When going to a café, it’s expected to see a variety of sandwiches, salads and maybe even a glass of wine. But add a butcher shop and a wall of local brews into the mix, and you’ve just entered Birmingham’s own Bottle & Bone. Bottle & Bone is an interesting mixture of a café, a local brewery and a butcher shop all rolled into a dining experience that offers food and drink from local venues.
Located in Uptown Birmingham near the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex, Bottle & Bone lives in an entertainment district, full of a variety of shops and restaurants.
“We really wanted to be a part of something that was going to be a big deal in Birmingham and grow,” said Amy East, manager of Bottle & Bone. “We wanted to be a part of this new growth and new thing that’s happening in Birmingham.”
The store offers a variety of different meats, such as Italian sausage, bacon made in-house and more. These meats are served in what’s known as a “Butcher Box.” Butcher boxes come in two varieties, a small for $49 and a large for $99. Each box is filled with the meats of the week, and an announcement is posted every Monday detailing the box’s contents.
“We’re a little bit different than everyone else in Birmingham,” said Clay Greene, Bottle & Bone’s event manager. “We are a café, so we do have a full menu that we serve for dinner and lunch, but we’re also part time shop you can come in and not only can you enjoy your wine or beer with your meal or appetizer or whatever it may be, but you can also pick it out and take it home with you. We’re also a butcher shop too; we have some of the finest cuts of meat in Birmingham. We can’t really be classified in any one specific category … We’re just a little bit of everything.”
One of the store’s menu offerings is the Bacon Flight, a combination of various types of bacon – Conecuh, Benton’s and in-house prepared house bacon strips with flavors such as brown sugar and spices arranged alongside a pickled watermelon.
Along with the meats, Bottle & Bone offers craft beers from local breweries. Keeping local has been one of Bottle & Bone’s key philosophies ever since the store’s opening in late 2014.
“Most of our beers are local,” East said. “We’re all about supporting our local craft breweries and so we have lots of Birmingham beers here available. We also have a few beers from different parts of Alabama, as well as a few imported, but our main focus for beer is local. Same with our drafts.”
The store has Happy Hour every day from 4-7 p.m. featuring $3 drafts.
Bottle and Bone’s wine selection is equally diverse. East said the store values the quality of the drink as well as the price and wanted to give customers a bottle of wine that “tastes like a $100 bottle, but has a lower price tag.”
As well as food and drink, the store also offers catering and a space for events, one of which is a course taught by the in-store butchers to teach skills and other various preparation techniques when cooking meats. Though currently on hiatus, the store hopes to restart the program within the coming weeks.
The store stays open until 8 p.m. daily and is located on Richard Arrington Jr. Blvd. near the Sheraton Birmingham hotel.
