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The Grill shuts doors
Soon, the building that was a Thomasville landmark for nearly 60 years will be razed to make way for a new Walgreen's store. "It was really hard to see, it was really sad," said co-owner Craig Wells. The restaurant had been at its location at the corner of Hwy. 43 and Bashi Road since 1949, originally called the Alabama Grill. "It's been here so long, to see the end of it, was sad. Yet, we've been dealing with it since April of last year. There's been a lot of emotional ups and downs, fighting it." Wells and co-owner Troy Stabler learned about Walgreens' interest in their location nearly a year ago. The pair were leasing the building from Charlie Gaston, and inquired about purchasing it to try to keep it open. Gaston signed an option with the retail drug store chain in August. "We still had hope things would fall through," Wells said. "A few weeks ago, I called the broker to find out the status of the deal and it was a done deal." A landmark location in Thomasville, the restaurant has long been a favorite of visitors, locals and hunters, with the parking lot often full of muddy 4x4s during deer season. Generations of Thomasville's residents have eaten there. "I remember my grandfather taking me there when I was a kid," Wells said. Emotions When Wells and Stabler first heard of the deal, they considered their options on keeping the restaurant alive. "Emotionally, I had a real battle," Wells said. "I wanted to start over, to keep it open, it was The Grill, The Grill, you know, just keeping it open, there was a lot of emotion there." Over the course of the last year, Wells and Stabler looked at options for keeping the eatery open, from purchasing the building from Gaston, to building their own building elsewhere in town. Wells said the restaurant was even recruited by the investors redeveloping the old Crown building. "We figured it would be up to a million dollars to start over," he said. "With the size we were dealing with, we'd have to serve an awful lot of meals to pay the debt down." In the end, it came down to a simple business decision. Closing was the sensible thing to do. The reason they fought so hard was the employees, 24 of them. "We had a really good crew here," Wells said. "One employee has been working here for 30 years." In the final days, with the staff knowing the situation, many left for other jobs so they could keep working. "We were left in a situation where we maybe could have gone on for a little longer, but the circumstances made that very difficult," he said. Most of the staffers have since found other jobs, but Wells is still concerned about a few who have not been able to go elsewhere yet. "What I've been praying for most is that the employees are taken care of."
On April 10, the deal will be final, and Walgreen's will soon thereafter begin work to build a gleaming new store in Thomasville. It may be progress to some, but not to Wells and the Grill's loyal fans.
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