The Quaint Alabama Cafe That Was Once A Jail Gives You The Experience Of Dining Behind Bars

If the idea of eating a meal behind bars has ever appealed to you (be it morbid curiosity or whatever else), have we got a place for you. The Main Street Cafe in downtown Madison, Alabama is a cozy restaurant slinging Southern comfort food out of the old jailhouse. And don't worry, you don't need to get caught driving after a couple slices of Alabama's famously boozy state cake to land a table there — you can make a reservation right on the website.

The building that now houses the Main Street Cafe was actually constructed in 1955 to be the third city hall for Madison, Alabama, so it housed much more than just the jail. The building has been a restaurant since the 1990s, though originally it housed not only the two jail cells you can now have a meal in, but also offices for the mayor, the chief of police, the water department, and the collections clerk — they even used to store the fire department's engine in the building. So, if eating in jail isn't for you, there is plenty of other history on offer.

While the restaurant does have a couple of jail cells to dine in, that isn't the theme of the restaurant on the whole. The general decoration is homey and relaxed. Sitting down to a meal at Main Street Cafe has the feeling of pulling up a chair at a family table — a perfect setting for a hearty plate of comfort food.

As soon as you set foot inside Main Street Cafe it's clear you can expect much better than the standard, low-quality prison food at this former jailhouse. This charming restaurant serves up reasonably-priced Southern favorites as well as creative dishes with a distinctly Southern flair.

The lunch menu features many familiar sandwiches and salads, but the entrees are where to look. The Poulet de Normandie is a local favorite, a cheesy chicken casserole made with cornbread stuffing and mushroom sauce that's served with cranberry salad, either green beans or carrots, and a hot roll, pumpkin bread, or lemon poppyseed bread — all for $12.50 at the time of writing.

The dinner menu gets into some serious Southern cuisine. For a starter, consider the Cajun-style Fried Deviled Eggs or the Honey Thyme Beer Battered Onion Rings. With your main course you can choose from dishes like Low Country Shrimp and Grits or Pimento and Cheese Stuffed Chicken (from the "Yard Bird" section of the menu). And be sure to save room for dessert — according to Yelp reviews, the strawberry pretzel salad is "to die for."

Main Street Cafe knows how to keep repeat customers flowing in as well. Not only does the restaurant have a menu filled with comfort food favorites, but the specials on offer are constantly changing, with exciting dishes like Mushroom Brie Soup, Ribeye with Cajun Cream Sauce, and Fried Strawberry Pie all making an appearance. There's certainly no shortage of exciting options to choose from.

If jailhouse dining is on your bucket list but a visit to Alabama isn't in the cards, worry not; there are many prison-themed restaurants out there. Throughout the United States, there are a number of restaurants in old jails, though for most of these the jailhouse locale is more of an interesting fact rather than the theme of the restaurant. 

Take the Olde Jaol Steakhouse in Wooster, Ohio, for example. The restaurant is housed in a building that served as a prison for over a century, but the only mention on the menu is the "Bailiff's Burgers" section. Details like the iron bar fence around the tavern patio play to the prison theme, but the interior is plenty comfortable.

This phenomenon of prison dining exists around the world, but the restaurants abroad sometimes get a bit more intense. In Australia there is a boutique hotel in a former prison, where the booths in the restaurant are separated by tall iron bars. In Egypt, a prison-themed restaurant called "Food Crime" took things too far for the tastes of many, with dark details like handcuffs and its very own electric chair. Though, in true prison fashion, the restaurant also apparently served expired food, and was shut down for it in 2017.

Whether it's morbid curiosity, interest in historic places, or the simple desire to sit down to a hearty plate of Southern comfort food, there's no doubt that dining in an old prison is a widespread desire. Fortunately, there are more options out there than you might expect.