The coffee order at Volt Coffee on a Saturday morning tells you what kind of day it is. Somebody in line is getting an iced oat milk latte to go with a kayak reservation. Somebody behind them is picking up a to-go cup because they're headed the other direction, across the water, for a plate of smoked turkey. Both people live five minutes from each other. Neither one is going to the same dock.
That split is the whole story of how Southside spends a weekend, and it is easy to miss if you only ever go to one side of the river.
Two Docks, Same River
Southside sits along the Coosa River, connected to its neighbor Rainbow City by two bridges built decades apart, known locally as Little Bridge and Big Bridge. The newer crossing carries most of the traffic now, but the older one still gives its name to the marina that sits near it, and that naming detail matters more than it sounds like it should. It marks the line between the two places Southside residents actually go for the river.
On one bank is Southside Landing, the city's own waterfront park, which opened to the public on May 1, 2022. On the other, a short drive down AL-77, is Little Bridge Marina, a restaurant and boat fuel stop that has been serving the same stretch of water since 2014. They are not competing for the same visit. They exist for different parts of the day, and a resident who treats them as interchangeable is missing half of what the river offers.
The Landing Side
Southside Landing was built for the parts of a Saturday that involve kids, kayaks, or both. The park sits on its own peninsula jutting into the Coosa, with a boat launch, a pier, a playground, picnic pavilions, and a paved, lighted walking trail that loops the property. A self-serve kiosk called Rent Fun handles kayak and paddleboard rentals without a staffed counter. You book through your phone, grab a life vest, and put in. Rentals start at $25 for the first two hours, with a lower hourly rate after that, and the kiosk runs sunup to sundown every day of the week.
Food at the Landing comes from Blackstone Bait Shack, an offshoot of the longtime local favorite Blackstone Pub & Eatery, which opened at the park in October 2022. The original plan called for a simple bait shop on the site. The city council decided a restaurant would serve the community better, and the pizza-by-the-water setup that resulted has become the anchor for the Landing's evening programming: Sunset Suppers, where food trucks set up along the boardwalk, and Dinner and a Movie nights, where families spread blankets on the lawn for an outdoor screening while eating Blackstone's pizza or whatever truck happens to be parked that week. Those movie nights are a joint production with Rainbow City and the Neely Henry Lake Association, which tells you something about how tightly the two river towns share this stretch of shoreline even though they are separate cities on the map.
The Landing also hosts the Southside and Rainbow City Christmas Boat Parade every December, an event that predates the park itself. The tradition started in 2020, when more than 200 vehicles showed up to watch decorated boats cruise the Coosa while the future park site was still a gravel lot. The most recent parade ran the evening of Sunday, December 7, 2025, and the city has continued it every year since the Landing opened, so residents can expect another one this coming December, even before an exact date is posted to the city's events page.
The Marina Side
Little Bridge Marina runs on an older clock. Craig Inzer Jr. and Curt Vezertzis, who grew up together on the river, bought the property in 2014, when it was little more than a bait shack and a defunct marina at the corner of Whorton Bend Road and Highway 77. What started as a side project to lease out buildings turned into a full restaurant once word got around that there was gas, ice, and food to be had at the corner. The lunch specials still follow a weekly rhythm: roasted chicken and meatloaf on Mondays, turkey and dressing on Tuesdays, smoked ham on Wednesdays, roasted chicken again on Thursdays, and smoked brisket on Fridays. The restaurant is known specifically for its smoked turkey, a detail regulars mention before anything else on the menu.
An October 2020 fire destroyed the original building. Rather than rebuild on the same footprint, Inzer and Vezertzis moved into a neighboring event space, the former Tracy J's showroom, and reopened roughly six months later in a building that nearly tripled their old capacity, room for about 75 diners inside and 200 more on the patio. The new dining room looks out over the marina and both bridges at once.
"You can look all the way to Riddles Bend and the end of Southside from Cedar Bend Road."
That's Inzer describing the view from the rebuilt patio, and it is the kind of detail that only makes sense once you understand the marina's whole appeal is the sightline, not just the food. Boaters still tie up at the dock mid-meal, which means the crowd on any given afternoon mixes church clothes with swimsuits, sometimes at the same table.
Why the Loop Actually Works
Put the two sides together and a pattern shows up that neither location explains on its own:
- Morning: coffee at Volt Coffee, a short walk or drive from either bank
- Midday: paddle out from the Landing on a Rent Fun kayak, or launch a boat from the ramp
- Evening: cross to Little Bridge Marina for a plate lunch and the bridge view, or stay at the Landing for a Sunset Supper and a movie on the lawn
- December: the Christmas Boat Parade pulls both crowds back to the same stretch of water at once
None of this requires choosing a side permanently. It requires knowing which side does what, which is the kind of local knowledge that doesn't show up on a map.
More Riverfront Than Anywhere Else in the County
Here's the fact that explains why a city this size supports two separate river destinations instead of one combined spot. Southside holds more riverfront property along the Coosa than any other incorporated city or town in Etowah County, more than 31 miles of it. Gadsden gets more attention for its downtown and its falls. Rainbow City shares the same bend of the river and half the bridge traffic. But the actual shoreline, the physical amount of bank that touches the water, belongs mostly to Southside.
That's not a coincidence that produced Southside Landing and Little Bridge Marina as competitors. It's the reason there was room for both to exist without crowding each other out. A city with a mile of river frontage has to pick one thing to build. A city with 31 miles can build a family park on one end and let a barbecue restaurant hold down the other, and the distance between them becomes a feature instead of an inconvenience.
If you've only ever gone to one side, the other one is worth the short drive. The loop is the point.
If you're a longtime Southside resident who's ever wondered what a place like this, with two working docks and 31 miles of river frontage, is actually worth in today's market, the team at Impact Realty knows this stretch of the Coosa as well as anyone. We're a phone call away whenever that question turns into a real one.
