A panicked reader asks this morning about the fate of his beloved Al's Pizzeria on Northwest Highway, which opened in '74 and is there no more.
"Tried to order a pizza at my favorite NW Dallas joint on Monday -- phone rang with no answer. Went by yesterday. They closed in August and said they were moving to a new location. Do you know where that is? I need my Al's!"Wait, what? Because, see, I thought we already covered this on Unfair Park back in March, when we noted that Walmart was coming in and devouring that entire aging shopping center across from Bachman Lake, displacing more than a few longtime mom-and-pops. I called Al's at the time and was told they'd be temporarily taking over the old Howard Wang's spot in the same parking lot, before finally relocating to a more permanent home shortly after that. But, no. That's not what happened.
"That didn't work out," owner Medo Tjetrovic told me this afternoon. "That was a temporary move, but it didn't work out. So we decided to wait till we get a new location and then move into it." He says he expects that to happen "in four months, if not sooner."
Al's, legendary not only amongst those of us in Northwest Dallas for its New York-style pizza, will have a new phone number when it reopens: 214-325-4535. Tjetrovic, who's owned the joint since '80 and whose nieces have worked behind the counter for as long as I can remember, also vows he'll stay in the same general area: "We do a lot of business with Southwest Airlines, and if we go further they won't be able to give us any business."
And he's hustling as fast as he can to find a new home. Because he didn't expect to have his doors closed at all, much less for a few months. Sure, it's hard for the faithful. But imagine what it's doing to him and his family: "We're hurting. It's been hard. But we're gonna do it right, get a new place and open up as soon as we can."
