Corinne Burnham started with a sign at the bottom of a hill. She had converted a former private home on Alabama Highway 23 into a bed and breakfast, and she expected to keep catering while she waited to see what would happen. In three or four months, she told Discover St. Clair, the upstairs rooms were selling out. She ended up turning her two-car garage into an innkeeper's suite so she'd have one more room to rent.
That house is Haven on the Hill, at 9105 AL Hwy 23 in Ashville. Last November it added something meant for people who live nearby as well as overnight guests. The Crooked Crown is a restaurant on the side porch, and it serves the public on weekends.
That timing matters on the town calendar. The two big evenings left on the Square in 2026 both land on Saturdays, and both fall inside the porch's dinner hours.
The Fourth Restaurant From a Chef Who Keeps Opening Them
According to the April 2026 feature, Haven on the Hill is Burnham's fourth restaurant. She grew up in Massachusetts and started at 14, frosting doughnuts at a shop in Greenfield. She started a catering business in 1998 and opened her first restaurant, Rooster's Bistro in Northfield, Mass., in 2003.
When she came South, she spent time in Chattanooga first. Then she opened Plowshares in Mentone and a restaurant called 33 in Fort Payne before settling in St. Clair County. Haven on the Hill had been open three and a half years when that article came out.
Burnham said the B&B idea met some early skepticism in Ashville, so she started slowly. The name comes from the setting. "You can't see another property from this property, and it's on a hill," she said. The people she bought the property from have a 200-acre cattle farm, and she said you can sometimes see the animals through the trees.
The restaurant grew out of breakfast. Once word got around about the breakfasts at the inn, Burnham started getting dinner requests. Some came from overnight guests. Others came from people who day-tripped from places like Birmingham and Odenville. The side porch she named The Crooked Crown was her answer.
What the Porch Serves, and When
Discover St. Clair reported three kinds of service at Haven on the Hill:
- Breakfast for overnight guests, served in the dining room from 7:30 to 9 a.m.
- Weekend brunch at The Crooked Crown, open to the public from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., by reservation only
- Dinner on Friday and Saturday nights, from 5 to 8 p.m.
The feature also says box lunches are available on request.
The menu items it names cover a wide range. There's eggs Benedict, salmon or chicken piccata, and sausage gravy and biscuits for a plainer brunch. Burnham said she has always run "constantly changing seasonal menus" in her restaurants, so a dish from a spring write-up may not be on the table in October.
Treat the hours above as what was reported in April 2026, not a confirmed fall schedule. The Haven on the Hill website covers rooms, breakfast and event-venue services. It doesn't post The Crooked Crown's menu or hours, and its "Book Now" button opens a phone call, not an online calendar. The site also shows two different phone numbers, so confirm which line takes restaurant reservations when you call.
Two Saturdays on the Square
This is where the porch connects to the rest of Ashville's fall. The city calendar lists two evening events downtown before the year ends, and both fall on Saturdays.
Sweets on the Square is set for Saturday, October 31, from 6 to 8 p.m. The city's 2024 listing described it as trick-or-treating only, held downtown on the Square to give children a fun and safe place to go.
The Ashville Christmas Parade is set for Saturday, December 12, at 6 p.m. The city calendar doesn't list a route or an organizer yet.
If The Crooked Crown keeps the Friday and Saturday dinner hours reported in April, here's how the two nights line up:
| Night | On the Square | Crooked Crown dinner window, as reported | How the timing works |
|---|---|---|---|
| Saturday, Oct. 31 | Sweets on the Square, 6 to 8 p.m. | 5 to 8 p.m. | The two windows overlap almost completely, so dinner and trick-or-treating compete for the same hours |
| Saturday, Dec. 12 | Christmas Parade, 6 p.m. | 5 to 8 p.m. | The parade starts an hour after dinner service opens, which leaves room to eat before or after |
| Friday, Oct. 30 or Dec. 11 | No listed Square event | 5 to 8 p.m. | The night before each event has no conflict |
The Halloween overlap is the important one. Sweets on the Square runs nearly the whole length of the porch's dinner service. A household handing out candy downtown or walking kids around the Square has the Friday before and the 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday brunch as the realistic times to book. Parade night is looser. A 6 p.m. start leaves room for an early table at 5 or a later one after the parade.
Neither event appears on The Crooked Crown's own schedule. No holiday or Thanksgiving dinner announcement had turned up for Haven on the Hill as of this writing, so calling is still the only way to find out what the porch is doing on a particular weekend.
The Rest of the Ashville Table
The porch adds a reservation-and-seasonal-menu option to a town whose other well-known spots work differently, and each sits on a different road out of town.
Lala's is on Sixth Avenue in downtown Ashville at 140 Sixth Avenue. Visit St. Clair describes it as a pizzeria, bookstore and gathering place with stone-baked pizza, salads, beer and wine. It's the closest of the three to the Square, which makes it the obvious name to consider on a night when the event downtown sets the schedule. Visit St. Clair's listing doesn't post hours, so check before planning around it on Halloween or parade night.
BJ's Diner is out on the highway at 37177 U.S. Highway 231, Suite 1. Visit St. Clair lists it as a Southern-style comfort-food diner. When Bham Now put together its October 2026 roundup of fall outings in St. Clair County, BJ's was the Ashville stop, for "hefty burgers to meat + veggie sides." Last year the diner opened on Thanksgiving Day from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. with fried turkey, ham, ribs, smoked chicken, and chicken and dressing, Pell City Podcast reported in November 2025. That was the 2025 plan. BJ's hadn't announced anything for 2026 in what we found.
Highway 231 also leads to the newest stop in town. The QuikTrip travel center on the north side of the I-59 and U.S. 231 interchange opened at the end of April 2026, the St. Clair Times reported. It includes a QT Kitchens counter and was expected to add about two dozen jobs. It's not a sit-down dinner, but on a busy Saturday it's the quickest food in town.
That leaves three kinds of meal on three roads:
- Sixth Avenue, downtown. Pizza and books a short walk from the Square, at Lala's.
- U.S. 231. A Southern diner plate at BJ's, with the QuikTrip interchange farther up the same highway.
- Alabama Highway 23. A seasonal menu on a farmhouse porch at The Crooked Crown, reserved ahead by phone.
Before and After the Square
The city's two parks near downtown give families somewhere to spend the time before an event starts. The City of Ashville parks page lists the Community Park & Splash Pad at the corner of 3rd Avenue and 7th Street, and D.O. Langston Park next to City Hall, which has a lighted walking path, a play area and a gazebo. On a December evening, a lighted path near City Hall is a practical place to wait before a 6 p.m. parade.
October has already had a few of its other big moments. Alabama's Third Annual Little Tomatina, a tomato-throwing event modeled on Spain's La Tomatina, ran at Greensport RV Park & Marina on the evening of October 3, with $10 wristbands. That leaves October 31 and December 12 as the remaining big nights on this year's calendar, and both are Saturdays.
For The Crooked Crown, the practical steps are simple. Call the inn, ask whether the Friday and Saturday dinner hours still run 5 to 8 p.m., and ask what's on the seasonal menu that week. For Halloween, ask about the Friday before or Saturday brunch. For parade night, ask for a table at 5 or after the parade ends. Burnham summed up her approach to the business in the April feature: "Food is my love language."
Impact Realty keeps track of openings like The Crooked Crown across St. Clair and Etowah counties, because the restaurant up the road is part of what a home in Ashville comes with. If you're curious how your Ashville home compares in today's market, start with Get Your Instant Home Valuation, and call us when you want a local read on the numbers.
