When Ildefonso Ramirez’s customers call him this month, he will finally be able to tell them to come on over. Kool Korner Sandwiches, a local staple for six years, has a new location in the Vestridge Commons retail center on U.S. 31.
Speaking in his native Spanish, Ramirez said since the original Vestavia Hills Kool Korner closed in June, he has received at least six phone calls a week from customers asking when their favorite sandwich maker would be back.
“The recipes are all my own,” Ramirez said during a December interview in the new space. “I get help in the kitchen these days, but the recipes remain the same.”
They’re also a closely-guarded secret. Ramirez said he won’t write down the recipes to his finger-licking Cuban foods, including a classic Cuban sandwich, black bean soup, tamales and bread pudding.
“I wouldn’t want just anyone getting their hand on the recipes, he said. “Instead, I’ll work in the kitchen showing others how it is done.”
Everything is made in-house, except for the bread. That, which Ramirez said is an essential part of the sandwich, he still buys from the same bread-maker in Atlanta he’s bought from for decades.
“I tried to buy it from local bakers and didn’t like it,” he said. “Making Cuban bread is a lot of work.”
The now 93-year-old Cuban immigrant said he’s loved to cook since he was a young child.
“I was only 4 or 5 and was already in the kitchen making things up,” he said with a laugh. “My mother wasn’t always very happy about it.”
Though he worked as a chemist in Cuba, Ramirez said that by the time he arrived in the United States in 1972 at the age of 50, there weren’t any labs looking to hire him.
“I was old to them,” he said shrugging his shoulders, “but it allowed me to pursue my passion for cooking.”
Ramirez opened the original Atlanta-based Kool Korner sandwich shop in 1985, and it quickly gained recognition. In its 25 years in Georgia, the sandwich shop racked up awards and was even named in Garden and Gun’s "100 Southern Foods You Absolutely, Positively Must Try Before You Die."
“Some days, we’d sell between 300-400 sandwiches,” he said. “The line sometimes wrapped around the block.”
When his former landlord sold the building that housed the original restaurant, Ramirez, who had also lost his wife by then, moved to the Birmingham area to be closer to his son, Bill. In 2009, Ramirez opened shop in the Publix Shopping Center in Vestavia Hills, where it remained for six years.
Asked what about the restaurant business made him want to come back not only in the Birmingham area, but right back to Vestavia Hills, Ramirez said it was the people. Now located at 1360 Montgomery Highway, Ramirez said he is excited to see his customers, his friends again.
“There are good people here,” he said. “They’ve always been kind to us.”
Ramirez, still young at heart and in his mind like he says, has no intention to retire.
“I know that if I just stay at home, I won’t last long,” he said. “Kool Korner allows me to be sociable, to see my friends everyday.”
