Electric blues drifts out of the speakers while the kitchen at Southern Bayou Grill works through a to-go order: two half-pound hamburgers, fully dressed with lettuce, tomato, pickles and onion, with sides of jambalaya and red beans and rice. The customer picking it up is raving about the meal he had there a week or so earlier, and for owner Barbara Edwards, that kind of return visit is exactly what a new restaurant needs.
Southern Bayou Grill opened at the end of June 2025 at 11950 County Road 32, east of Fairhope, in the small, brightly painted building that for many years was home to the original Fish River Grill. It is a Cajun-accented neighborhood eatery run by two Mississippi natives whose friendship goes back to elementary school, and it arrived with a plan that has been evolving since before the doors opened.
Two Friends From Rolling Fork
The Cajun side of the operation belongs to Chef Perry Boyd, Edwards’ boyfriend. Both grew up in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, a small town in the Mississippi Delta, but Boyd’s culinary roots run south into Louisiana. His mother’s family came from New Orleans and Houma, and his father’s family was centered upstate around Gonzales and French Settlement.
Those are meaningful places on the Louisiana food map. Houma sits in Terrebonne Parish in the heart of bayou country, where seafood and Cajun cooking are a way of life. Gonzales, in Ascension Parish, calls itself the Jambalaya Capital of the World and has long hosted a jambalaya festival. French Settlement, in Livingston Parish, is a small community whose name reflects the French-speaking families who settled the area. A cook with family ties to all of them, and to New Orleans, grows up with a broad sense of what south Louisiana food can be.
“We grew up together in Rolling Fork, Mississippi,” Edwards said. “I’ve known Perry since I was in kindergarten, and he was in the second grade. We had each gone our separate ways by the time we were in high school, and kind of lost track of one another, but then we reconnected quite a few years back on social media.”
A Nurse Manager Who Also Runs a Restaurant
Edwards’ schedule would exhaust most people. In addition to owning the restaurant, she works full time as a nurse manager at Thomas Hospital in Fairhope. She oversees staffing for two units along with payroll and equipment maintenance, assists with nursing duties and covers shifts as a nurse herself when needed.
She believes years of that kind of multitasking prepared her for the restaurant business. “It teaches you to plan how to be very strategic with your time,” she said.
Edwards also loves to cook, but at the restaurant she leaves the kitchen to Boyd. “I’ve worked as a waitress and in food service before, but not in the capacity that Perry has,” she said. “He’s operated popular restaurants before and catered to hundreds of people. He has spent many years perfecting recipes and bringing people together with the food he makes.”
What’s on the Menu
The thick, juicy burgers have their fans, but the dishes that give the restaurant its “bayou” identity are the bigger draw. In the first months, shrimp, fried or grilled, was the most popular item. It can be ordered as a po-boy on Leidenheimer bread from New Orleans and paired with a cup of deeply flavored gumbo.
The bread is a detail Louisiana diners will notice. Leidenheimer Baking Company has supplied New Orleans restaurants with the crisp-crusted, airy French loaves that define a proper po-boy for well over a century, and many cooks consider the bread as important as the filling. The po-boy itself is closely tied to New Orleans history; the most common origin story credits a pair of former streetcar conductors who fed striking workers during a 1929 transit strike.
For dessert, the white chocolate bread pudding quickly became a signature item. Bread pudding is a classic of New Orleans and Cajun kitchens, historically a thrifty way to use day-old French bread, and the white chocolate version has become a favorite on menus throughout the Gulf South.
- Popular picks: fried or grilled shrimp, shrimp po-boys, half-pound burgers
- Sides: jambalaya, red beans and rice, gumbo
- Signature dessert: white chocolate bread pudding
From a Bayfront Plan to a County Road Favorite
County Road 32 was not the couple’s first choice. They initially had their eyes on the old Bay Break property along the bay in Fairhope, where they envisioned a convenience store stocked with grab-and-go Cajun food and a parking lot that could serve as a base for their food trailer. The trailer is named The Rolling Fork, after their shared hometown. After running into zoning issues, they looked elsewhere.
They consider themselves fortunate to have landed at a location with a long history as a Baldwin County favorite. The building’s earlier life as the original Fish River Grill, and later The Grill 32, gave it a built-in following. The Fish River area east of Fairhope is a mix of rural homes, waterfront neighborhoods and boat launches, and County Road 32 carries a steady stream of locals and weekend boaters.
While the menu is new to the neighborhood, the owners have deliberately kept some things the same, including the vibrant orange, purple and turquoise paint that carried over from the building’s earlier incarnations.
“Everybody loves the bright colors, and lots of people comment on them,” Edwards said. “That’s a good thing because we want people to feel at home. People have really fond memories of Fish River Grill and The Grill 32, and we don’t want to break that connection.”
Plans for What Comes Next
Edwards and Boyd have ideas for growing the business, many of them tied to the original grab-and-go concept.
“We’ve got plans, hopes, and dreams for the future, including expanding it out and having a covered patio with seating. We could also have some items for people who are passing by and maybe getting out on the boat. We could have some ready-made sandwiches, and they could maybe pick up some water, beer, snacks, or whatever. Another possibility would be ready-made meals that they can pick up and take home and heat in the oven. That was the plan from the beginning,” Edwards said.
A little over two months after opening, she was pleased with the community’s response. “I think it’s going really well,” she said. “All businesses have their ebbs and flows, but we have people coming back, and we have new people coming in, so we’re really happy about that.”
If You Go
Southern Bayou Grill is located at 11950 County Road 32, Fairhope. In its first months, the restaurant was open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Hours and menu items can change, so diners should check the restaurant’s Facebook page or call ahead before making the drive.
For a small restaurant on a county road, the formula is familiar and hard to beat: a building people already love, a chef with family recipes from south Louisiana, and an owner who knows how to juggle. If the returning customers are any indication, the neighborhood has made room for a new favorite.
Update: A Winter Visit and a Weekly Specials Lineup
By January 2026, Southern Bayou Grill, which sits on County Road 32 just west of the intersection with County Road 33, had settled into a steady rhythm. Mardi Gras-colored umbrellas and brightly trimmed picnic tables brighten the outdoor seating, and on a busy weekday the crowd filled both the inside and outside tables.
Perry Boyd, the restaurant’s head chef and manager, works the tiny kitchen himself. “I was born in New Orleans,” he said while plating a freshly grilled hamburger, “and grew up in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, then lived in Vicksburg [also in Mississippi] for about 35 years. My girlfriend, Barbara Edwards, moved here from Missouri. She owns the place, and her daughter, Lacey Weeks, is CFO.”
The restaurant has seen a steady increase in customers since opening in June 2025, and many are regulars. Seating is for about 20 diners inside and roughly the same outside, and highchairs are available for families with babies and toddlers.
Boyd described a rotating lineup of daily specials:
- Tuesday: tacos
- Wednesday: crab cake sandwiches
- Thursday: shrimp, grilled or fried
- Friday: catfish
- Friday and Saturday: a shrimp boil with corn, potatoes and sausage
The regular menu also includes a catfish basket with two sides, such as red beans and rice and homemade coleslaw, and fried oyster po’boys dressed with lettuce, tomato and pickles. White chocolate bread pudding remains the lone dessert and a customer favorite.
Looking ahead to spring and summer 2026, Boyd said the restaurant hoped to add offerings and special events. “We might be thinking about crab boils and some musical offerings,” he said. The menu is posted on the restaurant’s Facebook page, and the mailing address is 11950 County Road 32, Fairhope, AL 36532.