Start from 17 curated places around Mentone, AL, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Wildflower Cafe
The anchor of Mentone's dining scene since the mid-2000s, a sunny, slightly bohemian spot serving made-from-scratch plates that lean vegetarian but cover a lot of territory — wild-caught seafood, hormone-free meats, strong vegan and gluten-free options, and their celebrated tomato pie that regulars insist on ordering before they sit down. A small country store attached to the dining room sells local art, preserves, and jewelry. The porch on a cool mountain morning is one of the better seats in northeast Alabama.
Elevation Bistro
The closest thing Mentone has to a proper fine-dining room — a thoughtful, rotating menu built on locally and regionally sourced ingredients, craft cocktails, and the kind of warm service that makes small mountain towns worth visiting. The kitchen takes seasonal produce seriously, so the menu shifts; the bread pudding has become a reliable fixture. Reservations are expected and the room fills on weekends.
Trails & outdoors
DeSoto Falls Bottom and Ice Cave Trail
The most immediate access to DeSoto Falls from below, a 1.1-mile out-and-back that descends through boulders and roots to a swimming hole at the base of the 104-foot cascade, then splits to Icebox Cave — a cool, mossy cavern that seeps cold air even in summer. The trail is brief enough to do before lunch but steep enough to feel earned. One of the most photographed spots in Alabama.
Laurel and Lost Falls Trails Loop
A 2.4-mile loop threading through the sandstone ridges and mountain-laurel forest of DeSoto State Park, passing two distinct cascades tucked into shaded ravines. The terrain is rockier and more varied than it sounds on paper — this is the most-loved family hike in the park, and AllTrails reviewers consistently recommend it as the best kid-accessible waterfall trail in northeast Alabama. Spring and late fall are peak waterfall season; summer visits are quieter but the falls may be reduced.
Things to do
Mentone Arts Center
A nonprofit community arts center on AL-117 run by and for Lookout Mountain's creative community, showing rotating exhibitions of paintings, pottery, glass, jewelry, and sculpture from more than 60 regional artists. Classes and workshops in ceramics, painting, and fiber arts run throughout the year and are open to visitors. The gift shop is a reliably good place to find a piece of original Alabama mountain art without trekking to a city gallery.
Screaming Eagle Aerial Adventures
A guided zip-line and aerial-bridge course inside DeSoto State Park, with six zip lines up to 350 feet long and six sky bridges suspended through the tree canopy. The guided format means groups move together with an instructor from start to finish, which keeps the experience feeling safe even for first-timers and curious teenagers. The forest setting inside a state park gives it a backcountry feel that resort-based courses rarely match.
Landmarks & sights
Sallie Howard Memorial Baptist Church
A tiny sandstone chapel that Colonel Milford Howard built in the 1930s as a memorial to his wife — and the building literally wraps around a massive boulder that punches through the rear wall and into the pulpit area. The grounds are open around the clock, the carved inscription on an interior beam is Sallie's own last words, and Sunday services still happen weekly. It is odd and quiet and genuinely moving all at once.
DeSoto Falls
A 104-foot plunge waterfall on the West Fork of Little River, where Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto is said to have camped in 1540 while searching for gold in the Southern Appalachians. An ADA-accessible paved path leads to the main overlook, while a historic early-20th-century dam and upper cascade sit just above. The gorge light on a clear morning is extraordinary, especially in autumn.