According to www.yearofalabamafood.com, there are 100 dishes a person should eat before settling down in their final resting place. Three of them are in Selma.

The website recently compiled a lunch bucket list of sorts which named the chicken breast sandwich at the Restaurant on Grumbles Alley, the New York strip steak at Tally Ho and the lemon pie at The Downtowner as “dishes to eat in Alabama before you die.”

For Grumbles and owner Dianne Smitherman, this is nothing new. The sandwich, Smitherman said, had also gained recognition in the past.

“The chicken breast sandwich was first named one of the 100 dishes to eat in Alabama before you die about 10 or 15 years ago,” she said. “It is homemade, marinade. We marinade it for 24 hours. It’s an 8-ounce butterfly chicken breast on sourdough bread. It’s very meaty, very moist and it’s grilled.”

It’s not uncommon, Smitherman said, to see several chicken sandwiches fly out of the kitchen on an average night.

“It’s our signature sandwich,” she said. “That is our best seller. In the busiest season we make about 300 pounds of chicken breast. By far it’s the most popular thing on our menu.”
Tally Ho owner Bob Kelly was equally excited to see his restaurant receive notoriety for its steaks.

“Any kind of publicity you can get from the state is always welcome,” he said. “We’ve had good response from that over the years, it has been a blessing really.”