Corrie Sid hopes she can bring another dining option to Tallassee.
Sid opened Grove Station in downtown Tallassee almost two years ago and an opportunity next door came about when Mike Segrest was elected district attorney.
“If you have a chance to buy a building that is connected to you, it’s important to grab it,” Sid said. “You can better control what goes next to you. If you don’t, you don’t know what could go in next to you. I had the opportunity to buy it, so I did.”
Sid said she hasn’t fully developed any ideas yet but has gone back and forth on some.
“I want to put in a full bar and do a fine dining experience next door,” Sid said. “I want it to be approachable. It’s not going to be too stuffy. It’s nice. It’s not going to be a to-go restaurant. We will only do dinner. It will probably be Thursday, Friday, Saturday and some form of Sunday.”
Sid wants to grow the dining experience she has created above Grove Station.
“It would be a nice dinner place, taking the model I have been doing upstairs and moving it next door, mainly because I can’t accommodate enough upstairs,” Sid said. “When I have my dinners upstairs, they tend to have such a good time, they buy all the tickets for the next dinner. Because I’m only seating 28 at a time I don’t feel like I can offer as much as I want.”
Sid ideas for what to do with the space are still early in development.
“If I can achieve what I want to achieve, I would put a rooftop bar,” Sid said. “I think we have an opportunity to kind of do something really nice. I have been spending a lot of time at rooftop bars looking at what I want to do.”
Sid said her idea of a rooftop bar is far from a honky tonk or place where trouble could possibly gather.
“Never have I been talking about shots and drafts, not that I might not have one or two craft beers on tap, but this is not about that,” Sid said. “This is about a beautiful scene and maximizing the view of having a really nice place with nice music.”
It would be different from Grove Station. Currently Sid has the ability to both serve and sell bottles of wine for customers to take home. The restaurant would only be a on-site service for alcohol.
Sid and local businessman Noah Griggs presented an idea of recreating the Hotel Talisi just across the street from Sid’s Grove Station. She said the hotel business model would complement what she already has established and wants to do next door.
“The downstairs lobby ends up being a lobby, cafe, bar and check in desk,” Sid said. “Guests will need breakfast. You would have 6 a.m. cafe breakfast there. You will have lunch at Grove Station and have dinner next door.”
Sid wants to create an industrial looking space in Tallassee.
“Wetumpka says they are a Victorian district,” Sid said. “I think we are industrial. We have always been industrial.”
Sid said Grove Station’s neon sign is for a reason — to play into that “industrial vibe.”
“I want us to be a little bit edgy,” Sid said. “That would make us unique.”
Sid’s purchase of the Segrest building and wanting to give input on downtown Tallassee and beyond is for a reason.
“We need our downtown to be precious and treated like it's precious,” Sid said. “It is ultimately about creating the type of experiences we want to come to Tallassee. We want to hand pick what that is.”
Sid also owns the Guest House where ownership of Tallassee’s mills stayed when visiting from New York nearly a century ago. Sid said the project has been put on somewhat of a hold due to escalating costs seen during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. But if Sid and Griggs can get a new Hotel Talisi to happen, the idea for the Guest House changes some too.
“Now I need to develop 20 acres because it can’t make a profitable business off of eight bedrooms,” Sid said. “If I can get [Hotel Talisi] in place, the Guest House turns into a wedding venue and the overflow stays here. If not I got to get some help developing 20 acres in the middle of Tallassee into cottages or something along those lines.”
Sid said work continues at the Guest House to preserve the structure for future renovations. Sid noted the steel in the building to support the green stained shake shaped terracotta roof.
“It is very sturdy but the windows are old and one of the bathrooms exploded after I bought it, flooding another room,” Sid said. “We had to gut all the bathrooms. The place is gutted right now.”
All of Sid’s projects and visions are to help rebuild her hometown into something better.
“All I’m trying to do is elevate Tallassee,” Sid said. “That's all I’m trying to do.”
