Overnight in Fairhope Alabama

For our last stop on our way home from exploration of New Orleans and the delta area of Louisiana, Laurie and I decided that we’d spend the night in a town we’d visited and liked several years earlier.  Our destination was just a short drive from our previous stop in Slidell Louisiana but the minimal drive time allowed us one last day of quality sightseeing…

This is downtown Fairhope Alabama.  The towns of Fairhope and Daphne are located along the east shore of Mobile Bay, across from the city of Mobile.  The Daphne-Fairhope-Foley on Baldwin County has been designated by the Federal Government as a Metropolitan Statistical Area.  The current population is roughly 195,50o as compared to the Mobile MSA population of about 414,000.

Note: "Fairhope Avenue" was one of the properties on the 1910 version of the board game “The Landlord's Game”, a precursor of Monopoly. 

 

We spent the night in the Hampton Inn which is located in downtown Fairhope.  This affluent town has a population of just under 16,000 and it’s an attractive place that has a lot of nice shops and restaurants. 

Fairhope was founded in 1894 as a radical “Georgist Single-Tax" colony by the Fairhope Industrial Association, a group of 28 followers of economist Henry George.  They pooled their funds to purchase land on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay and then divided it into a number of long-term leaseholds.  The corporation paid all governmental taxes from rents paid by the lessees, thus simulating a single-tax.  The purpose of the single-tax colony was to eliminate disincentives for productive use of land and thereby retain the value of land for the community.

The Fairhope Single-Tax Corporation still operates, with 1,800 leaseholds covering more than 4,000 acres in and around the current city of Fairhope. Despite the original ideals of the corporation, the town has transitioned from utopian experiment to artists' and intellectuals' colony and now to a boutique resort and affluent suburb of Mobile.

As usual, I’d researched restaurant choices via Trip Advisor.  Dawn Marie did a search as well.  We decided that Italian would be a great choice for our last meal of this road trip… Good Italian food scarce in East Tennessee.

We settled on Gambino’s Italian Grill in Fairhope.  In Trip Advisor, Gambino’s ranked third among the 90 or so restaurants in the area, with 133 Excellent/Very Good reviews vs. only 5 Poor reviews.  This family owned restaurant was quite busy for a Thursday evening.  

Of course the interior was cozy and warm…decorated for Christmas.  There were several large family and work related parties celebrating the season.  To me at least, Gambino’s felt like an Italian restaurant should feel.

Dawn Marie and Laurie posed for this last vacation portrait as we were waiting for our meals…

One big plus was that all of Gambino’s entrées include their house salad and fresh-baked bread sticks.  The bread sticks were nothing special but our bowl of salad bowl was plentiful, very fresh and tasty…

Laurie’s entrée was the Veal Marsala…veal medallions sautéed with imported Marsala wine and fresh mushrooms. ($18.99) This was a real treat for her as she hadn’t had veal for a long time and she loves mushrooms… (We don’t eat mushrooms at home as they are something that I just won’t eat)

We thought that the price of this veal dish as well as our other entrees and menu items in general were quite reasonable.  Service at Gambino's Italian Grill was better than average…

Dawn Marie ordered the Oven-Baked Lasagna for her dinner. ($14.99) This menu item is described as “Pasta layered with rich Ricotta, Romano and Parmesan cheese, seasoned beef and Italian sausage in homemade meat sauce.”  She did enjoy it…

As my better half will tell you, I tend to order menu items that all too often just don’t work for me.  This entrée does look great!  This is the Steak Gorgonzola… It must have been a special because it isn’t listed on the current on-line menu.  I love good steak, I really like pasta and I like gorgonzola cheese.  It was good cheese, the steak was cooked perfectly and so was the pasta.  Everyone’s tastes are different and I’m sure this dish is well received by some diners…but this combination was just too much of a good thing for me.  It was too rich to really enjoy…

One can’t fairly evaluate a restaurant based on a single meal that was prepared as advertised and the ladies did enjoy their meals.  Given Gambino’s lengthy menu, the restaurant's popularity and wide variety of regular offerings, I should have considered my dinner selection more carefully.  We will return to Gambino’s on a future trip and I’ll be more careful with my selection…

We would recommend Fairhope as a stopover for anyone visiting or passing through this area of the country.  Gulf Shores and Orange Beach are close by.  Gambino’s Italian Grill is located at 18 Laurel Street.  Phone: 251-990-0995.  Website: http://www.gambinositaliangrill.com/.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave