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Photo by Erin Nelson.
Royce and Tammy Butler, the new owners of Velma’s in Trussville, stand outside the business Jan. 3.
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Photo courtesy of Tammy Butler.
A photograph of the original Velma’s Place in Trussville.
Tammy and Royce Butler had long wanted to open a business in Trussville. They explored locations.
When nothing was working out, the couple, married since 2011, tabled the idea. Then, one day not long ago, the couple was driving along U.S. 11 and spotted a small, handwritten “For Rent” sign. It was in front of the former Velma’s bar.
“Most people probably just drove right by it and didn’t even see it,” Royce said. “It was just right place, right time, that scenario.”
The couple’s vision was clear: They would bring Velma’s back. It took off from there.
The Butlers have spent the last few months meeting with construction companies and Trussville officials and working through everything else that bringing back a Trussville staple requires.
“I think we both love our community, and the history of it,” Tammy said. “To think about bringing back something that had historical value and the value that all these people placed on it, that was just very appealing.”
Velma’s, before it closed in August 2012, operated for 74 years. It was opened in 1938 by Horace and Velma Willis, who owned the property and business until 1970. For the next few years, Sam and Annie Mae LaSalle owned the property and business. The LaSalles were the owners of the Silver Slipper, a nightspot they opened in 1936. It was located near the present-day Interstate 59/Interstate 459 junction near U.S. Highway 11 and boasted the largest dance floor in Birmingham for many years.
Horace and Dot Simmons bought the Velma’s property and business from the LaSalles in 1974 and ran the business until the early 1980s, at which point Quinton Woodley leased the property and operated it until 1995. In 1995, Terry Simmons and Teresa Stryker took over the business. Simmons had built an oil-change business next door seven years prior. The couple ran Velma’s for 18 months and lived in the downstairs Velma’s apartment.
Stryker said the best part of running the business was “meeting new friends and making lifelong friends.”
Stryker lives in Missouri now but remains good friends with folks she met at Velma’s, which she said was the oldest bar in Alabama when she ran it. On her first day in business, she made $25 or $30. By the end of the week, she was bringing in $500 per day. Delicious secrets are hard to keep.
“That business meant a lot to me,” Stryker said. “That was one of the things Terry and I were very proud of. I’m just glad to see it coming back and that it’s going to be named Velma’s.”
Stryker sold Velma’s in 1997 to Fran Salumn, who ran it until it closed in 2012. Salumn was a New York native who moved to Alabama by herself around 1989 or 1990. She loved country music and country living.
“She was tired of city life, I guess,” said her daughter, Jeanine Lattarulo.
Lattarulo, speaking from downtown Manhattan, said Salumn owned a tavern, Tollgate, in New York and ran it with her grandfather for years. When they sold it, she moved to Alabama. Lattarulo helped paint Velma’s when her mother bought it.
“It was all about the people,” Lattarulo said. “It really was. She loved it.”
Lattarulo said her mother took her riding through neighborhoods and to landmarks in Alabama. If someone had horses, she’d visit. She’d drive through the mountains after closing the bar at 2 a.m. Dangerous, perhaps?
“She’d say, ‘It’s Alabama. It’s fine,’” Lattarulo said. “She really loved Alabama. A city girl became a country girl.”
Donnie Payne, a 2004 Hewitt-Trussville High School graduate, was visiting home from Auburn in 2010 when friends suggested a trip to Velma’s. His vote had been for bowling. While at Velma’s, a former classmate, Mallory, walked in. The two hadn’t seen each other in years. Now, they’ve been married almost 12 years and have three kids.
“I owe my family to Velma’s, I guess,” he said, laughing. “It was just kind of happenstance. I’m not going to lie, I was kind of on the bowling side of the argument before we went. I’m glad I was outvoted.”
Those stories aren’t rare. Amber Clark met her husband, Chris, there in 2009 while singing karaoke.
“I guess I’d have never met him had I never been to Velma’s,” said Clark, who worked shifts here and there for Salumn from 2009 to 2012. “It was just a great place. I met my husband there and I have a lot of good friends from there. We fought there, we cried there, we’ve been happy there. Most people experienced a lot of that walking through those doors.”
Clark remembered droves of folks coming to Velma’s to sing karaoke. The singers were good. The audience was quiet, respectful. One man, who used a wheelchair, was lifted by “loyal customers” into the building when it was not handicap accessible, so that he could sing karaoke from his table.
“You could always go in there by yourself and there’d be somebody you knew, so you would never be alone,” Clark said. “I guess that’s why everyone loved it so much.”
When Velma’s closed in August 2012, it became Parish Seafood & Oyster House and later SkyBear Confections. In 2022, the Butlers leased the property from Huynh Properties, LLC to re-open it as Velma’s. The tentative plan is to re-open Velma’s in February or March.
“It truly is about all of these people that make up Velma’s or made up what Velma’s was,” Royce said. “The iconic name that it carries in the town. It’s for all of those people. It’s not about us. We just happen to be the ones lucky enough to get in and sign a lease on the building.”
