One of the first things you notice is a sign saying that parking for 

the (New Orleans) Crescent City Classic, a road race, is prohibited. 

Then, over the bar, you’ll see a Coast Guard banner with signatures 

and comments from a Coast Guard unit. How’d those things get there?

“The Coast Guard found Tipseas and made it their home (during the oil 

spill clean-up) while they were here,” said Sherry Odom, one of 

Tipseas’ owners, adding the unit presented the banner on their last 

visit to the establishment, which celebrated its second birthday last 

October.

Tipseas is a restaurant and bar located right across Highway 181 from 

the beach. It’s one of those places that you used to be able to find 

all over the Alabama Gulf Coast — a spot where you can find freshly 

prepared seafood that is actually good for you.

“I have been in the food and beverage business since I was a teen,” 

said Odom. “My mother leased space in the Cotton Bayou Marina for me.”

Odom mentioned that she had been towed into the marina and told the 

then owner that the place needed a kitchen.

“It was a closet at the end of the bar,” said Odom. She then went on 

to Babyo’s, which her mother also leased for her.

Odom went on to other things, culminating in owning the Santa Fe 

Chile Co. with Karen Hameroff. The women sold the company, and with 

both having deep roots on the Gulf Coast (Hameroff is from Pensacola) 

decided to open a restaurant on the coast.

But both women found the coast had changed.

“We felt like tourists in our own towns,” said Odom.

The pair met when Hameroff did the architectural plans for a house 

that Odom owned on Bayou Texar in Pensacola. She had studied 

architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.

Hameroff raised fresh herbs, which Odom used in making some of her 

bottled spice and dressing mixes.

But, the pair felt something of the “old” Gulf Coast could come back.

“This was my back yard,” said Hameroff. “I loved the quaintness of 

Orange Beach.”

“I have family here, I grew up here. I am a waterbug,” said Odom.

The pair returned to the area, and collaborated in the opening of Nix 

Steak and Oysters at the Wharf before establishing Tipseas.

The road race sign, Odom says, was brought in by a customer who knows 

Odom’s love of Mardi Gras.

“We had to open a place so we would have something good to eat,” 

quipped Odom.

Both women said the restaurant does a lot of charity work, and they 

have the “SMART” (Students Making Achievements Receive Tipseas 

scholarships) program to help Gulf Shores students go to college in 

the state of Alabama.

“It’s like a baby (the restaurant) and it takes a lot of work to help 

it grow,” said Hameroff. She added that she does a “lot of mediation 

and yoga” to deal with the stress of owning a business.

Charity and outreach, Odom, says is how the restaurant deals with the 

“recent catastrophic event” — the oil spill.

“We’ve seen how it affected our whole community,” she said. “When 

someone comes in and says they are losing their house, what do you say?”

Sherry Odom and Karen Hameroff, proprieters of Tipseas in Orange 

Beach, seem to have found their niche in the restaurant business. The 

restaurant and bar is popular with locals and visitors alike, 

although the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disrupted tourism along the 

Gulf Coast. The women are active in the community, and have set up a 

scholarship fund for students who study hard and make good grades. 

Staff photo by Donna Riley-Lein.