Good Company Café is the kind of local restaurant everyone wants in their part of town. The food’s tasty, accessible yet clever, on-point and affordable, and served in a space that’s cozy, comfy and great for conversations.
Since 2018, Good Company has brought that to Huntsville, Alabama’s south side. A part of the city that often gets passed over for cool new local businesses, in favor of trendier plays like downtown or Huntsville’s west side.
Good Co. does brunch all day, a rarity among local spots in this market, as well as sandwiches like a signature orange-cranberry chicken salad.
It’s all helped them earn a strong base of loyal regulars. Tucked away in Main Street Shopping Village, Good Company’s grown into the anchor of that brick commercial development, which has been around since the early ‘90s or so.
“We love it here,” says executive chef John Lindbeck. He runs Good Company with Angela Lindbeck, who founded the restaurant and is their organizational maestro. “We’ve been here almost eight years,” John says, “so we know a lot of our customers. But still, like 50 percent of our customers are new customers.”
Angela adds, “Which is a great mix.” She says Good Co.’s regulars are “like an extension of the family when you see them. We’ve seen so many first dates. Engagements. We’ve catered weddings for those people and now they still bring their kids with them.”
As we chat, it’s just after 11 a.m. on a recent Friday. The dining room is buzzing and filled with an array of guests. Young people. Old people. Nearby residents. Folks who drive 30 minutes to get here. Couples. Friends. Families.
Thriving in South Huntsville has enabled Good Company Café to open a second location this spring. It’ll be in Five Points, one of Huntsville’s most charming neighborhoods. More specifically the Pratt Avenue building most recently home to 1892 East Restaurant & Tavern, which closed in 2025 after a nearly 15-year run.
Good Company had been previously approached numerous times about opening a location in places Huntsville’s downtown and Hampton Cove area and nearby Madison, Alabama.
“But most of the time,” Angela says, “it’s a new build. And you see what we like here,” referring to the original location’s character. “And that just doesn’t exist — it’s all 100 percent created, like falsified — in a new build.”
But then the former 1892 East space came up. “We were like, well, damn, that’s really enticing,” Angela says. “Five Points is an awesome neighborhood.”
The building is rich with Huntsville food history. It was also home to locally iconic diner Zesto, known for their dip dogs. Bygone eateries like Sazio’s and Starfish were once here, too. Same shopping center as Star Market, a longtime grocer that sells Terry’s Pizza, another Huntsville classic, in the back of the store.
Good Company Café’s menu in Five Points will boast greatest hits and new twists. Best sellers like their Dad’s Egg Sandwich with cheddar, bacon, garlic aioli, sourdough. A breakfast panini is built with eggs, bacon, feta, pesto, tomato and focaccia. Their sausage biscuit has cheddar, fried egg, and a tomato jam that sets it all off.
John says, “And some different [menu] items kind of exclusive to that area [Five Points]. So that way if somebody wants to come here and get this thing, it’s here.”
The Lindbecks are dividing/remodeling the existing Five Points space — and after Good Company’s rollout there, they’ll add a new concept on the north side of the space: Etta’s Tavern, a nod to the couple‘s dog Etta, named for singer Etta James, who recorded classic tracks about an hour away in Muscle Shoals.
The Good Company side will be counter service brunch/lunch like the original location. Meanwhile, Etta’s will be dinner only and table service with full bar. That food menu will include items like braised beef tips and grits and a chicken pimento casserole. John says, “The price range is not going to be through the roof. It’s still going to be approachable.” Angela says, “I’ve described it as finer dining. It’s not fine dining but it’s a little finer.”
Angela was born and raised in South Huntsville and attended Whitesburg Middle School and Grissom High. John grew up on a cow farm in the Modesto, California area. Job opportunities brought him to Huntsville.
Huntsville is known for its aerospace engineering, including helping put man on the moon. In recent years, development is booming in the city. Along with that have come vastly improved and diverse dining options.
John and Angela met while both were working in Mezza Luna, a defunct beloved Mediterranean restaurant in Huntsville’s Jones Valley area. She was the sous chef there and John was executive chef.
“We have the unique perspective that we started as coworkers,” Angela says, “and we were truly purely coworkers when we were at Mezza Luna. He trained me on so many things, when it comes to culinary — he is the master of that. I have always been more like detail, like business intricacies focused, systematic. Creating method to the madness.”
He later moved on to downtown dining cornerstone Cotton Row. At age 25, Angela founded Good Company with a college friend who specialized in pastries. They’d also worked together in Cape Cod’s service industry. The space was formerly home to Main St. Cafe & Bakery, which among other things served ”homemade Pop-Tarts.”
“We started with very little cash here,” Angela says. “We didn’t have a hospitality group backing and it was just from the ground up.”
Good Company purchased the restaurant’s furnishings secondhand, which imbued the dining room with, as I wrote in a 2023 Huntsville’s best breakfast list, “cool aunt’s windchime bungalow” vibes. Adding quirkiness, the restaurant’s prep kitchen is located across the breezeway outback.
For a while in South Huntsville, Good Company did tapas and live music at night, in addition to brunch and lunch. “Which was a grind,” Angela says. It wasn’t making the cash register light up like a Christmas tree either.
This was also around, Angela says, “when the Parkway [Huntsville’s main thoroughfare] was getting finished over here.” As John notes, Construction of new overpasses on South Memorial Parkway around that time “drove out a lot of businesses from here” or shuttered them.
Amidst pandemic challenges, Good Co. found final form. John joined the fold in 2019. He says,” We started doing take-and -bake casseroles and stuff like that. We were selling a lot of charcuterie boards. For some reason people wanted to share food again.”
After restaurants started fully reopening, and Angela’s former business partner departed circa summer 2021, Good Company rebranded as brunch/lunch only.
“At the time,” John says, “there was none of that [in Huntsville]. It was [the chain] Another Broken Egg. You didn’t have any local brunch places.” Angela adds, “And honestly, it’s easier to do the same menu all day.”
They turned the area outside their South Huntsville cafe into al fresco dining, expanding the guest capacity in warmer months to about 90 total from 30 inside.
Currently, the Lindbecks employ a staff of around 15 at the original Good Company Café. They anticipate a similar staff size for their Five Points location, which will have a 60 guest capacity, with another 20 employees for Etta’s Tavern, which will seat around 80.
Susanna Chesser is a longtime regular at Good Company. A business owner herself, she operates Huntsville and Madison locations of fitness chain Pure Barre, Chesser resides near the café. She’s a fan of the Dad’s Eggs Sandwich (sans bacon as she’s pescatarian), avocado toast, seasonal lattes and the occasional London Fog.
“It’s kind of like going and hanging out with my friends,” Chesser says. “Just that vibe of the small local business where you feel good going in there, you get a good product, you get great service. It doesn’t feel so cold like a lot of other businesses can feel sometimes. And so it’s just like a happy place for me. “
Lauren Howard is manager of Good Co.’s original South Huntsville location. She’s been there for about five and a half years, starting in front-of-house — at the counter, running food, barista.
“I really think that we’ve built something special over here, for sure,” Howard says. “It’s the relationships that we build with the customers. We build true friendships with these people.”
Howard’s personal menu faves include the pastries, such as muffins, scones and a blueberry drop biscuit. Also, Good Company’s sausage balls appetizer with bacon gravy, cheddar and cayenne. “I always say if I wasn’t working here, I would definitely be a regular customer, just for the food.”
Breakfast all day, or at least 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, makes Good Company a go-to for locals who work late. Howard says, “It’s the night shift nurses that come in and they want breakfast in the morning. The people getting off at 2 o’ clock, they want to just come get a mimosa, chill out. Things like that.”
It’s common for restaurant employees to flit from job to job. Although Good Company Café has some turnover, their staff retention is strong. The staff genuinely seems happy to be there.
“It’s just such a great work environment,” Howard says. “The people I work with are so supportive, we all support each other, and John and Angela are so motivating. They don’t give up on you. They push you not past your limits but definitely to it, and they definitely make us better people for sure.”
Now 23-years-old, Howard started working at Good Company Café when she was 17. It’s the only job she’s ever had. “So I really don’t have any kind of prior experience to base it off of, but I really couldn’t imagine going anywhere else.”
Asked how she expects things to go with the new location, Howard says, “We have a lot of people come down [to South Huntsville] from Five Points, and they’ve been asking a long time, ‘Y’all need to move here’. People from Madison have been like, ‘You need to move closer to us.’ And so I expect it to be super good.”