Tip Top Cafe

History

Tip Top began in the late 1940s as Church's Tip Top Café, a family restaurant. SoulGrown reports that Lance Church added live music in the 1980s to fill slow dinners; the cinder-block room later hosted Bo Diddley, Leon Russell, the Black Crowes, Collective Soul, the Goo Goo Dolls, 311, and Widespread Panic. AL.com dates the original closing to 1995. In 2025 St. Stephens Music Hall partners John Chamness and Evan Billiter, with Velocé Pizza owner Trevar Akins, signed a five-year lease to reopen the Lincoln Mill building at 125 Maple Avenue as Tip Top Café featuring Velocé Pizza.