Birmingham Race Course

OK. It’s not a restaurant and it’s not in Atlanta. Geez, you people are geniuses…
Birmingham Race Course is one of the most fun, most depressing places I’ve ever been. Nevertheless it boasts «the largest restaurant in Alabama», overlooking the defunct horse track now greyhound track. I went there after my great aunt’s funeral a few weekends ago, since it was just down the road and I was depressed…
The place looks like what I would expect most urban areas will be after the Apocalypse — overgrown, disused, but still inhabited by beings that used to be human. The open grandstand overlooking the track is closed, but you can take the impressive escalator to the «Sky Club» floor and walk past the banks of TVs and frustrated off-​track betters to the largest (and smokiest) restaurant in Alabama, which is fully enclosed and has a 4 story glass wall overlooking the track. The tables each have a TV tuned to live feeds from horse tracks across the country (for OTB) and an ashtray. Beers are super cheap, but the coffee grounds need to be changed more than once per day.
The best thing about the track besides the people watching, arcane dogracing programs and cheap beer is watching the greyhounds run. I have a retired racer, and always wanted to see them run… it’s really a beautiful thing to see them doing what they love and were born to do. The race course has close ties to a local greyhound adoption organization and that eased my mind about going.
I wholeheartedly recommend a stop here before or after a trip to B’ham… after you watch these animals you’ll want one of your own so here’s a link for Adopt-​A-​Greyhound Atlanta:
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