Rojo

Rojo has anchored Birmingham’s Highland Park neighborhood since 2002, serving a mix of Latin and American food and drink from a casual storefront at 2921 Highland Avenue South with patio seating that looks out over Rushton Park across the street. The restaurant and bar is owned by Laney DeJonge and Clark Lopez, who have run the space for more than two decades, long enough for it to become one of the more established independent bars in this part of the city rather than a newer arrival chasing a trend.

The bar side of Rojo functions as a genuine neighborhood hangout, with a crowd that leans heavily local and regular rather than tourist. The kitchen serves alongside it, with a menu built around Latin inspired starters and mains that keep prices approachable. Guacamole, made in house, runs 8.39 dollars, and Kip’s Queso, a white cheese dip built around chorizo and jalapenos, comes in at 9.59 dollars. On the entree side, the fried fish tacos, made with cod fillets and topped with pico de gallo, avocado, and a white salsa, run 15.09 dollars for two, and the bacon blue burger, finished with blue cheese, jack cheese, and bacon, is priced at 15.99 dollars. The menu also includes burritos, quesadillas, and a chicken tortilla soup, giving the bar enough range to work as a full dinner stop rather than just a place for a drink.

Rojo is open Tuesday through Sunday, closed on Mondays, with the kitchen and bar running from roughly 11 a.m. through the evening on most days. The bar itself tends to stay open later than the kitchen on Friday nights, giving it a bit of a longer night out feel toward the end of the week, and the restaurant runs a dedicated weekend brunch service on Saturdays and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., which draws its own separate crowd from the dinner and bar business.

The patio is one of the bar’s defining features, sitting across from Rushton Park and giving guests a green, tree lined view that is unusual for a bar this close to the middle of the city. Highland Park itself is a quieter, more residential part of Birmingham than downtown or Avondale, and Rojo’s long tenure there has made it something of a neighborhood institution, the kind of place regulars mention by name when asked where they actually go on a normal weeknight rather than where they take out of town visitors. For anyone looking for an unpretentious bar with real food behind it and more than twenty years of history in the same spot, Rojo remains one of the steadier options in Birmingham’s bar scene.

Highland Park sits a short drive from both downtown Birmingham and the busier bar districts in Avondale and Southside, and it has a quieter, more residential character than either of those areas. Rojo’s decades long presence there has made it something of a fixture for people who live nearby, and the bar’s patio overlooking Rushton Park gives it a green, neighborhood feel that is harder to find closer to the center of the city.

Because the kitchen and bar operate together rather than as separate businesses, Rojo works equally well as a casual dinner stop or as a place to sit at the bar for a drink and an appetizer without committing to a full meal. The weekend brunch service adds another dimension to the business, drawing a daytime crowd that is distinct from the evening bar regulars. For visitors who want to see a part of Birmingham beyond the more heavily trafficked downtown and Avondale bar scenes, Rojo’s long run in Highland Park offers a genuine, unpolished look at a Birmingham neighborhood bar that has outlasted plenty of newer, flashier openings elsewhere in the city.