How do you get into West Food Bar?
We have not confirmed it. West Food Bar is in the directory because it calls itself a speakeasy, and that is the whole of what we can stand behind about its door.
Drinks of the era
We have not seen this venue’s own list, so what follows is the period rather than the bar: Mary Pickford, El Presidente, and Hotel Nacional Special are all drinks of this era, and each links to its origin and its build.
The building
Documented — West Food Bar occupies the Emanuel Building, a property listed on the National Register of Historic Places under reference number 78000503. The listing is a federal record maintained by the National Park Service, and the nomination document is the primary source for the building’s architectural and social history.
National Register reference 78000503 · NPS nomination document
Where West Food Bar sits
West Food Bar is in Mobile, Alabama, in the county of the same name, in the Deep South of the United States.
Our directory currently lists two speakeasies and hidden bars in Mobile — too few for a city guide of its own yet, so they sit on the Alabama page until there are more.
Measured from the map pins, the closest of those to West Food Bar are Las Floriditas, about 150 m away.
Alabama holds ten listed venues in this directory. See them all on our Alabama speakeasy guide.
Prohibition in Alabama
Alabama did not wait for the federal government. Statewide prohibition took effect here in 1915, five years before the Eighteenth Amendment came into force nationally on 17 January 1920. By the time the Volstead Act was being enforced across the country, Alabama already had an established illegal trade and the habits that went with it.
More on the period in our history of Prohibition in Alabama.
What the newspapers recorded in Alabama
Searching the Library of Congress run of Alabama newspapers for speakeasy, blind pig and bootlegger across 1920 to 1933 returns dated pages anyone can open. These are from Alabama:
- The Montgomery advertiser, February 5, 1920 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- The Birmingham age-herald, March 31, 1921 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- The Birmingham age-herald, April 4, 1920 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- The Birmingham age-herald, September 28, 1920 — read the page at the Library of Congress
Planning a visit
You can reach West Food Bar by phone on (251) 459-0245, through its own website, and on Facebook.
The address is 69 Saint Michael St, Mobile, AL 36602. Open in Google Maps.
What we have confirmed
For West Food Bar we hold street address, telephone number, official website, social accounts, and a listed-building record. We do not yet hold opening hours, a published drinks list, or an online booking link.
It is in the directory because the description in the source data describes it as a speakeasy.
Overture Maps carries this venue; OpenStreetMap has no matching record.
The source data classifies the premises as a bar.