Sunday mornings around ten o’clock, the parking lot on Fifth Avenue South in Homewood starts filling up with people who’ve been coming here since before the place had its current name. They’re not here because of a write-up or a social media post. They’re here because Fancy’s on Fifth does brunch the way a lot of restaurants claim to but don’t: carefully, without pretense, and with a menu that knows exactly what it is.
The building sits in a stretch of Homewood that’s easy to drive past if you don’t know to slow down. It’s a converted house, which means low ceilings, small rooms that fill up fast, and a patio out back that gets crowded once the weather cooperates. The interior is warm without trying too hard — tablecloths, mismatched art, decent lighting. It feels like a place where someone actually made decisions about how it should look.
The menu runs through American Southern with some continental touches. Eggs Benedict is the move for brunch, and they do several versions — the classic, one with crab cake, one with smoked salmon. The hollandaise is real and properly made, not the packet stuff. Order a side of the grits if you’re uncertain about loyalty to the dish; these will settle it. They’re stone-ground, buttery, not overly thick, and they arrive hot.
For lunch and dinner, Fancy’s shifts into something closer to a neighborhood bistro. The shrimp and grits stays on the menu in various forms through service, and it holds up. There’s usually a fish special that’s worth asking about. The chicken dishes tend to be quieter successes — nothing flashy, just cooked through correctly and seasoned well. Prices run moderate to slightly above for the area: most entrées fall between $16 and $28, brunch dishes a few dollars less.
Service here is the kind that’s been doing this long enough not to be flustered. The staff doesn’t hover, but they’re around when you need them. Reservations are smart on weekends — walk-in waits at brunch can stretch past forty-five minutes, and the patio fills first because everyone wants it.
What sets Fancy’s apart from the newer places competing for the same Homewood dollar isn’t any single dish. It’s consistency. Restaurants that have been operating this long in a mid-size Southern city either calcify or find a groove. Fancy’s found the groove. The menu doesn’t chase trends; it just keeps doing what works and does it well enough that regulars keep coming back without thinking much about it, which is really the only endorsement that matters.
If you go on a weekday, lunch is calmer, the patio is almost always available, and the kitchen seems to move at a slightly more relaxed pace. The weekend brunch crowd is loyal but good-natured. There’s no DJ, no bottomless mimosa deal, no gimmick. Just food that holds up and a room full of people who found out about this place the old-fashioned way — somebody told them.
