The B just might be Alabama’s most welcoming bar
Kyle and Kim Baumgartner own and operate The B in Andalusia, Alabama. (Michael Tomberlin / Alabama News Center)
Opening a bar in a small town in the Bible Belt takes some faith. And vision. And a certain amount of determination. Kyle and Kim Baumgartner, owners of The B Pub in Andalusia, have all that and more.
The B Pub is a small-town bar with a big-city approach to craft cocktails and a lovely, carefully curated setting for enjoying them. It’s also the answer to a need this community might not have known it needed – a family-friendly place to gather and laugh and relax and get to know other people.
The Baumgartners opened The B Pub three years ago in an old Coca-Cola plant in downtown Andalusia with the idea of bringing people together.
“I think when you come into The B, the thing that you can expect is a lot of the ‘Cheers’ mentality,” Kyle says, referring to the vibe made popular by the classic sitcom. “You enter as strangers, but you leave as friends. It’s very warm, very comfortable for all walks of life. That was our goal when we started this; we wanted a neighborhood bar where all people are welcome.” He says the mayor might sit next to the guy who picks up the trash, and he might be sitting next to the mailman. “Everybody in the community visits our bar.”
Even the staff is reflective of the town.
“I’ve been extremely blessed with not only having a creative wife helping promote me, but I’ve got four amazing bartenders,” Kyle says. “They all have full-time careers, and they do this for fun. I have a ballet master; I have a high school teacher. Those two guys, alone, helped create at least a third of the drinks that we offer. … They took a passion toward the mixology without any training. They just started to learn what people like and how to combine and really work with what the crowd wants.”
It’s bar service only here, and they serve a great selection of regional craft beers, wine, mocktails and cocktails. These inventive, handcrafted drinks are where Kyle and his team really shine.
Like a fine-dining restaurant, they follow the seasons here. So cool weather sees the Fallen Apple cocktail, and that segued into a similar drink called Newton’s Law! that is made with apple butter; they set it on fire just for fun.
There’s a pumpkin-spiced white Russian and a black Manhattan with rye whiskey and Amaro Montenegro. There’s a White Christmas Lemon Drop bright with cranberries. Even classics like a dirty martini stand out here – the glass is properly iced while the drink is expertly assembled and shaken to order. Kyle also makes a great smoked Old Fashioned.
“Our number one seller is the Jameson Juice Box,” Kyle says. “It was inspired by a good friend of mine in Birmingham, the owner of Lou’s Pub, Mike Carpri. He made a drink, and it was very involved. It had Jameson orange (Irish whiskey) in it. … I wanted to simplify it. So, we created a drink that literally takes you back to childhood. The first time I tried it, it reminded me of drinking a Hi-C juice box as a kid. So, the Jameson Juice Box was born.”
Drinks are served in a lounge that is beautiful and interesting, comfortable and cozy. Kim spent a great deal of time creating this setting. She’s a working artist (her studio is the entire long wall of the back room), so she has a good eye for this sort of thing.
“Everything for me is visual. I’m an artist. So, everything for me is like what people see and how they react to it on an emotional level and on a soothing level,” Kim says. “I want them to be able to come in and – number one – feel safe. It’s very important to me that no matter what walk of life you are, you feel comfortable. Then, I want them to have fun, and I want them to see something they’ve never seen before in this town.”
There’s a gallery wall with Kim’s art as well as some of her daughter’s pieces and those of friends who donated art to fill the space once they heard about it. There are intimate groupings of soft seating in the glow of table lamps; glittering chandeliers hang from the ceiling along with exposed ducts. A metallic bee logo shines on one wall; there’s a honeycomb motif on the bright turquoise bar.
The B Pub is probably the only bar in Lower Alabama with a snug.
“It’s an English thing,” Kyle says. Decades ago, if you brought your wife or girlfriend to a pub, she wasn’t allowed to sit at the bar; that was for men only, he explains. The women were asked to sit in a little room off to the side; it was called a snug. Women can sit anywhere they want at The B, of course, but Kim and Kyle wanted to incorporate the best aspects of that old English tradition. So, The B’s snug is a small private room with a window that opens directly onto the bar. It’s a cozy, intimate space away from the noise of the bar, and it’s perfect for a date night or girls’ night out.
Aside from the lounge, a large part of The B is a family-friendly establishment. The Ballroom (the indoor patio), with large TV screens for game days and an old cooler full of board games for whenever, and the outside patio, where they often have live music, are open to people of all ages; the lounge is 21 and older. It’s all tobacco-free and vape-free. People are expected – and required – to follow the written rules here.
“We do set a very high bar, no pun intended, on what we expect from our patrons and everyone who walks through the door,” Kim says. “We want everyone to feel comfortable.”
They made the place family-friendly because family matters.
“We have two daughters, and our youngest daughter goes everywhere with us,” Kyle says. “We enjoy live music. So, we have live music on the indoor patio. That is the family-friendly area. We allow kids to come in there as long as they’re accompanied by adults. One of our musical acts, the lead singer is a 17-year-old high school senior. So, his friends come and see him. And again, that makes for that nice, warm feeling where everybody’s welcome.”
The B is named not for Baumgartner but for the insect. One happened to be buzzing around when Kyle and Kim were sitting at home on their patio one day dreaming this place up.
“We agreed when we started this project that we were going to let things happen the way they’re just supposed to happen – naturally,” Kyle says. “And as we’re sitting there talking about it, I had a bee just light on my knee. And at that point, we decided, well, that’s the universe telling us that The B is the right thing to do.”
From those very first conversations, this has been a shared project for the couple.
“In the beginning, we were having a conflict of personality about what we wanted to have,” Kim says. “His was more steampunk and more ‘Irish pub’ kind of feel, and, for me, I wanted more of a ‘bougie lounge’ feeling. … I wanted it to feel like you were in a bigger city, with both of us being from Birmingham. I’m just a big-city girl. I love Andalusia, but I will always be a Birmingham girl.” So, they compromised. “We were able to do both,” she says. “We did the indoor patio area more like him – more sports bar, industrial, fun. And then for me, the lounge is more of a cocktail-type, quiet vibe … not that that always works,” she adds, laughing.
Kyle and Kim did the renovations themselves because shortly after they bought the warehouse the pandemic happened. The work took 28 months. That included building out the bar area downstairs and their own living space in a loft upstairs.
“The upside of that and again, going back to the organic thing of it, (we finished) right when the COVID ban started to lift and people were wanting to get out,” Kyle says. “And so, we had a brand-new bar waiting for everybody to come to. … It was absolutely meant to be, and everything just fell into place.”
Kim has always missed living in a big city. Each time they decided to move from Andalusia, something happened, and they didn’t leave. Now, she says she realizes there was a reason for that. “I know we’ve made a huge wave that never would have happened had we not opened. … Doing this made us realize our purpose, what our true gifts are,” she says. “We’re definitely supposed to be together, and we do make magic together. He is so incredibly talented and creative in his own way, but I’m his muse and he’s mine as well. So, together, we do create this really cool magic here in Andalusia.”
The B attracts a loyal band of regulars, but it’s worth a dedicated drive or even a short stopover if you’re passing through.
“I think what we do best is we bring people together,” Kyle says. He enjoys introducing two people who might not have ever otherwise met outside of The B. “It’s my favorite thing to go, ‘Good people, meet good people.’ We’ve had relationships formed here that have turned into … lifelong friendships. We’ve had couples meet here. We’ve had engagements here; we’ve had weddings here.”
Kim says, “My favorite part is showing people how to have fun on a different level than what they think ‘bar fun’ is. That you can dress up in a nice outfit and go somewhere and have wonderful conversations and lots of laughter. That is my favorite thing – the laughter – because when I’m upstairs, I can hear people laughing and that’s when I know it’s been a great night. It is really wonderful.”
She talks fondly about their first holiday at The B. “All the kids had come home, and it was right before Christmas Eve. We’re open, and we were slammed with just all generations and all kinds of people. I wanted to cry. This is what I wanted people to see – that everybody can come together, and you have a safe place and a fun place to hang out. And it’s not a dive bar. It’s not a honky-tonk. It’s literally what Kyle and I grew up going to in Birmingham, but almost on a whole different level because it’s family friendly.”
Nonetheless, a bar in a small town in the Bible Belt comes with its share of challenges.
“I would say the thing that makes me the most proud is that we broke through that glass ceiling,” Kim says. “We broke through, and I think there’s a lot of people … who thought we were going to be something that we are not. We’ve had so many wonderful, wonderful moments here and so many great people that have actually moved here because The B is here. We’ve had people that wanted to move and did not move because we opened. … You need community; you need friends. You need a place to hang out. You need laughter, and that’s what we bring. That’s what my husband does. He makes everybody that comes in here feel better when they leave. It doesn’t matter if they come in in a bad mood, or if they come in sad. He is going to make them feel better about themselves.”
“We’ve torn down a lot of stereotypes,” Kyle says. “That’s been very self-fulfilling. We’re very much in the Bible Belt, and there’s still a lot of negative connotations about the bar industry, but with us being such a clean bar … the tobacco-free and allowing kids to come see music, we’ve really kind of beaten that stereotype. In the beginning, a lot of people were like, ‘There’s no way I’m going in there. You wouldn’t catch me dead in there.’ And then, over the time that we’ve been open, those people have started to trickle in because the word has gotten out about what a nice, clean place it is. We’ve been received very well, and we continue to surprise people. … I’m very proud of our bar. It’s something to be proud of.”
The B Pub
A bee was the inspiration for The B. (Susan Swagler / Alabama News Center)
239 Church St.
Andalusia, Alabama
334-923-1687
https://www.facebook.com/thebpub/
Hours
Wednesday and Thursday, 4 to 10 p.m.
Friday and Saturday, 4 to 11 p.m.
(Check Facebook for details and updates.)
Susan Swagler has written about food and restaurants for more than three decades, much of that time as a trusted restaurant critic. She shares food, books, travel and more at www.savor.blog. Susan is a founding member and past president of the Birmingham chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier International, a philanthropic organization of women leaders in food, wine and hospitality whose members are among Birmingham’s top women in food.
