New to Athens? Tiffany Pack Shares Where to Eat First
Start Here. Tiffany Pack’s First-Timer Food Guide
Tiffany Pack has handed over many house keys lately. As the owner of Dream Key Real Estate, she’s had a front-row seat to remarkable growth. Limestone County is now in its seventh straight year as Alabama’s fastest-growing county, and between U.S. Space Command’s relocation, Eli Lilly’s $6 billion investment, and GE Aerospace’s continued expansion, the moving trucks just keep coming.
We caught up with Tiffany over coffee on the square to talk about what’s bringing people in and, more importantly, where she’s sending them to eat once they get here.
She didn’t need long to answer the first question. “It’s the careers, sure. People are following the jobs,” she said. “But the thing that seals it? Cost of living.
The Food Question... where do we eat tonight?
I’ve got buyers coming in from all over the country, and they can’t believe what their money can do once they cross into Athens and Limestone County. It’s just more affordable here than the communities around us, and you’re not giving anything up to get it. The schools are great, the people are great, and downtown Athens is alive. That’s a hard combination to beat.”
The food question, she said, comes up faster than anything else. “I’ll be handing over keys, and somebody will go, ‘Okay, real talk, where do we eat tonight?’ Every time. I keep a running list in my head.”
The list always starts in the same place, The Southern Table at 105 N. Jefferson Street. The menu reads like a love letter to the South: smoked wings rubbed and sauced six different ways, wood-fired and raw Gulf oysters, fried green tomatoes with pimento cheese and remoulade, and a shrimp ceviche with Old Bay crackers and dynamite aioli. The lunch entrees go big, BBQ shrimp and grits with pork belly and shrimp butter, fried Gulf oysters, frog legs, and a Gulf shrimp plate with hushpuppies and apple coleslaw. Daily lunch plates feature smoked chicken with white BBQ sauce, hamburger steak with mushroom and onion gravy, and fried catfish with hushpuppies, classic comfort food any day of the week.
“The Southern Table. No question,” Tiffany said. “If you’ve just moved here and want to feel like you live in Athens, that’s your first stop. The cornbread muffins with whipped salted butter alone are worth the move. It tastes like somebody’s grandmother is back there making sure you eat enough. I’ve sent people there and gotten a text later that just says ‘wow.’”
