Al’s Deli & Grill eyes new direction

When local media outlets reported in November that Al’s Deli & Grill — the longtime UAB favorite and late-night hangout on 10th Avenue South — was for sale, the news upset patrons who had fallen in love with the place since it opened in 1999.

This, despite the fact that Taylor Glaze, the listing broker for the sale with NAI Chase Commercial, said the owners — founder Elsayed Mohammed and two partners — don’t intend to actually close Al’s and want to find a buyer to continue current operations.

But understandably, people sought reassurance their beloved Al’s would remain.

“We got a lot of feedback from social media just making sure this was not a closing,” Glaze said.

The reaction showed the extent to which Al’s — with its late hours and diverse American and Mediterranean dishes, including kabobs, falafel, burgers and stuffed baked potatoes — has become part of the fabric of Southside and UAB, inspiring happy memories for a generation of customers.

“I can only hope that there’s someone out there in a position to purchase the place and keep it going in some iteration,” said former UAB student and mascot Daniel Walters. “UAB has already lost too many of its iconic spots.”

“I don’t think [the owners] are going to walk away,” Glaze said. “They have too good a business. They may find someone else to manage it if they can’t find a buyer.”

Walters calls Al’s “one of those iconic places that resonates with anyone who went to UAB.”

“I can’t tell you how many nights I’d go and get a gyro baker and lay out in the last booth studying and working on papers, or go get cheese fries with friends after a concert or a bad breakup,” he said.

Al’s served as the “mothership” for Jason Slatton, now an English teacher at Alabama School of Fine Arts, when he attended graduate school and worked as an instructor at UAB.

“Favorites for me were the veggie burger with fries, gyro wrap or — depending on the lateness of the hour and attendant revelry upon completing something of academic importance — a BBQ baker,” he said.

Birmingham journalist Ramsey Archibald said he also likes the food at Al’s, “but the food isn’t what made it what it was,” he said.

“It was a place everyone went, a piece of connective tissue in Birmingham that was somewhat rare, at least for me,” Archibald said. He hung out at Al’s while attending ASFA and UAB. “If you went to Al’s, no matter when you went, you would see someone you knew.”

The owners are asking $3.5 million for the building and the restaurant, and the price reflects the fact that the buyer would be getting a money-making business, not just the property, according to Glaze.

“You have a built-in client base,” he said. “Everyone knows Al’s.”