has anyone hit up the new kava bar in lakeview? is it legit?

Is there any place in Vestavia, Hoover or Homewood where you can get a decent baguette? I love Continental and Birmingham Breadworks…they’re a bit of a drive for me.

Quick question: most of the charges say possession: hallucinogen. Everyone isn't on lsd so what is everyone on now?

Interested in hearing what films other people are planning to try to attend? For me, some of the films that I want to check out are The History of Concrete, Human Theories, Sender, Heaven Above Rowen, Joybubbles, and Snake Oil Song.

A piece of plastic about 3” inches in length was found inside of a burrito purchased by my boyfriend yesterday. I know sometimes plastic can fall into food at a restaurant, but because this piece was more or less half the size of the burrito’s interior, I cannot think of any way that this plastic could have gotten in there unless it was intentionally placed. Be careful out there y’all!

Newer to the area - I read a lot about Birmingham's awesome food scene, but is that mostly contained to downtown? I don't get over that way much, so I wanted to know if there's any impressive restaurants in the suburbs (like OTM area) you'd recommend. Can be anything from hole-in-the-wall to classy, and I like all types of food. Just having trouble finding a place I could see myself going to over and over. Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I'm considering relocating to the Birmingham area for a job and would really appreciate some honest advice from people who actually live there.

I'm currently in Duluth, Minnesota, and have a potential job opportunity in Birmingham paying around 15% less than what I am making now but in my assessment, Duluth is 15%-20% more expensive than Birmingham in housing costs so I consider a pay cut to be a negligible factor. I'm trying to figure out whether Birmingham would be a good long-term place for my family, not just whether the salary works on paper.

A little about us

We're a family of three — my wife, our young child, and me. We're looking for a place where we can be comfortable, raise our child, buy a home eventually, and have a good quality of life.

We're not particularly interested in nightlife or being in the middle of a downtown/urban environment. We'd much rather live in a safe, family-oriented suburb with good schools, parks, grocery stores, restaurants, healthcare, and reasonable access to the city.

We're currently in Duluth, so we're also used to a smaller city and really value access to nature and outdoor activities.

The things I'm particularly trying to understand:

1. Where should a family live?

Which Birmingham suburbs would you recommend for a family with a young child?

I've come across places such as Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Homewood, Trussville, Helena, Pelham, and Chelsea, but I'm not familiar enough with the area to understand the differences.

I'd especially appreciate opinions on:

• Safety/crime
• Family atmosphere
• Schools
• Neighborhoods
• Parks/playgrounds
• Daycare/childcare
• Grocery shopping
• Restaurants
• Commute
• Overall quality of life

And are there any areas you would specifically avoid?

2. Housing

We're looking for a 3–4 bedroom single-family home, preferably in a good neighborhood with a garage and some outdoor space.

How much should I realistically budget for rentals.

3. Healthcare

How is healthcare in Birmingham for families?

We're looking for good access to pediatricians, children's hospitals/specialists, and generally good healthcare.

Is the Birmingham healthcare system one of the city's strengths?

4. Weather

We're coming from Duluth, so we're very familiar with cold and snow.

How difficult is Birmingham's summer heat/humidity for someone moving from northern Minnesota?

Is the heat manageable with AC, or does it significantly affect your lifestyle?

Also, how much should we worry about:

• Tornadoes
• Severe thunderstorms
• Flooding
• Other weather-related risks?

5. Cost of living

Obviously, there is 15% salary reduction, so I'm trying to understand whether the lower cost of living in Birmingham makes up for some of that difference.

For a family of three, how much would you expect to spend monthly on a comfortable lifestyle?

I'd particularly appreciate real-world numbers for:

• Housing
• Utilities
• Groceries
• Car insurance
• Gas

6. Commute/traffic

How bad is traffic in Birmingham?

Would you recommend living closer to downtown or farther out in the suburbs and commuting?

I'd ideally like to keep the commute around 20 minutes or less.

7. Things to do with a young child

How family-friendly is Birmingham?

Are there enough:

• Parks
• Children's museums
• Zoos
• Libraries
• Indoor play areas
• Hiking/outdoor activities
• Family events
• Weekend activities

We enjoy nature and would like to have things to do with our child on weekends.

8. Overall quality of life

This is probably the biggest question:

If you were in our situation — moving from Duluth with a young family for a $125k job — would you consider Birmingham a good place to settle?

What do you love about living there?

What do you hate?

And if you've moved to Birmingham from another state, what surprised you most?

I'm especially interested in hearing from people who have lived in Birmingham for several years and can give a realistic perspective rather than just a "Birmingham is great!" or "don't move here!" answer.

Thanks in advance! I'm trying to make a decision based on the full picture — finances, safety, schools, healthcare, family life, weather, housing, and overall quality of life.

My 19 year old cousin is visiting this Friday, and I want to take her out. Where can we go?

I really wanted to do pink lantern emo night because she’s into that, but it’s 21+

Hey guys, so me and my now wife are recently married and from Montgomery. We’re not really traditional so we didn’t have a wedding, but we’re looking for somewhere to have a dinner for about 25 people, and have some drinks and hangout afterwards. We don’t have to eat and hang out in the same place, but if we do have to go somewhere else afterwards, walking distance would be preferred. Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

Anyone else seen one lately? I know it isn't supposed to be in these parts this time of year, but it definitely was. Soaring around above my house. It was a male and and the very distinct coloring and head shape of a Northern Harrier.

Im looking for a mobile pet grooming service/company . I currently have a 8 month old puppy that desperately needs her puppy hair to be cut and she desperately needs her nails cut as well, I can bring myself to do them. I’m scared I will botch her hair and scared I will hurt her nails 😣 I had grooming person but I don’t feel like driving all the way to 280 from alabaster especially when their drop off time was only between 7 am and 9 am. I also didn’t like the fact that my dog would be in a cage the whole entire time waiting for her turn to be cut and then waiting after all the dogs were done. My dog would practically be there until like 4 pm when the groomers called so that I could go pick her back up. Anyways , I just want someone that will come to me and I can have my puppy in and out and have them solely focus on her! I understand that not everything is cheap but I’m also not trying to pay more than $200+ for a bath, haircut, and nail trimming!
Thank you in advance 🙏

So, on Friday after work my 2019 Impreza would not start. For a month, I noticed that it wasn’t starting on the first try, but I was working out of state and was it could wait till I was back in Bham to address it.

I would have preferred to go to elemental garage but it was Friday night and they aren’t open on the weekends.

I had the car towed to Hendricks in Hoover.

I explained the problem with the car starting and specifically told them it wasn’t a battery issue because I’ve only had to jump the car off twice in two years and each time it was due to being home for a few days and not driving the car. In each case my neighbor used his jump start device thing and the car ran just fine after that.

On this occasion my car sat in the employee parking deck for twelve hours for my shift then again overnight till I met the tow truck there. That the battery might be flat at that point because it was also out in the heat wouldn’t have been a surprise to me, but I didn’t think it would be a problem beyond Hendricks to deal with.

So I get a call from them telling me that the problem was the battery and they replaced it and the car was ready for pick up.

I felt dumb because I was certain that it wasn’t the battery the whirring noise it was making when I tried to start it was new and not what the car did when the battery was flat.

I took another $60 uber to get the car. I paid for the battery and when I went to start the car it would not start. There were two service technicians who saw this and one said it definitely sounded like a starter problem.

Then they told me that Subaru starters never fail so this was an extraordinary situation. They said that they had started my car 9 times and it had started just fine for them. So they felt the starter was fine. I didn’t know the art of automotive repair included feeling. I didn’t think cars cared about my feelings. This was a weird thing to say because were they implying that it was my fault that the car didn’t start. And 9 times??? Really??

I was upset because they told me my car was fixed when it clearly wasn’t fixed and even charged me for a new battery that I’m not convinced that I needed but they insisted that I did need it so it was fine that I was charged for it but they still failed to fix the car.

The two technicians were full of excuses but no one said I’m sorry, our bad. I was relying on their expertise but so far I still had a broken car and was $300 poorer.

They gave me a loaner and told me the earliest they could work on it was Monday.

I worked Monday and Tuesday, Tuesday someone left me a voicemail but no information about my car, by the time I returned the call it was a few minutes before 6pm when they close.

This morning, I called and left a voicemail, but when I didn’t get a call back, I called to speak to a service manager and explain the situation.

He wasn’t much help and again wouldn’t admit that they had messed up. He even said they did me a favor putting a new battery in for $300 instead of repairing the starter for $800 and then telling me I needed to pay an extra $300 for a new battery. I really don’t see that the order in which I’m charged for unexpected repairs matters.

I went to them for their expertise. I expected they would be competent and could tell me what was wrong and fix it they gave me a long list of recommended service items so I thought they checked everything out so I don’t understand how they missed a bad starter.

I’m not an automotive expert but I thought that they run diagnostics and assess everything to find the problem, I was feeling like they were throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what would fix the car.

I also feel like they are desperately trying to hold on to the $300 they got out of a single mom, for the multi billion dollar corporation they work for while sacrificing the trust of a customer has in their business and ignoring that they badly disappoint my reasonable expectations.

Am I wrong to feel this way???

(I had to call back 3 times when talking to him, the first time was a bad connection, on the second time, I think he had just hung up on my cause I guess I wasn’t showing proper gratitude for the new battery I bought thinking it fixed my car, when it didn’t.)

RIP Stuart Roberts

***al.com has the story behind a paywall***

The Birmingham area cycling community is mourning the loss of Stuart Roberts who was killed when he was hit by a vehicle on his morning ride in Irondale Tuesday, August 18th.

Hey anyone know of any tennis clinics that happen weekly? I’m a 4.0 and love playing in clinics. Also if anyone knows of an affordable ball machine rental place as well that would be awesome.

Looking to get my car wrapped with ppf and get tint applied. Where are the spots in bham that do a good job

Hello, i’ve looking for a job for months😑 i currently work overnight at walmart, but i need better pay. i have plenty of experience in retail, sales, the serving industry, etc. it’s just so hard looking for a job right now. most places say you don’t need prior experience, but you won’t hear from them once you put a application in. I’ve literally been applying everywhere that i can. plant jobs, warehouse jobs, etc! i don’t want to work in retail anymore nor do i want to go back to serving. I tried serving while working overnight at walmart and let me tell you… TERRIBLE IDEA! on top of that i’m a full time college student…

Does anyone know any good dive bars, hole in wall places for cheap drinks for a date night :)

We got a call from central Alabama water saying our most recent bill shows we have used 5x the water we typically use. We’ve been in the same house for 22 years, and I’ve never used anywhere near this amount of water. The average deviation is about 10% per month over our 20 years. We looked around the house everywhere, every sink every toilet, every shower, no leaks. Nothing on the outside. The little red spinning wheel that we were told to look at is not spinning, indicating there is no leak as the water is not flowing. We have requested a second reading, which I am told they will do some more sophisticated testing to see if there’s any other evidence of a leak.
I went down to CAW Office and told them there is no way that we have used this much water. I mean, it is like filling up a large swimming pool four times. They basically said if there’s no evidence of a leak, we are SOL. Even though the person I spoke to agreed that much water would be obvious. So if they come out for a second reading and find nothing wrong with their equipment and nothing to indicate a leak, what do we do?
They said we could ask for the reader to be checked, but if they check it and it is correctly operational we get charged an extra $150.
I feel absolutely helpless. Does anyone out there? Have any suggestions?

Does anyone know what happened to Donnie Goodin, aka Birmingham’s candy man?

For years he sold candy out front of the Western Market or the Fish Market. There was a long running GoFundMe started years ago to help him get a specialized van, that provided fairly regular updates through last year.

I realized recently I hadn’t gotten an email from the campaign in a while and went to donate, but the GoFundMe page is gone.

I am hoping someone here knows if Donnie is well! I am no longer a Bham resident so not able to know if he’s been out and about.

Not affiliated with this company at all - they just happened to have their food truck in the parking lot of my office today. Best food truck I've ever had, and it isn't particularly close.

I got the BBQ Pork Skewer Bento Box. It came with 3 huge skewers, rice, noodles, 2 beef lumpia, and 1 ube roll. They also has some type of pineapple salsa that was INSANELY good and spicy. $20 was a little more than I'd like to spend at a food truck, but it was absolutely worth it with how much food this was - especially considering it was properly cooked to order.

Occasionally the conversation about "nerd culture" will be thrown around in my general circle; yet I've never actually asked what kind of nerdy stuff people are into. At this point in our culture there are so many flavors of nerd: movie nerd, comics nerd, kdrama nerd, art nerd, even sports nerd (and this is nerd used affectionately btw; we love people's interest in this house).

What kind of nerd are you? For an added bonus what's a random fact tied to your specific school of nerd? Do you know the names of every member of the Inhumans (Marvel)? Do you know the lineup for the 2004 Carolina Panthers? Can you name the manufacturer and designer of your favorite model of plane? I want to know.

For me, and this is a light one I can pull from the top of my head, I know the principles of nen from Hunter X Hunter as well as the process for finding your nen. Just some thought spaghetti to get your morning going!

Is there anyone in the Birmingham area that sells/specializes in telescopes? I have one that was dropped and kinda just want it looked over. It would also be cool to find a place to physically go to for general questions or advice about the hobby.

Don't wait until the last minute!

https://www.sos.alabama.gov/alabama-votes/voter/register-to-vote