117-Year-Old Alabama Peanut Company Opens New Store in Tuscaloosa

After more than a century of purveying peanuts in Birmingham, an Alabama outfit has expanded into Tuscaloosa, where their second store is now open in downtown Temerson Square.

William Yeilding, the manager at the Druid City's new Alabama Peanut Company, said after operating a few weekend popups, they opened the doors to the public last weekend ahead of the Crimson Tide's home game against South Carolina.

"We've been open since 1907 in Birmingham. We're the oldest peanut company in the nation and this is only the second location," Yeilding said.

"Beforehand it was a lot of wholesale, we had train tracks right beside our shop in Birmingham and we used to just move raw and roasted peanuts out of this very dusty nuthouse and that was our image for a long time," Yeilding said. "Now we've been trying to support a more in-house environment."

That included adding boiled peanuts to the menu plus building a bar in the Birmingham location on Morris Avenue last year and getting a license to serve alcohol there this March.

Now in addition to selling countless pounds of raw, roasted and boiled peanuts, the company welcomes folks to sit down and enjoy them with a beer or other drink right in the store.

"We have a vent that runs outside our Birmingham building pumping out exhaust from our roaster, so it always advertises itself and honestly gives free advertisement for the whole street," Yeilding said. "That smell brings people in to ask questions and check out what we've got."

Thursby sees Tuscaloosa as a location where the walk-in concept can thrive, but also a convenience for loyal West Alabama customers who've been driving to Birmingham to get their fix.

"We're really here to support the side of it," the manager said. "We have our in-house community that will be able to sit down, order something and enjoy games over here but it's just as easy to drop by, grab a bucket or two and take it back to your house and share some awesome peanuts there."

Like the Birmingham store, the Tuscaloosa location offers raw and roasted peanuts in all sizes up to 25-pound boxes, but also offers the new boiled peanuts in more than 100 rotating flavors like Buffalo Ranch, Dill Pickle, Collard Greens, Bournbon BBQ and dozens more.

"The flavor you get out of the boiled peanuts - that's truly something to be experienced and desired. We have our own, homemade roasted peanuts we do here, too, and I think they're delicious, but the boiled ones are for me. I grew up with them, I love them and we have a lot of variety we're able to create here," Yeilding said. "I tell everybody whenever they first try one, the texture is the one thing that scares a lot of people off, but you can get by that - man, I really enjoy them."

They're good hot and fresh, refrigerated and cold, or even frozen solid and warmed again in a crockpot - APC fills the boiled peanut buckets half-full of brine and Yeilding said they'll freeze in a block for easy reheating.

The Tuscaloosa store opened last Friday and is open  Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m. It also features a wall full of merch designed by Thursby himself.

With the doors open now, Yeilding said he hopes Tuscaloosa will stop by and give them a try, and not let any preconceived notions about a boiled peanut prevent them from sampling the Alabama Peanut Company goods.

"We keep everything fresh. We make sure nothing is soggy, nothing is slimy, nothing is out of the ordinary. We hold a really high standard as to how our products is going to be seen by other people," he said. "Don't be scared of a boiled peanut! Come give them a try and let them sell themselves. If you've never tasted one there can be this mental barrier, but people come to find out they're this really great Southern delicacy. You're not going to find something like this anywhere else."

For more coverage of restaurant and retail development in west Alabama, stay connected to the Tuscaloosa Thread.