River Bottom Grille provides dinner with scenery

Stanfield’s River Bottom Grille offers seafood from Destin, Fla., as well as a variety of classic favorites including sandwiches, hamburgers and pasta. The waterfront location provides a Tennessee River view with the meal.

Stanfield’s River Bottom Grille has been serving up seafood on the marina, neighbor to McFarland Park and a stone’s throw from Miami Ice, since its April 2 grand opening.

The space was previously The Barge Inn and made for itself many a college-aged fan, including myself. The management change isn’t apparent from the exterior. By day or night, fishermen and boaters still come and go in and out of the marina, and the same lights still glimmer on the surface of the water after the sun has gone down … then you step inside.

The new management obviously decided to lay to rest the honky-tonk, sports bar atmosphere. Now it’s more like my uncle and a Pinterest-savvy gal-pal butted heads over the interior decorating. It’s charming — in a nautical, baby’s breath arrangements in burlap-tied Mason jars, draped lights sort of way.

I’ve been twice since the grand opening. The second time, I went for lunch with three friends, and we were seated almost immediately in the spacious downstairs dining area.

After a casual greeting from the waitress, I grappled with cravings for hand-tossed pizza — a signature dish of the Barge Inn — that has come to be a part of my times at the floating restaurant. Instead, I directed these cravings to the River Bottom Burger. Sounds like an unimaginative selection but (assumedly) good enough to be named after its own restaurant. Almost 25 minutes later, I was introduced to an impressive-sized burger stacked with your classic lettuce, tomato, pepper jack and “tobacco onions” (I didn’t know what tobacco onions are, and neither did my server, but came to find out they are thin-sliced, battered and fried and actually have nothing to do with tobacco) in a toasted bun, all sided with a sweet potato in place of fries.

Here’s something I don’t say often: it was more food than I could finish, not to say I didn’t want to.

The burger didn’t knock me out of my chair, but whoever was at the grill was definitely on his or her game. That beef patty was a perfect, juicy medium.

The menu is a chasm for the indecisive, with appetizers like pickle chips, half-shell oysters and popcorn shrimp, and entrees including steak and ribs, seafood, flats, sandwiches, burgers, soups, salads, pasta and chicken.

Most of the seafood comes from Destin, Fla., with the exception of their mild white fish, which is pond-raised on a farm in Mississippi.

After the tip, my check was a little over $14 — a price that exceeded the meal’s worth, in my opinion, but I’d pay it again for the waterfront dining atmosphere. Excuse the nostalgia, but what better way to metabolize a belly full of surf ‘n’ turf than a walk along the pier that juts out into the Tennessee River?

To get your money’s worth, I recommend upstairs balcony seating, wait or no wait. I would even venture to say the River Bottom experience is incomplete until you’ve sat around a table on the dimly lit, breezy balcony overlooking the water.

On weekdays from 10:30 a.m. until 2 p.m., $8 will get you lunch with a fountain drink, not including the tip. Happy hour is every weekday night from 2-5 p.m., with $2 pint drafts and $4 appetizers. They also have live music every Friday and Saturday night.

A unique feature of the restaurant is a small enclave on the ground floor where you can peer over the edge into the murky river water and even watch fish swim past.

The real sinker is that River Bottom is now one of a handful of Florence eateries open Sunday. The restaurant is open Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday from 10:30 a.m. until 9 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 10:30 a.m. until 11 p.m.