Al's (franchised) Beef on River Rd.

Well I posted about his place as 'opening soon' during the time of the recent beefathon. Well they are finally open. It's actually a combo Al's and Nancy's pizza. Now I know Al's beef is a polarizing item. Some people like it, some don't. I've always been in the like it camp.

I remember back in the mid to late 80's Al's tried to do some franchising. They opened a place on Ashland around Belmont. It failed pretty quickly. The biggest problem was the value. The sandwich was the same price as the Taylor St. location but was even smaller than what you'd get there.

So when I got to the new place, I was kind of shocked. The beef wasn't cheap at $3.89, but it was huge. The problem is, it was pure crap. What little flavor there was tasted of rancid meat. Almost every piece of meat that wasn't shredded had a piece of fat or grisle.

The fries held some promise but were undercooked to the point of limpness. They did seem like real potatos.

The place is doing a bang up business. That's good, because they sure won't be getting mine.

I drive home past this location every day, and decided to stop in late last week. I got a beef meal combo and a bowl of Italian wedding soup for about 9 bucks. I was a little surprised at some of the prices- especially the soup at a bit over $3. The beef was decent, not very seasoned. The bun was pretty good and the melted provolone helped the whole thing considerably. I actually thought the fries were very good- not too crispy (I like 'em on the mushy side), nice amount of skin, perfectly salted. I didn't try the soup (my mom liked it but she did have a cold, so who knows). It was completely dead in there when I visited at about 6:30 pm. I had also stopped in when this location was its previous incarnation, more of a greek fast food place. I was sad to see it fail as I had enjoyed the gyros and the very nice Greek salad that came as part of the meal.