Nothing connects people to a city like its food, and on the Gulf Coast nobody has built a business on that idea more successfully than Chris Andrews. He and his wife Laney own and operate the Bienville Bites Food Tour in Mobile and the Taste of Fairhope Food Tour in downtown Fairhope — guided walks that stitch together half a dozen iconic eateries with a running history lesson.
From the crane to the walking tour
Andrews was born in Mobile and raised in Saraland, graduating from Satsuma High School and working a string of jobs — mail truck, HVAC replacement after Hurricane Katrina — before running an overhead crane at a steel mill in Calvert. The idea arrived secondhand: a friend returned from Savannah raving about its food tour scene, and Andrews, a history buff, started wondering how the format would play in Mobile.
He researched seriously, enrolling in a Chicago program called Food Tour Pros to learn the business side — marketing, social media, group management — then began recruiting restaurants. His formula was pragmatic: visit during each restaurant’s slow window, 2 to 5 p.m., so tour groups never disrupted service; keep stops to about 25 minutes; pick six walkable spots with stories worth telling; and make sure each kitchen could handle sixteen people with a signature dish ready. In October 2017, Bienville Bites Food Tour was born. The side gig became a career when demand pushed him out of the steel mill for good.
The Mobile route
The signature tour traces downtown Mobile’s culinary geography. It starts at the Ruby Slipper Café, moves to Squid Ink for fried calamari and paella fritters, and stops at Three Georges, opened in 1917 by three Greek immigrants — all named George — whose wives resolved their candy-shop-versus-sandwich-shop-versus-soda-fountain deadlock with a simple ruling: do all three. The tour continues to Wintzell’s Oyster House, opened in 1938, for an oyster sampler of Rockefeller, Bienville, Monterrey, and chargrilled; Moe’s Original BBQ for ribs and wings with Alabama white sauce; and ends at Mo’Bay Beignet for dessert.
Along the way, guides narrate Mobile’s history, and themed tours extend the franchise: a Mardi Gras Floats and Food trolley tour with king cake, a Bites and Frights fall tour, and a summer murder mystery tour. The Fairhope version, Taste of Fairhope, launched in 2020 — in the middle of the pandemic, which Andrews acknowledges made his operation possibly the only food tour in the world to start then. Its route runs from Provision’s West Indies avocado toast through Panini Pete’s, Bay Breeze Café, the Happy Olive’s oil-and-vinegar tasting, Dragonfly’s firecracker shrimp tacos, and a Fairhope Float at Mr. Gene’s Beans, with a museum stop to cover the Fairhope Single Tax Colony and the jubilee.
Surviving 2021
The pandemic years tested the young company. “2021 was the most challenging,” Andrews says — a revolving door of restaurant closures and staff turnover that made consistency nearly impossible. He spent the downtime preparing for the rebound, and by 2022 the tours were back to strength. Today the company runs public tours, private group tours, and corporate events, with wheelchair-accessible routes and children’s tickets.
The pricing remains straightforward: the Mobile tour runs $65 to $77 depending on the libation option, and Fairhope sits slightly higher. Andrews has expanded the brand into media with the Port City Plate podcast, available on Apple and Spotify, and Laney — who joined the FUSE Project in Mobile as education director — remains the ideas engine of the operation. “She has million-dollar ideas,” he says.
Why food tours work
Andrews’s own explanation is the simplest one: “When you sit down and share food, it creates a bond.” A food tour compresses a city’s history, its signature dishes, and its quirks into a three-hour afternoon, and it works for tourists and locals alike — the regulars on the tours are often anniversary couples and visiting families, but also Mobile natives meeting their own city for the first time.
Eight years after a steel mill worker signed up for a Chicago seminar, the two tours he built have become part of how the Gulf Coast eats — one neighborhood, one plate, and one story at a time.