A "hidden gem" in Glen Iris: Joe Williams sticks to a simple philosophy of good, fresh food at Giuseppe’s Cafe

The founder and owner of Giuseppe’s Cafe in Glen Iris, Joe Williams, follows a simple philosophy in running his popular Italian restaurant.

“I believe in good, fresh ingredients daily, and I believe in fresh food,” he said. “We make our bread twice a day and meatballs and sauce, and I try to keep the prices reasonable so people can come back.”

His approach is working.

Giuseppe’s Cafe, in business for 17 years, has become a neighborhood staple, with a cohort of devoted regulars who keep coming back to the small, homey eatery in the Gable Square shopping strip near Bessie Estelle Park for filling, tasty, old-style Italian dishes such as lasagna, manicotti, spaghetti, fettuccine, linguine and baked ziti.

Williams has pulled this off while buying no advertising. “If you have good, fresh food, and you take care of your customers, they will spread the word and come back,” he said.

And while the cafe has occasionally earned some media attention, it’s largely flown under the proverbial radar.

Word is still getting around about a place that cookbook author Martie Duncan called “cozy and casual” and a “true hidden gem.”

Williams took a few minutes with Iron City Ink one recent weekday, just before another busy lunch service, to talk about his background, how he came to start Giuseppe’s, his approach to the menu and why Glen Iris is a good location.

A Seattle native, Williams isn’t Italian, but his father grew up in Boston in an Italian neighborhood, and his paternal grandmother shared her recipes with Williams’ mother.

Though not a professional cook, Williams’ mother served as an “inspiration” for him.

“My mom was always there making her own spaghetti sauce and noodles and sausage,” he said. “I grew up helping her cook.”

And he “always loved Italian food,” he said.

“As I got older I decided this was what I wanted to do,” Williams said.

But first, he came to Alabama to play baseball at Huntingdon College, where he earned a business degree in 1992.

Seeking to be self-employed, Williams opened his first business — a coffee house called Seattle Connection Cafe — at Eastwood Mall in 1994 and ran it until 2002. “I just dove into it and learned as I went,” he said.

In 2002, he bought Paesano’s Pizza & Subs at Gable Square and changed the name to Giuseppe’s Cafe. “Giuseppe” is the Italian version of Joe and was also his father’s nickname.

Williams worked long, hard hours as he tried to build the business, but got a boost in 2007. Travelocity.com named Giuseppe’s one of the “Local Secrets, Big Finds” in America, and business “really took off,” Williams said.

“Back then it was me and one other cook and one server, and people came in and were lined out the door, and I was running out of food, and I had to hire more people, and it’s steadily gotten busier every year,” Williams said.

In addition to its popular pasta dishes, the menu at Giuseppe’s offers calzones, Italian subs and pizzas, including a Greekstyle pie.

The eatery also makes its own delicious bread, served in small loaves, and offer large salads and several deserts, including tiramisu and cannoli.

The restaurant, which accommodates about 50 diners, has a homey, comfortable feel, as if you are eating in your own living room. Diners can even peek into the kitchen as they enter the restaurant.

And the place is gradually getting noticed. In addition to the Travelocity plug, Yelp named the cafe one of the Top 50 pizza restaurants in Alabama in 2018 and one of the 50 Places to Eat in Birmingham in 2019.

Giuseppe’s Cafe was also a finalist for the best Italian restaurant for 2019 in Birmingham magazine’s “Best of Birmingham.”

Williams offers his own description of the place.

“A very casual, family-oriented type of business,” he calls it. “It fits my personality. It’s laid back but reasonably priced and has good, fresh food.”

A Hoover resident, Williams rents the space. He has about 12-14 employees, eight of them full-time.

He doesn’t fiddle around much with the menu.

“I’ve kept the heart of the menu the same, but we do daily and weekly specials and make small changes to keep it exciting,” Williams said.

“We have so many regulars that we don’t change a good thing,” he said.

Some of those regulars come into the eatery three or four times a week, according to Williams, and he attracts quite a geographic spread.

There are regulars, from Glen Iris and the UAB area. “The neighborhood is supportive,” Williams said.

“And we have people from all over — Trussville, Gardendale,” Williams said. “We also have people who drive through Birmingham and look online and see our high ratings.”

He enjoys the relationships he has built with generations of customers. “We have seen the kids grow up and go to college, and they still come back on a daily basis,” he said.

Still, the place remains one of the city’s best-kept secrets, according to Williams. “We are kind of hidden back in the neighborhood,” he said.

But don’t look for Williams to relocate. “I hear every day ‘You should expand or go someplace bigger because sometimes people have to wait for a table,’ but I say that’s a good problem to have,” he said.

“I don’t want to go anywhere,” Williams said.