The Signs That Tell the Story - Tacky Jacks Fort Morgan
The old hurricane ravaged sign for the Current Tenant, now layered with hurricane messages and memories
Inside the rafters of Tacky Jacks Fort Morgan, the hand-painted ghosts of every bar and restaurant that ever called this marina home still hang from the ceiling — stapled dollar bills and all.
If you’ve ever walked into the downstairs bar at Tacky Jacks on Fort Morgan Road and looked up, you know the ceiling tells a story that no menu ever could. Stapled to the rafters are dozens of dollar bills, scrawled with names, dates, and messages. But look a little closer and you’ll notice something else: old hand-painted signs — five of them — for restaurants and bars that no longer exist but once made this same waterfront marina their home.
Fort Morgan Marina sits near the tip of the Fort Morgan Peninsula, just a mile and a half from the Gulf of Mexico by water. The property has been here for decades, quietly turning over the restaurant space while the charter fleet, the fuel dock, and the sunsets over Mobile Bay stayed the same.
Nobody seems to have written down the complete history. But the signs are still there, and between those signs, a 2007 blog post, a 2023 interview with Tacky Jacks’ marketing manager, and the fading memories embedded in internet forums, we can piece together the timeline of what came and went at 1577 Highway 180.
1980’s-1990’s The Marina Grill
The Marina Grill sign — “Restaurant & Bar” in faded blue, a charter boat silhouette against a rust-orange sunset. The oldest-looking sign in the rafters.
The oldest-looking sign in the collection belongs to The Marina Grill. The painted metal reads “Restaurant & Bar” flanking a charter boat silhouetted against an orange sunset — a logo that could only come from the Gulf Coast. There’s almost nothing about it online, which itself tells you something: this place predates the era when every restaurant had a Facebook page and a Yelp listing. Best guess puts The Marina Grill in the 1980s or early 1990s, back when Fort Morgan Road was truly the end of the line and the marina served a handful of local fishermen and the occasional Looper coming through on the ICW.
1990’s-??? The Oar House
“Steaks • Seafood • Po Boys • 540-7991.” The Oar House’s sign complete with captain’s hat and life ring, says everything about the vibe.
The Oar House occupied the upstairs dining room — the same space where Tacky Jacks serves its Farmers Omelet and blackened mahi today. The sign features a cartoon shrimp in a captain’s hat clutching a life preserver ring, with “Steaks • Seafood • Po Boys” lettered underneath and the old 540-7991 phone number. It was a proper sit-down restaurant, the kind of place where you could get a steak dinner overlooking Mobile Bay without driving 20 miles back into Gulf Shores. The name, of course, was a pun — one that fit right in on a peninsula where double entendres and cold beer were the primary forms of entertainment.
1990’s-?? Billy’s by the Bay
Billy’s By the Bay — a hand-painted fishing boat under a bucket hat. The adjacent sign advertises seafood and beverages at the Navy Cove mile marker, placing it at this marina.
The Billy’s By the Bay sign is the most charming of the bunch — a hand-painted fishing boat against a watercolor sky, the name rendered in playful script inside a chef’s hat. Hanging next to it is a second sign advertising seafood and beverages “Located at Mile Marker — Navy Cove,” which pins it to this exact spot on the bay. Like The Marina Grill, it left almost no digital footprint — just this sign, nailed to the ceiling, collecting dollar bills.
???-2005 Happy Hooker
The Happy Hooker Beach Bar — hand-stenciled red letters on sheet metal. No logo needed. Everyone on the peninsula knew exactly where it was.
The downstairs bar was something else entirely. The Happy Hooker Beach Bar — name very much a double entendre, as every regular was happy to point out — was the kind of place that doesn’t really exist anymore. No website, no Instagram, no reservations. Just a waterfront bar at a marina where the bartenders knew your name and your drink.
“Wanda or Fred would immediately reach into the cooler and hand me a cold Heineken before they even said hello.” — A self-described “semi-regular,” writing in 2007 after learning the Hooker had closed
A blog post from December 2007 is the most vivid record we have. The author, a part-timer with a vacation home on the peninsula, describes a cast of regulars with names straight out of a Carl Hiaasen novel: Cajun Dave, Crazy Jerry, Normal Jerry, Dirty Dan, and Fast Eddie. They lined the bar every afternoon to discuss politics, football, and the evils of real-estate development. The bartenders — Wanda and a woman called Fred — kept the part-timers current on peninsula gossip between visits.
The Hooker never made much money, the writer admitted. But it sat on a prime spot overlooking Mobile Bay, and that was its undoing. It was sold around 2004 or 2005. The condos were never built. Instead, Tacky Jacks moved in.
2005-Present Tacky Jacks Restaurant & Bar
Jack’s Bar, painted on corrugated tin in Tacky Jacks’ signature multicolor lettering.
In 2005, Tacky Jacks opened its Fort Morgan location in the old Oar House and Happy Hooker building. It was the second location after the original on Cotton Bayou in Orange Beach. The name traces back to the early 1980s and a man named Jack Hodges, who started with a bait and tackle shop before adding a bar. Rumor has it Jack’s wife came up with the “tacky” part. George Skipper purchased the Orange Beach building in 1987, and the brand grew from there. A third location on the ICW in Gulf Shores followed in 2011.
Today the upstairs is the main restaurant — the Farmers Omelet is on the state of Alabama’s official “100 Dishes to Eat” list — and the downstairs is Jack’s Bar, the same footprint where Happy Hooker regulars once held court. Karaoke has replaced the afternoon bull sessions, but the view of Mobile Bay at sunset hasn’t changed a bit.
And someone, at some point, had the good sense to save the signs. They hang from the ceiling now alongside the dollar bills and the Christmas lights and the messages scrawled by people who survived Hurricane Sally and every storm before it. They’re not a museum exhibit. They’re just there, part of the place, the way old things become part of a place if you leave them alone long enough.
Next time you’re at the fuel dock at Fort Morgan Marina or waiting on a table upstairs, look up. The whole history of this waterfront is hanging right above your head.
Name: Tacky Jacks 2 – Fort Morgan Address: 1577 Hwy 180 W, Gulf Shores, AL 36542 Phone: (251) 968-8341 Email: FortMorganEvents@TackyJacks.com Website: tackyjacks.com/locations-fm
Name: Fort Morgan Marina Address: 1577 State Highway 180, Gulf Shores, AL 36542 Phone: (251) 540-2628 Email: info@fortmorganmarinaal.com Website: fortmorganmarinaal.com