Cullman’s first Restaurant Week runs September 10–21, with special menus at 11 local restaurants
Words by Ashley Locke
All Steak was supposed to be All Steak Hamburgers. When Millard Buchman opened the restaurant in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1934, the sign was priced by the letter, and the last word didn’t fit his budget. Four years later he moved the business to Cullman and the short name came with it. There have been new owners and new addresses since, but the orange rolls stayed: soft yeast rolls glazed in sugar, butter and orange peel. All Steak gets most of the credit for inventing the Alabama orange roll, and the Birmingham News once called it “the place where half of Cullman comes to talk about politics and football.”
A restaurant like that doesn’t need help getting noticed in its own town. The rest of Cullman’s dining scene could use the introduction, which is the idea behind the first Cullman Restaurant Week. From September 10 through 21, Visit Cullman has 11 local restaurants running special menus and deals, plus a few new dishes that go away when the week does.
It starts Thursday, September 10, with Culinary in Cullman at The Venue at Cotton Creek. Every participating restaurant is required to be there, so one evening, from 6 to 10 p.m., gets you tastings from the whole lineup with live music going while you work through it. Tickets are limited, so buy them early.
After that, the week is yours to spend. Johnny’s Bar-B-Q sits on Highway 278 about a mile off I-65 at exit 308, and it has been open since 1948. The Wiggins family bought it from Johnny Graves, the original Johnny, in 1963, and the family still runs it. The stuffed potatoes are famous for their size. Josh Wiggins, one of the owners, has said that everybody in Cullman has their Johnny’s Day. Visitors can borrow one.
412 Public House opened downtown in 2018 on Second Avenue SE, near Christ Lutheran Church. Stephen Gannon and Trey Jordan started it with Rico and Christine Nishimura, a husband and wife who split the work between the kitchen and the cocktail list. The room is deep and narrow, with tables arranged around a massive bar that pours 12 draft beers.
The same owners have since opened a bakery and a catering company.
Sipsey Winery makes its wine in Double Springs, out in the Bankhead National Forest, and opened a Cullman tasting room at the Flying Fifty in March 2025. Flights come out on boards cut from bourbon barrel staves. Some of the labels reach into local history. The Strawberry Queen ties back to the Alabama Strawberry Festival. If wine isn’t the plan, there are apple and pear ciders and wine slushies.
Wissota Chophouse, inside the Cobblestone Hotel on Main Avenue, serves Certified Angus Beef steaks, pours more than 20 wines by the glass and keeps Leinenkugel’s on tap as a nod to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, where the beer is brewed. Whoever is driving can pick from a list of non-alcoholic cocktails.
The farthest stop is worth the gas. The Grille at Trident Marina sits at Big Bridge in Crane Hill on Smith Lake, about 24 miles from downtown, and customers pull up by boat and by car. The orders that keep the line moving are the Trident Burger, the po’boy and the fish tacos. Jeff Tolbert flew medical evacuation jets around the world before he bought the marina in 2015.
The marina has since changed hands, but he still runs the restaurant.
Karmas, Jubilee Kitchen and Bar, Pasquale’s Pizza & Pasta, Puckett’s and Royale Burgers, Bourbon, and Brews round out the list.
Before you go anywhere, pull up the Cullman Culinary Pass on your phone. Check in at each participating restaurant and every visit enters you in the grand prize drawing. Eleven check-ins will get you out to the lake and back. Somewhere along the way, get a dozen orange rolls to go.
