Manci's Antique Club in Daphne

The above images are from the website for Manci's Antique Club. The bar-restaurant is located at 1715 Main Street, Daphne, Alabama (Phone: 251/626-2124).

After you look at the website, you will know Italian immagrant Frank Manci purchased an old wooden produce warehouse in what is now downtown Daphne in 1924 and built a gasoline station on the property. This caught my attention because of my own life's history, but I'll get back to that later.

Twenty-three years later Arthur Manci, Frank's son, took over the business. After obtaining a liquor license in 1967, Arthur started to hang bottles and various items on the walls of what is now a full fledged bar, which has resulted in the establishment holding the largest collection of Jim Beam decanters on display. But Jim Beam decanters are not all that decorates the interior of Manci's. All manner of old items are outside and inside such as two antique gravity gas pumps and a wooden schulpture in the inner chamber of the Ladies Room.

Alex Manci, Arthur's son, took over the club in 1987. He holds the title for the "Bloody Mary Capital of the Eastern Shore." So, naturally, I had to try the Bloody Mary. Since I'm not any kind of authority on Bloody Marys, I'll not critique it, but I will tell you it was so hot with spice that I didn't finish it.

In 1995, Alex and his wife Gwen started serving food in the club.

Southern Living and Coastal Living have carried articles about this historical place.

The entire west side of the 1700 block of Main Street (Old Scenic Highway 98) is filled with restaurants. The other two, Guido's and Cousin Vinney's, are owned by the same owner but have separate kitchens. Another restaurant we noticed that seemed to be doing a booming business was East Shore Cafe located about two blocks away on the east side of Main Street (1506). All you need to look for is the old yellow house surrounded by a white picket fence. After reading reviews, I understand they serve Philly Cheese Steak. Hope we can check out that one of these days.

---

Here's the part about how the history of Manci's Antique Club
sort of coincides with mine.

All along, I had known that both my sister and I were born at home. Are you ahead of me? What I did not know was:

I was born in the back of a gasoline station where Daddy worked and my parents lived at the time.

Think about it. The country had not fully recovered from The Great Depression in 1936, so Daddy had the good fortune of having a job and all of us were lucky to have a place to live.

---

We took a few photographs while we were there enjoying the food, drinks and atmosphere, which you can see on Flickr at Visit to Manci's Antique Club in Daphne.

---

Since I'm a very curios person, I still want to go back there when few, if any, customers are there and check out that fig leaf. I received an early warning with a VERY LOUD buzzer before I went into the Ladies Room and put 2+2 together. Still wanta know what's under it :)

525,600 Minutes

This post is related to a post on July 18, 2010, entitled Choir Concert at Marlow Church. This was a concert by the Sonshine Choir from Brentwood UMC, Brentwood, Tennessee.

I now have an audio music CD of their 2008-2009 tour, and the song in the videos below is one of the tracks on it.



The video below is one taken from one of the closest rows of seats to the stage, so maybe you can pretend, like I did that the camera was in my hands and I was sitting right there.




I would have loved to be there on the final Broadway performance. Or, for that matter, any other Broadway performance of RENT.

Macy's thought it was a good way to advertise on TV:

Garden Party

This Garden Party began at the beach. It was the first time we attended a beach wedding, and we liked it alot.

But, we're getting ahead of where this began. Well, we really don't know where it all began, but we're thinking from what we've heard that it began in Georgia a long time ago, and it culminated in their marriage and celebration today.

Like the "Garden Party" by Ricky Nelson, and the story it tells, it appeared to us that the bride and groom accomplished what the song tells us with its message of "you can't please everyone -- gotta please yourself," and had the kind of wedding on the the beach they planned together. As far as we could tell, everyone there enjoyed every minute of it from the beginning all the way through the reception.

The wedding itself was blessed with very nice weather for an outdoor event, but their Plan B involved the pavilion at Gulf State Park had God not arranged such heavenly weather.

As we were leaving the beach after the wedding to go to the Foley American Legion for the reception, we spoke with two nice ladies who had driven from Georgia to attend this happy event. Since they did not know the way to the place of the reception, they followed us.

A few people were at the reception who did not attend the wedding, but the friends and family we had seen on the beach filled the hall with quite a celebration afterward, with a buffet brimming with many delicious foods and music for entertainment and dancing.

One of the earlier songs played by Billy Pelletier at the reception gave us the title for this post. We always have to preface one of our amateur videos with the fact that they are all non-award winning videos and add that perhaps, as they say, they are only a little better than nothing. Here's a link to GARDEN PARTY - BILLY PELLETIER.

Kevin and Lynda did their dance together at the reception to Brad Paisley's "Then," which is very appropriate because of the story it tells with reoccuring words:

Now you're my whole life
Now you're my whole world...

We look forward to seeing their wedding photos. Like many others, we snapped a few of our own and even took some very amateurish videos, but we can imagine them looking at these and laughing at them. Just to give you a feel for the enjoyable, relaxed atmosphere of the beach wedding, here's a few photos on Flicker we have to share:
Our First Beach Wedding

Karaoke PLUS @ MRBG

Karaoke PLUS happens each Sunday afternoon at Magnolia River Bar and Grill in Magnolia Springs, Alabama. Denny Grisham and Billy Pelletier do a good job of entertaining with more than Karaoke. They both sing, and Billy performs on the guitar and harmonica -- have even seen him play the saw a couple of times. MRBG is at 14984 US Hwy. 98, Magnolia Springs, AL, 251/965-6801. Hopped up and recorded this video after the song was already underway when I realized it was Buffett's 1974 hit “Come Monday.”

You can view this amateur video on YouTube at:

COME MONDAY – BILLY PELLETIER

A video filmed at MRBG on another Sunday afternoon that included both Denny and Billy can be seen at:

ALL THESE THINGS