There’s a new area for North Alabama locals to booze and browse.
Residents will have an easier time going out in Historic Downtown Madison. The area was just designated as an “entertainment district,” which means you can take alcoholic drinks to go from restaurants into the neighboring stores.
“I had a family member a few months ago tell me, ‘I want to eat at Old Black Bear the other day, I wish I could have taken my cocktail at the bar at Old Black Bear and gone shopping and Lemon and Lavender and Noble Passage,’” said Madison Chamber of Commerce President Michelle Epling. “I really think our retail stores are missing out on some sales opportunities by not being able to take their drinks and go shop up and down. So I am so excited about this to make one of my family members’ dreams come true, but with that being said, that just adds to the quality of life to add to historic downtown Madison.”
The area was first designated as a “Main Street of Alabama” in the summer of 2025, which made professional support available to revitalize a historic downtown.
Now, it is officially an entertainment district. It’s the second one in the city; the first one was Town Madison.
“Main Street Madison has several goals,” explained Jen Delessio, the Executive Director for Main Street Madison. “One is certainly to drive foot traffic and get more people aware of downtown and how lovely it is. We want to strengthen the businesses that we do have here, and we really feel that this entertainment district is going to help, that we also want to attract new business, and we want to make it prettier. So we’re going to be doing all of those things as an organization. ”
It needed four businesses that sell alcohol to sign on. Tammy Hall co-owns all the restaurants that endorsed this project: The Vine & Oak, Zonotta’s Ristorante, Main Street Cafe and Lanier House.
The five blocks of Downtown Madison are exclusively small businesses run by local entrepreneurs who are cornerstones of the Madison community.
“These are the businesses that they come to, to donate to the high schools, to give this or give that,” Hall said. “We’re pretty receptive to those things. We do a ton of stuff in the community. The teachers need this, or the city needs this, or whatever. And I’m like, sure, sure, sure, we’ll do it. But they’re not going to, you know, the corporate-owned restaurants to do that because, because they want to help me with my business.”
Many city leaders want to start building more in Madison so they don’t have to rely on Huntsville – especially since the city has grown from approximately 4,000 to 64,000 in 26 years, according to State Senator Tom Butler.
“More or less just creating coming of our own, being our own town here, and not necessarily being reliant on Huntsville for everything that we want to do for entertainment purposes,” Hall said.
Patrons will be able to drink in Downtown Madison from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Monday through Saturday. Locals can drink outdoors between 11 a.m. and 9 p.m.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.al.com ’
