BYOB: Where Birmingham food meets music
If Jason Marchant had not been a rock star himself, touring the region and the country at an early age, his new BYOB burger bar might look like what his bedroom would have looked like as a teenager.
Everywhere you look, it’s an homage to Birmingham’s local music history, with photos and posters of Telluride, Slick Lilly, the Plaid Camels and others lining the walls and tabletops.
And then there’s the menu of the Lakeview eatery, an acronym for both Build Your Own Burger and Birmingham’s Years of Bands. There’s the Topper Price, featuring American cheese and other ingredients; the Vallejo burger, with pepper jack and other spicy touches; and the Mastodon 15, which features two beef patties, cheddar cheese, bacon, chili, onion strings and jalapeños.
Get the picture? They’re all named after local bands from Birmingham’s history, including contemporaries of Marchant, who was lead guitarist for the band Virgos Merlot.
“It’s something I wanted to do for probably about 15 years, generated from playing in the band as long as I did,” Marchant says of BYOB, which opened in March at 720 29th St. S. in Birmingham’s Lakeview district, in a spot that was formerly the bar at Kelley’s Neighborhood Sports Grill. “We traveled a lot, and then we got the record deal with Atlantic, and I realized the quality of musicians and talent level we had far surpassed other places we went.”
Marchant teamed up with co-owner Jonathan Hoffman and chef Brody Stephens, formerly of Hot and Hot Fish Club, to bring his concept to life.
“There was no place that people could come to listen to music, reminisce about local bands then and now and just have a dialogue about local music,” Marchant said.
Creating the menu was the fun part, he said. “I just knew the bands I grew up playing with,” said Marchant, now married with a young daughter. “I started thinking of some of the ideas of sandwiches I wanted to make.”
So now you have a choice of Blue Epic (buffalo chicken, bleu jack cheese), Remy Zero (beef patty with fried green tomato and sweet pepper), the Heath Green Salad and the Rollin’ in the Hay (fried chicken, pickles and garlic lemon mayo).
“I’ve been there, and I enjoyed the food and concept,” said Rick Carter, Birmingham music veteran and lead singer of Rollin’ in the Hay and Telluride. “I’m flattered Jason created a Rollin’ in the Hay sandwich, but I’m most happy that he has Telluride’s old merchandise case and has restored it. Seeing Birmingham music past and present with great food makes for a good time reminiscing.”
That’s exactly what Marchant said he was shooting for.
“I started playing at such an early age, and I had so much admiration for what everybody was doing,” he said. “They all helped shape my growth as a musician. The ability to accomplish what we did in Virgos Merlot was all shaped by those folks.”
BYOB is creating some live music history of its own. The bar features regular writers’ rounds (songwriters sharing their original work), with live music on Wednesdays and Saturdays, stand-up comedy on Thursdays and trivia on Tuesdays.
When nothing else is going on, Marchant is pulling tunes from his extensive collection of work of local musicians.
But don’t look for him to play live. For now, Marchant said his business is BYOB, not playing music. The 43-year-old and his wife, Amy, have a 9-month-old daughter, Stella Grace.
“This is pretty much my new life for now,” he said. “I like taking my experience of what I went through and trying to channel that through some younger players. The music business is so different than what it was like 16, 17 years ago. We were about the last wave of signing with a huge label. Now, everything’s so independent. I’m in the bedroom with my daughter now, playing to her.”