Birmingham Date Nights

Happy Thursday, friends!  You might remember back in October my husband and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary and I shared 6 tips for a happy marriage.  One of those tips was to not stop dating, even after you’re married.  While we both know how important this is, we really struggle with it!  It’s not because we don’t want to go on fun dates and spend time together, because we do.  But LIFE.  We both have demanding careers and many times our schedules are completely different.  It’s really hard to find time where we can go out for a few hours together and just hang out. BUT, we know how important this is and we made a commitment this year to make it a priority.  We are so lucky to live in such an awesome city!  Birmingham has really become a hot spot in the last couple of years with amazing restaurants, fun bars, wonderful parks, and a lot of unique activities.  And I want to take advantage of that!  Especially while we are young and while we don’t have any children.  So each month, we are going on a fun date night in Birmingham.  We are going to experience the cool things our city has to offer together, and I’m excited to share our #BhamDateNight with you!

This month we decided to hit up the Avondale area.  If you live in Birmingham, you’ve probably heard about all the recent (and fabulous!) revitalization going on in Avondale.  This up and coming neighborhood is such a cool part of town!  It features some delicious local restaurants, bars, pubs, an awesome brewery and is the soon to be home of one of our absolute favorite ice cream trucks – Big Spoon Creamery!  It’s neat to just walk around and see how far the neighborhood has come.  We kicked off our date night with dinner at a new (to us) local place, Fancys on Fifth.  A fun and casual place, this restaurant features oysters and delicious burgers!  With delicious drinks and awesome local beers, this is a great place to kick off date night!  We had an awesome server and got great service; our experience there was very good!  Tip: Go early because the wait is long on the weekends!

Next up we headed over to The Marble Ring.  This is one of the newest bars in Avondale and it is one of the coolest bars in Birmingham!  The Marble Ring is a speakeasy, taking things back to the 1920’s.  For those of you who don’t know, my husband is a history teacher and a definite history nerd, so he was totally intrigued by this place!  When you arrive, you can’t just walk in.  You head into a phone booth, where you call the receptionist.  You let her know how many are in her party and she lets you know if they have a seat for you.  If they don’t, you have to wait to get in!  While this kind of stinks if you have to wait a long time, it’s brilliant to create a fun buzz and exclusive feeling to it.  I also really appreciated how this makes sure the bar doesn’t become jam packed.  There are really two places to hang out – they have different lounge areas for groups of 4 or more, or you can sit at the bar.  We sat at the bar, and honestly I could have sat there all night.  It’s the most gorgeous bar I’ve ever seen with such a stunning chandelier setting the stage for an upscale feeling.  They also have an awesome patio (with more gorgeous chandeliers!) that is a great space for hanging out.  Side note: They also do private events (rehearsal dinner anyone?!).  It was so great to enjoy some awesome cocktails there; we can’t wait to go back!

In addition to these two places, Avondale has a host of other fabulous local places to check out.  If you’re in the area, check out some more of our local favorites: Avondale Brewery, MELT, Saw’s BBQ, 41st Street Pub, Post Office Pies.

Where are your favorite date night spots in Birmingham?  Share them with us on Instagram using #BhamDateNight!