Good Friday morning and welcome to the sixth and final day of Tuscaloosa Restaurant Week, where we are spending time with Grover Ryans, the co-owner of Urban Bar & Kitchen.

Each day this week, the Thread and Visit Tuscaloosa have highlighted the city’s most in-demand dining locations and the hands that prepare our finest food in features published every morning.

Hungry for more? Over 40 participating eateries are also offering unique items or special discounts on their most popular orders all week long! Learn more and get connected at the Tuscaloosa Restaurant Week website now.

THIS MUST BE THE PLACE

One of the best restaurants in America is also still one of downtown Tuscaloosa's newest - a heartwarming success story earning honors at blistering speed.

Run by co-owners and friends Gary McGee and Grover Ryans, Urban Bar & Kitchen was the only Alabama eatery to land on USA Today's list of the best restaurants in America back in February, only three years since the duo decided to give the restaurant business another try.

It makes good enough since - McGee and Ryans met in the early 90s and had already worked together for more than 20 years, first under Drew Henson at the Cypress Inn on Rice Mine Road and then at the Levee, the restaurant McGee himself launched on the banks of the Black Warrior River in Northport in 2015.

The seafood-focused Levee was beloved from the moment it opened, but it was colossal, capable of seating a few hundred patrons. When the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the globe, the Levee was one of its first local casualties - McGee made the painstaking decision to permanently close in May 2020.

"Gary called me to let me know the Levee Bar & Grill was done, and that was heartbreaking news," Ryans told the Thread in a solo interview as McGee tended to other obligations.

Ryans said when he told his wife, her first concern was for McGee - she knew he'd be devastated. She told Grover to call his friend and ask if he needed anything.

"He said, 'Give me some time," Ryans recalled. "'Give me some time so I can figure things out.'"

A few weeks later, the two were looking at buildings for something new, this time south of the river. As the Thread reported when we first announced McGee's plans to open UBK, they originally thought their eventual home on University Boulevard was too small - it's far more intimate than the Cypress Inn or the Levee were.

Even so, they decided "this must be the place," and took the leap to open Urban Bar & Kitchen at 2321 University Boulevard, where Fuzzy's Taco Shop had tried and failed twice to make a home in Tuscaloosa.

The affirmation and song lyrics are now displayed in neon on the wall.

"Three years later - here we are. By the grace of god, here we are," Ryans said. "We've been in business a little over three years and it's been such a great run, we're having a lot of fun. I just want to thank Tuscaloosa and the surrounding counties, thank you for the support and love they have given us. it has been overwhelming, it has been a blessing and we truly appreciate it."

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SERVING EVERYTHING WE LIKE MOST

Maybe because of the popularity of their Cajun Surf n' Turf entree, Ryans said UBK is often referred to as a Cajun or Creole restaurant. It's a little more complicated than that, he said.

"Our cuisine here, it's hard to describe, " he said. "A lot of people think we're cajun-inspired, but that's not really the case. A lot of the menu kind of happened on accident. Over the years, the two of us have prepared dishes, seen dishes and tried dishes that we like, and we're just serving everything we like the most."

Ryans said the menu includes "everything from a chicken finger to a ribeye steak and all that's in between."

"I tell people this," Ryans said smiling. "If you come into this restaurant and you can't find anything on the menu that you like and want to eat, I don't think you're hungry! Because we have everything on this menu."

"To everyone who has never tried Urban Bar & Kitchen, come and give us a try!" Ryans said. "I guarantee you'll be satisfied with us and I think you'll return for great service and incredible food at reasonable prices."

ALL ABOUT FAMILY

The other half of their winning equation is that Ryans and McGee want everyone who walks in to feel like family, whether they're patrons or employees.

That's why the duo decided to open Urban Bar & Kitchen, even though the restaurant business is as tough as it comes and both the Cypress Inn and the Levee stand closed today.

"We've been doing this since we were 15 years old, so of course it's kind of a passion, but the other part of it is we were not just looking out for ourselves. We had a lot of friends, people we knew and employed at the Levee who lost their jobs, and we knew it was going to be tough for those people," Ryans said. "We wanted to create another restaurant to give those people - our family - another opportunity. It wasn't just for me and him, we really were trying to look out for everybody, because times are hard and every person needs a job. As much as anything we tried to put something together and put everybody back to work."

The customers must also feel like family, and anyone who's seen Gary or Grover work the dining room circuit can tell how much work goes into it.

"We don't get to do it all the time, sometimes you're just too busy, but I would say 85 percent of the time, one of us is walking up and down this floor, talking to every guest who walks in this building," Ryans said. "There's a good chance they're going to leave knowing us by name."

It's not just performative, either - Ryans said the staff will move mountains to make sure a customer leaves satisfied. To err is human and no restaurant is perfect, but Ryans said UBK wants the opportunity to fix any rare but ultimately inevitable issues with anyone who has one.

"This isn't just a place to come in, eat and leave," he said. "We want guests to walk in and be greeted with a smile, to feel welcome, because want them to come back, we want them to tell their friends about us."

Urban Bar & Kitchen opens at 2321 University Boulevard for lunch every day but Tuesday at 11 a.m. and briefly closes at 2 p.m. before opening again for dinner at 5 p.m.

During Tuscaloosa Restaurant Week, UBK is offering blue crab ravioli with a seafood cream sauce served with a side of asparagus - the limited return of a long-loved entree not currently available on the UBK menu.

"We're just two local guys trying to make an honest living. We're part of the mom-and-pop community, small business owners, and we're just asking for the opportunity to serve you," Ryans said. "A small business doesn't have anything like the buying power the bigger guys have, so everything costs us that little bit more, and all of us have to work that much harder to stay afloat, but you can taste the difference- there's a world of difference - just give that small business a try."

This profile is the sixth and last in a series as part of Visit Tuscaloosa's Restaurant Week 2024, which is presented this year by UA Online.

Thank you so much for reading this feature, and catch up on the rest of the series here!