El barrio, Chris, Brian and Neville.JPG

From left, Chris Cullen, Brian Somershield and Neville Baay are pictured here when they opened El Barrio in 2011. Their other partners are Geoff Lockert and Ben Smith. (Mark Almond | malmond@al.com)

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – Here they grow again.

The guys who helped kick-start Birmingham’s downtown dining scene with their restaurants Trattoria Centrale and El Barrio now hope to liven up the nightlife with an urban bar and burger place they plan to open this fall in the former Paramount yogurt shop space at the corner of 20th Street and Second Avenue North.

Brian Somershield and Geoff Lockert, who burst onto the downtown scene when they opened their Italian cafe Trattoria Centrale in the summer of 2009, are teaming with their partners from their Mexican restaurant El Barrio -- co-owner Chris Cullen, executive chef Neville Baay and bar manager Ben Smith – to open their new bar.

The Paramount space became available after building owners Kent and Angie Ingram closed their yogurt shop earlier this year. (Bob Carlton | bcarlton@al.com)

They hope it will become a happy-hour and late-night hangout for the downtown crowd, as well as a gathering place for folks going to and leaving events at the nearby Alabama Theatre and McWane Science Center.

“There is the lack of a good beer and a bite to eat (place) late downtown,” Baay says. “That’s something we could certainly do easily.”

“Our idea, loosely, is a bar that also serves food -- focusing on all-natural burgers and hot dogs and sandwiches and that kind of thing,” Somershield adds.

They plan to keep the Paramount name that owners Kent and Angie Ingram brought back from the building's glory days when they opened their yogurt shop there nearly two years ago. The shop closed earlier this year.

The building dates back to 1887, and it was once home to the old Paramount Cigar & Soda Company, which opened in the 1930s. The Ingrams’ law offices are on the second floor of the building, which they bought about six years ago.

“Back in the day, it was a presence on a big corner in downtown,” Somershield says. “Not to say that we think we are resurrecting downtown or anything like that, but we think that it’s great that they (the Ingrams) resurrected that name.

“It’s a cool name for a bar and for that corner location, and the fact that it has a history makes it even more interesting.”

Dream finally realized

For the past couple of months, while working at Trattoria Centrale during the day, Somershield and Lockert often gazed across 20th Street at the vacant building and thought about what a happening spot it could be at night.

“When Angie and Kent did the yogurt shop and went ahead and did a lot of the renovating and building of that space, it suddenly became very attractive,” Somershield says. “Unfortunately for them, it went out of business, but what they did with the space is gorgeous. It really shows the potential of what the space had.

“And just kind of looking across the street, we said it would be really cool if something really great went in there. And as we have a tendency of doing, suddenly, ‘Hey, that would be really cool,’ becomes, ‘Hey, what do you guys think about doing this?’”

Actually, Smith, the bar manager, first looked at the space as potential location for a bar he was planning to open about five years ago, long before the Ingrams opened their place. But financing fell through, and it was a dream deferred.

“So we are realizing his dream for him, five years later,” Somershield says.

Corner piece to the puzzle

They want the Paramount bar to become an anchor that helps revitalize the 20th Street and Second Avenue North intersection, as well as the corner piece to the puzzle that connects all that’s happening on 20th Street with Trattoria Centrale, Brick & Tin and Café Dupont with what’s taking place on Second Avenue North with El Barrio, Urban Standard and Pale Eddie's Pour House.

"It's a shame that, right now, there are virtually four vacant corners on that intersection," Somershield says. "Bromberg's doesn't do retail anymore, so it's just an office. The remaining three are all vacant. So you really have four empty storefronts on the cross-section of the two biggest streets on the north side of downtown."

Since most of the structural renovations have already been taken care of, Somershield says, he and his partners just need to redesign the space to suit their plans, which also include multiple TVs and video games and some lounge seating.

“We want the space to feel like a really comfortable place where you can go and hang out,” Cullen, another one of the partners, says.

Retro look with a modern feel

They are working with architect and designer Mike Gibson of Appleseed Workshop to redesign the space. Gibson also was the collaborating architect and builder for El Barrio.

His early plans feature kind of a retro-modern theme, with steel car wheels accenting the bar, mechanic’s work lights dangling from the ceiling, and three overhead garage doors opening onto the sidewalk outside.

“I always tell people my style is ‘Cowboys & Aliens,’” Gibson says, referring to the sci-fi Western with Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig. “The concept is something that looks old but is high-tech.”

This 1941 Birmingham News photo shows what the Paramount building looked like in its heyday. A couple of years ago, the building's new owners installed a 10-foot-tall reproduction of the photograph, which will be incorporated into the theme of the new bar.

Shane Boteler, the graffiti artist who painted the floor-to-ceiling mural at El Barrio, will add his personal touch to the 10-foot-tall reproduction of the 1941 Birmingham News photograph of the Paramount building that the Ingrams had installed when they opened their yogurt shop.

Ideally, Somershield and his partners would like to be open their bar by Labor Day in time for the kickoff of football season, but they realize that might be too optimistic.

“We have done two projects now and are more realistic about those kinds of things,” Somershield says. “So that’s why I said fall.”

The tentative plan is to open seven days a week, starting at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and staying up until around midnight during the week, and to open around lunchtime on weekends for the sports-watching crowd.

Five guys, one vision

With all five guys pitching in, Somershield says he’s not too worried that they may have put too much on their plate by opening their third business in just four years.

And it helps, he adds, that Paramount and Trattoria Centrale are across the street from each other, and El Barrio is just a couple of blocks east of them on Second Avenue North.

“If you are going to have multiple things going on, it really is helpful to have things close by,” Somershield says. “And having people that have a vested interest, you know that they have your interests at heart and are willing to put in the time and the sweat.

“If it were still Geoff and I trying to go into our third project without the help of Chris, without the help of Neville, without the help of Ben, it would be a lot more difficult.

“But you bring in a few more people who have the same goal and the same vision and the same work ethic and care for what you are doing, it makes it a little bit easier.”