Side by Side Kitchen & Cocktails on McFarland Boulevard has been doing something quietly impressive for a few years now: running a genuinely good bar program and a kitchen that actually keeps up with it.
I first went because a friend insisted, and I’ll admit I almost didn’t. The strip-mall address sounds uninspiring. But the inside is warm and low-lit, with a long bar that draws people who are there to drink something worth thinking about rather than just get a round in. That’s the first reason I keep going back — the cocktails are constructed, not assembled. The bartenders know their spirits and aren’t shy about talking you through them if you’re curious. I’ve had a mezcal old-fashioned there that I’ve spent some time trying to replicate at home. Haven’t quite landed it.
The food is the second reason. The menu is compact in a way that signals the kitchen knows what it’s doing — maybe a dozen savory options at any given time, built around local sourcing where they can manage it. The cast iron skillet dishes are worth your attention; whatever comes out of that kitchen with charred edges and a sauce you want to drag bread through, order it. The shareables are genuinely meant for sharing, not the fake-small-plates situation where you end up spending $60 and still hungry. A couple of those and an entrée between two people lands you somewhere around $50–$65 before drinks, which feels fair for what arrives at the table.
Third reason: the crowd is mixed in a way that’s rarer than you’d think in Tuscaloosa. On any given Thursday or Friday you’ll see faculty, people in their thirties who moved here for work, game-day visitors who found it by accident, and regulars who’ve clearly claimed their barstools. It doesn’t feel curated. It feels like a place that ended up drawing interesting people because it took itself seriously without being precious about it.
Happy hour runs on weekdays and shaves a few dollars off cocktails and apps — worth knowing if you’re trying to stretch a budget. Weekends get busy after 8 p.m., and they don’t take reservations for bar seating, so if you want to sit at the bar, get there by 7. The dining room is a little more manageable if you call ahead.
Parking is straightforward — it’s a strip mall, so there’s a lot — which sounds like a low bar but matters when you’re debating whether to make the trip after a long week. The short answer is yes, make the trip. Side by Side rewards the effort in a way that a lot of places with better addresses simply don’t.
One honest caveat: the kitchen has closed early on me once, on a slow Tuesday. Call ahead if you’re going specifically to eat on a weeknight. The bar side stays open later, and that’s always a reasonable consolation.
