After growing up in Charleston, South Carolina, just minutes from the nearest beach, I’ve struggled with the landlocked Birmingham summers that have come to define my adulthood. Sure, there are plenty of nice lakes within an hour’s drive, but a day at the beach requires a full-blown, hours-long road trip, often punctuated by bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-65. But there’s one saving grace of that slow crawl to the Gulf and its white sandy shores: Bates House of Turkey.
Just off the interstate in the little town of Greenville, the low-slung restaurant with the large rooftop lettering won’t look like much to the uninitiated—maybe somewhere the local crowd hits on a Sunday after church. But for the sun-seeking pilgrims who’ve already spent too much time in the car, that rambling building practically radiates golden light. This is where weary travelers come to find sustenance and a merciful break from the stop-and-roll of the highway—and they’ve been coming here since the Bates family opened the place in 1969.
You can opt for a Thanksgiving-worthy spread if you so choose (the roast turkey dinner, for instance, comes with cornbread dressing and gravy, two veggies, a roll or corn muffin, and cranberry sauce), but as for me and my carload, it’s all about the sandwiches…