Ask any Baldwin County old-timer about Judge Roy Bean’s place, and you will get a story. The hole-in-the-wall watering hole on a spit of land in Montrose between Fairhope and Daphne was owned by the late Jack West and served for years as the area’s unofficial living room: a backyard goat named Billy, live music, cold drinks, and the occasional unannounced appearance by Jimmy Buffett. The building burned in 2005, but the memories never did.
One of the people who loved that place also worked there. Ted Perkins cooked and sometimes tended bar at Judge’s, and the experience stayed with him long enough to become a dream of building something similar. With the support of his wife Kelli, and in partnership with his son-in-law Juan Martinez and Juan’s wife Whitney, that dream opened its doors in Robertsdale in 2019 as Billy Jack’s Grill and Bar.
The name is a memorial in two parts. “Billy was in memory of the resident goat at Judge’s,” Juan explains, “and Jack is in honor of Jack West.”
A Family Room With Wide-Screen Views
Billy Jack’s is built for a crowd that wants to stay awhile. The dining room and covered porch offer plentiful seating indoors and out, and every area has a sight line to wide-screen televisions, so patrons can keep an eye on the game over dinner or drinks. It is kid-friendly by design: high chairs for the little ones and a children’s menu called “The Little Goats,” another salute to Judge’s, that covers even the pickiest eater in the peanut gallery.
The Food
The menu starts with the appetizers you would expect, fried pickles and smoked tuna dip, and then goes further: homemade seafood gumbo, boudin balls, and royal reds, the deep-water shrimp many diners swear taste like lobster. Sandwiches range from fresh chicken salad on wheatberry bread to crab cake sandwiches, grilled portabella, and Conecuh sausage dogs, the south Alabama standard.
The burgers are the headliners, and the “Build Your Own Burger” board lets regulars construct their own legend. But the house favorite for many is the Trigger Fish Sandwich, available grilled, blackened, or fried, with or without cheese. Nearly a dozen sides are made in-house, and the portions are generous enough that dessert requires strategy. The deep-fried cheesecake, big enough to share with three or four friends and delivered to the table piping hot, is the closer worth saving room for.
Beach Traffic’s Best Detour
Robertsdale sits on the routes that funnel beach traffic to and from the coast, and Billy Jack’s has leaned into that geography. It is an easy stop on the way to the sand or, better, on the tired drive home. Locals who live nearby consider themselves lucky; they get the porch, the games on TV, and the gumbo without the highway.
There is a particular kind of restaurant that only exists where somebody remembers a place that mattered, and decides the town still needs one. Billy Jack’s Grill and Bar is that kind of place: part tribute, part sports bar, part family dining room, and entirely a Baldwin County original.
Jack West and Jimmy Buffett would be pleased. The goat, presumably, would just want the porch back.