are also big-ticketed concerts with artists including Kenny Chesney and Luke Combs.

The original part of the Flora-Bama is open to all ages during the day with free admission, but after 6 p.m. it usually charges a $5 cover and restricts access to those 18 and over. The other Flora-Bama venues are generally open to all ages and do not charge a cover charge.

Details: florabama.com

Mary Hance, who has four decades of journalism experience in the Nashville area, writes a weekly Ms. Cheap column. She also appears on Thursdays on “Talk of the Town” on NewsChannel 5. Reach her at mscheap@mainstreetmediatn.com and follow her on Facebook at Facebook.com/mscheap.

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