THE A&M PEANUT SHOP: MOBILE’S OLDEST ROASTER ON DAUPHIN ST

Updated May 2026

A&M Peanut Shop · 209 Dauphin Street (between Conception and Joachim), downtown Mobile

If you grew up in Mobile, the smell stops you before the sign does. Roasted peanuts pouring out an open door, drifting all the way down Dauphin Street, pulling you in by the nose toward a little shop that looks almost exactly the way it looked when your grandparents brought you here. Glass cases. Hand-printed signs. A roaster older than your grandfather, churning peanuts a few feet from the front door. The same kindly people behind the counter your mother remembers.

This is the A&M Peanut Shop. It has been here since 1947, and almost nothing about it has changed. That is on purpose, and it is exactly why we love it.

A Roaster Older Than the Store Itself

That smell coming out the door does not come from a modern machine. The peanut roaster at A&M dates back to the late 1800s. It was originally wood-fired, has since been converted to natural gas, and is now in its third century of operation in Mobile. Three hundred pounds of peanuts roll through it on an average day, more during Mardi Gras and on nights when a concert at the Saenger Theatre brings crowds down Dauphin Street. The peanuts themselves come from Fidler Farms in Silverhill, Alabama, just across Mobile Bay in Baldwin County.

The roaster sits strategically next to the door for one reason: that aroma is the marketing. It always has been.

How A&M Got Its Name

The shop opened in 1947 as part of the Planters Peanut chain, which once dotted downtowns across America. In 1949, Planters transferred a young manager named Alfred Gibson to run the Mobile location. He took to the job and to the city. When Planters decided to sell off its franchise stores in 1963, Alfred jumped at the chance to buy the Dauphin Street store outright. He named it A&M for himself and his wife Mary, and a family business was born.

Almost a century later, Alfred and Mary’s daughter Deborah was nearly born inside the shop itself. Mary went into labor at the counter one day, and Deborah Gibson has been a part of the store ever since. She worked the counter as a young girl, took over running the place after her father’s passing, and even though she sold it to a local attorney in 2018, she still comes in periodically to make the homemade candies and greet the customers who have been coming for generations. That includes a lot of people who watched her grow up.

What’s Inside the Glass Cases

Step inside and the shop looks almost exactly the way it did in 1947. Shelves full of peanuts of every kind, Creole, blanche, and redskin. Glass cases line the counter with homemade candies, peanut clusters, chocolate cashews, coconut haystacks, jelly beans, popcorn, and candy corn. The staff is happy to make recommendations, and most of them have been there long enough to know what your grandmother would have bought.

The Jazz Band on the Sidewalk

A few times each week, the Dauphin Street Stompers, a local jazz band, set up on the sidewalk outside A&M and rehearse for their upcoming shows. The smell of roasted peanuts mixed with Southern-style jazz drifting down the block is the kind of small Mobile moment that visitors remember for years. So do celebrities. Comedian Mike Epps was in town in 2015 for a show at the Mobile Civic Center, noticed the band playing outside the peanut shop, and started dancing along. He filmed himself doing it and posted it to social media with the caption, “Me and my new band.”

That story is very, very A&M.

The History Beneath Your Feet

The block where A&M sits today was the heart of Mobile’s business district during the Civil War, and it is the exact spot where the Mobile Bread Riot of 1863 took place. Mobile was starving under the Union blockade. A group of women, mostly wives and mothers of Confederate soldiers, marched down Dauphin Street with signs reading “Bread and Peace” and “Bread or Blood.” Armed with knives, hatchets, hammers, and brooms, they broke windows and looted food and clothing from local stores. The Mobile Cadets were dispatched to quiet them. The Cadets lost. The New York Times reported that “the Cadets were defeated and taught to fly in their first action, and the mob ruled the hour.”

There is a real connection between that block and the peanut shop that sits there now. Peanuts in 1863 were considered food for the poor and the enslaved. “Goober peas,” they were called. They were easy to carry, easy to store, easy to roast over a campfire, and they kept hungry soldiers alive on both sides of the war. After the war ended, peanuts moved up in class. They became a national staple, a beloved snack, a major Southern industry. The shop on Dauphin Street is a small monument to that transformation. The same block that once watched starving women smash windows now smells like the food that helped feed the country back to health.

Still Here, Through Every Version of Downtown

The little shop on Dauphin has been a constant through every version of this city. It opened when downtown was Mobile’s retail hub and women in white gloves walked from store to store. It survived the long decline when the shops and the action drifted out to West Mobile and downtown went quiet. And it is here now, busier than it has been in years, as a new generation rediscovers Dauphin Street and follows the smell through the door.

A lot of American cities have lost the little shops that gave them their character. Mobile still has its peanut shop. That is not an accident. It is a quiet promise the city keeps with itself, and it is one of the reasons grandparents bring their grandchildren here just like their parents brought them.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is the A&M Peanut Shop in Mobile?

The A&M Peanut Shop is on Dauphin Street in downtown Mobile, between Conception and Joachim. It is a short walk from Bienville Square and the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, and it is a stop on the Bienville Bites Downtown Mobile Food Tour.

When did the A&M Peanut Shop open?

The shop opened in 1947 as a Planters Peanut chain franchise. Then-manager Alfred Gibson bought the store in 1963 when Planters sold off its franchise locations, and renamed it A&M for himself and his wife Mary.

How old is the peanut roaster at A&M?

The roaster dates back to the late 1800s, which puts it in its third century of operation in Mobile. It was originally wood-fired and has since been converted to natural gas. It still roasts about 300 pounds of peanuts every day.

What does the A&M Peanut Shop sell besides peanuts?

The glass cases at A&M are full of homemade candies including peanut clusters, chocolate cashews, coconut haystacks, jelly beans, popcorn, and candy corn. They sell three varieties of peanuts (Creole, blanche, and redskin), plus pecans, cashews, and seasonal treats.

Is the A&M Peanut Shop family-owned?

The shop was family-owned by the Gibson family from 1963 until 2018, when Deborah Gibson sold it to a local attorney who promised to keep it exactly as it always had been. Deborah still comes in to make the homemade candies and greet longtime customers.

Does the A&M Peanut Shop have a website?

No. The A&M Peanut Shop has no official website. The best way to learn the full story of the shop, and to actually taste the peanuts, is to visit in person or join the Bienville Bites Downtown Mobile Food Tour, which stops at A&M as part of its three-hour walking tour of historic downtown.