The restaurant business along the Alabama Gulf Coast has a handful of people who seem to have been present for every era of it. Harry P. Johnson is one — an understated legend whose name sits behind more bars, restaurants and music venues than most diners realize, from a 1970s college saloon to Manci’s Antique Club in Daphne.
Johnson’s story is really three careers braided together: restaurant and bar entrepreneur, Gulf Coast restaurant broker, and commercial real estate owner and manager. And it started, improbably, with a draft number.
A bar, a column and a green light
Johnson grew up in Mobile and attended McGill Toolen High School. In 1971, holding draft number 10, he surrendered to the Army and was stationed in San Antonio, where he picked up a couple of journalism courses at the local junior college — today the University of Texas at San Antonio. When his service ended he moved back, enrolled at South Alabama, and walked into the student newspaper, The Vanguard, announcing he wanted to be a reporter. “What I need is a business manager,” the editor replied — someone to sell ads for $100 a month. He took the job.
Two encounters set his course. First, the owners of Thirsties Tavern, the well-known college bar by campus, were never around when he came to pitch them an ad — always hunting, fishing or on vacation. “That sounded pretty good to me,” Johnson says. Second, he interviewed Bill Sellars, the legendary political columnist, and asked when the state would drop the drinking age to 18. Sellars’ answer — the upcoming spring session, but at 19, not 18 — green-lighted a college bar.
In 1975, with partner Pete Harrison, Johnson opened the Fandango Saloon on Forest Hill Drive near Municipal Park, catering to the fraternity crowd. It was a huge success — and then he learned what the Thirsties owners had really been doing at night: refereeing fights and breaking up domestic quarrels. “I wasn’t cut out for late-night refereeing,” he says. He sold his interest in 1976, just after moving to Baldwin County.
Learning at the Judge Roy Bean
He needed a job, and he knew Jack West, the creative mind behind Judge Roy Bean’s Saloon in Daphne. “I was the first guy behind the bar when Judges opened,” Johnson says. The ten years he spent around Jack West were a masterclass in venue-building: volleyball courts, a life-sized chess board, kitchens and bars out back, frozen drinks — and eventually the Judge Roy Bean Amphitheater at the back of the property. By the late 1980s, big acts from the 70s and early 80s were drawing huge Sunday crowds, with people driving in from Mobile, Gulf Shores and Orange Beach. “It was legendary.”
Winslow’s, Mama Rosie and Pelican Pointe
In 1980 Johnson opened Winslow’s Cafe in Fairhope — his vision of a “fern bar” in the TGIF/Ruby Tuesday mold. “I would never have made it if not for Mama Rosie, our cook,” he says of the hard-working immigrant cook who ran the kitchen. Lunch was fine, but nights were quiet — until Mama Rosie persuaded him to add fresh Mexican food, tacos, fajitas, salsa and pico de gallo, plus fried seafood. “Business exploded. We were the hottest thing around for a while.” A move to a new building at 14 South Church Street downtown never quite matched the original, and Winslow’s closed in 1997.
In 1991 he opened Pelican Pointe Grill at the end of County Road 1, where Weeks Bay enters Mobile Bay — famous for BBQ ribs steamed, slathered and marinated in Coca-Cola, with live music on the deck every Sunday. When Lucy Buffett’s original LuLu’s opened under the Fish River Bridge and “her crowds got bigger than ours,” Johnson sold — in 2001, three years before Hurricane Ivan wiped the building off the map entirely.
The Bluegill and the Causeway years
Next came the shuttered Bluegill on the Causeway. Through the late Barbara Thompson of Traders, he arranged a lease/purchase of the little cinder-block building with the legacy reputation, then built it up piece by piece — a Delta Room with live music, a small deck, a bigger deck, and finally a permit from the Corps of Engineers to extend the deck over the water. Sunday afternoon music was a hit. “If you build it on the water, the people will come.” Partnering with 92 ZEW for concerts, Johnson brought Leon Russell, Colbie Caillat, Wet Willie, Needtobreathe and Brandi Carlile to the Causeway stage. He also opened the Beach House Grill nearby in 2005, sold it as the 2008 recession began, and sold the Bluegill to Cooper Restaurants in 2010.
Manci’s, Buster’s and the broker’s hat
After selling the Fairhope church-street building in 2000, Johnson had bought three buildings in a strip on U.S. 98 in Daphne; after the Bluegill sale he opened Rosie’s Grill there in honor of Mama Rosie, then handed the kitchen to chef Jeremiah Matthews, whose concept rebrand became Southwood Kitchen. “Jeremiah hit a home run,” Johnson says. He and partners also tried the Santa Fe Grill in a former Jehovah’s Witness hall in Battles Wharf — it struggled, and he has a philosopher’s rule about that: “Most restaurants have a lifespan. If it’s making money, you keep them open. The ones I’ve sold or leased were not working out.”
The Manci’s rescue is the one locals know best. In 2015, with Manci’s Antique Club closed for six months, the Manci family called asking him to find a buyer. Instead Johnson called John Thompson, owner of Mobile’s red-hot Callahan’s Irish Social Club, and proposed a partnership. “Yeah, but I’ve never done a rehab before,” Thompson said. They did a lease/purchase on the dirty, boarded-up landmark, auctioned collectibles to clear the space — the auction doubled as publicity — and reopened. Today, with cook and kitchen manager Miranda Green running the kitchen since year two, Manci’s (original opening: 1936) celebrates anniversaries with live music, and Buster’s Brick Oven Pizza operates alongside it — two restaurants under one roof. When former mayor Robin LeJune closed Market By The Bay, Johnson’s partners bought the business, with Johnson leading renovation and permitting — famous for its gumbo and the area’s best fried shrimp and oysters.
In between, Johnson puts on his restaurant broker hat: he brokered the sale of the Yardarm on the Fairhope Pier, and recently signed an agreement for one of Fairhope’s fine-dining restaurants, to be reimagined by a new Texas operator.
People first, growth second
Ask Johnson what he’s proudest of and he talks about people. Mama Rosie put him on the map. Garrett deLuca, who worked the Manci’s renovation, is now managing partner and the force behind Buster’s Brick Oven. Zach Smith started at 16 at Pelican Pointe, grew up in the business, and now runs Kraver’s Seafood in Daphne — “I’m really proud of him,” Johnson says.
He arrived in the 1970s, he says, thinking everyone wished they could close the doors and keep everyone else out. He’s long since made his peace with growth — but with conditions. “We need quality growth and consistency. What can our infrastructure handle? The service people need affordable housing and a reasonable commute to earn a living. What’s life going to be like down the road for my two daughters who are in their 20s now? These are the things I think about.”
Half a century of bars, cafes, decks and amps on the water — and the man who built them is still asking the right questions.