B & Al's Grill — Restaurant in Sylva

Big Al's is a throwback to a time before fast food. You can get your food quickly and sit down and eat, or you can call in your order and pick it up. They have excellent hot dogs, hamburgers, fries, onion rings, and so forth. They now have bone-in chicken parts, okra, and potato wedges.

Their food is excellent; however, in my opinion, they do not put enough salt on their food. If you get something to go, you will need salt in the bag. I consider it grossly undersalted - but that's really not a big deal as I'm sure there are those who are happy with those terms.

The other issue you should know is that if you get hotdogs or fries to go, the food will get somewhat soggy from the heat/steam/wrapping in the to-go bag. Personally, I like a steamed bun (though if you wait too long bread and fries go past soft and steamed to straight-up soggy and even wet. If you eat in-house, this will not be a concern.

The atmosphere is welcoming, the staff friendly, and the dining room is clean and inviting. There's plenty of space so you don't feel like you are stuffed in a room.

I give Big Al's a solid 4.5-star review. It's a great place for working locals to get lunch in a short time frame while skipping the whole fast-food "experience."

The only real ping I will give them is that they have odd hours. You will only be eating lunch at Big Al's. Saturdays? Not sure. Sundays? No. Since Big Al's business model and motivations are none of my business, I'll leave it at: "They serve lunch - and they do lunch right."

Support your local mom and...

Hubs and I were kid-free and out for breakfast, but the lines were crazy long at our fav local places..so we hopped in the car and took a ride to Sylva. This just happened to be the first place that wasn't fast food that had great reviews, so that's where we went!! Hubby had a BBQ sammich with slaw & onion rings, I had the bacon cheeseburger with fries and it was DELISH!!! You wouldn't think so with how the outside looks, but we REALLY enjoyed it. You also know it's great food when all of the local cops stop to eat..which they did while we were eating. Prices were decent, but they only have outdoor seating to eat there. Picnic tables under a nice covered area, which was fine with us since the weather was beautiful that day! Service was super friendly as well!! Support small businesses whenever we can.. HIGHLY recommend Big Al's if you want a quick, yummy lunch. We'll...

We have ate here before, but went to eat there again and the staff was very rude. As we walked in the door you could hear someone say “seriously!” and the person at the counter said yes...so I asked what do do you close and the lady said 3:00 I looked and the time was 2:23 so I guess the kitchen staff didn’t want to make anything else...I just looked at the lady and said never mind I will go somewhere else......it was there lost....they no longer have me as a customer.....and the funny thing is there was people pulling in as we were walking out.....but they keep help like that they are going to loose money in a small town....employees just don’t care about people’s business and how they treat the paying...