Local 39

Local 39 sits at 1006 Oxmoor Road in Homewood, Alabama, at the corner of Oxmoor and Broadway, a spot with more history than its plain storefront lets on. The bar takes its name from Birmingham and Edgewood Electric Railway’s old No. 39 Edgewood streetcar line, which once ran through this exact stretch of Homewood before the trolley system was dismantled. Restored pieces of that old track sit outside the building, and owners Jonathan and Lyndsey built the bar around the idea of reviving what the trolley line used to do for the neighborhood, which was simply bring people together in one place.

Inside, Local 39 reads as a genuine neighborhood sports bar rather than a themed concept chasing a crowd. Two televisions are visible from every seat, and the menu sticks to sports bar staples: hot wings, burgers, and a rotation of shareable bar snacks alongside lighter fare for anyone not in the mood for fried food. The full bar pours wine, beer, and classic cocktails, so the drink list covers more ground than a typical dive, without trying to reinvent what a neighborhood bar is supposed to be.

The owners describe wanting the bar to feel like an extension of home rather than a trendy destination, and that intent shows in the pace of the place. Local 39 is open Tuesday through Saturday from two in the afternoon until nine at night, with the bar itself staying open later than the kitchen. Those hours skew toward an early evening crowd rather than a late night one, which fits the neighborhood bar identity better than a room chasing last call traffic.

The Oxmoor Road corridor where Local 39 sits has quietly turned into one of Homewood’s steadier commercial strips, with a coffee shop, a bakery, and an ice cream shop all within a short walk. Local 39 gives that stretch a place to watch a game or grab a beer after work without driving toward the busier restaurant rows on 18th Street or 29th Avenue South. It draws families early in the evening and a slightly rowdier crowd once a game gets going, and the two TVs from every seat setup means nobody has to crane their neck during a big play.

What stands out about Local 39 is how specifically it is rooted in its own block. The name, the streetcar tribute out front, and the corner location at Oxmoor and Broadway all point back to a real piece of Homewood transit history rather than a borrowed concept from somewhere else. Independently owned by Jonathan and Lyndsey, the bar reads less like a business plan and more like two people who wanted a version of a neighborhood bar that did not exist on that corner before, and then built it themselves.

That kind of specificity carries through the bar’s day to day operation. Rather than chasing a broader Birmingham crowd with a flashy build out, Local 39 keeps its focus tight on the people who live within a few blocks of Oxmoor and Broadway, treating repeat visits as the point rather than a byproduct. Regulars tend to have a preferred seat, a usual order, and a rough sense of when the bar gets busy on a given night, the kind of familiarity that takes longer to build in a bigger, less personal room.

The trolley tribute out front also gives the bar a small piece of unofficial local history that most visitors would otherwise never encounter. Birmingham’s old streetcar system is largely gone, remembered mostly in scattered plaques and the occasional restored rail segment, and Local 39’s owners made a point of keeping that history visible rather than paving over it. For a neighborhood bar built around the idea of bringing people together, tying the name and the space back to a transit line that once did exactly that gives Local 39 a layer of meaning that a generic sports bar name would not carry.