ABOUT

In the Beginning

The story of Uncle Al's Seafood Restaurant is the story of Albert Fadonougbo aka Uncle Al. Born in the republic of Benin, West Africa on the seventh of May to a Beninois father and a Nigerian mother, Albert who has a twin sister, went to study Child Psychology in Paris for two years. He then transfered to the United States and attended Rose Aviation in Hawthorne California where he graduated as a commercial pilot in 1980. He drove a cab for a while and found himself downtown at L.A Motors where he became a car salesman and after two years, the store manager.

Uncle Al then moved to Long beach where he worked at Volkswagen and Subaru as a senior fleet manager for about 8 years.

Through all this, his major goal was to own his own business. Although he had never attended culinary school, he had picked up cooking secrets from his mother and twin sister and had always been interested in inventing recipes.

In 1993, he started a fish market called "Uncle Al's Fish Market - You buy, We fry" and hired a couple employees. Although it was rather tough in the beginning, Uncle Al never gave up. What he had given up was an over 100,000 dollar a year job to pursue his dreams of being his own boss.

Uncle Al is as unique as the recipes he creates - A devout Catholic who is also a knight of Saint Columbus. He is both funny and friendly and runs a spotless kitchen.

Transition from Fish Market to Restaurant.

The fish market was for take outs and had about 6 seats. When the fish market began to garner a lot of customers, he made the decision to transition into a bonafide seafood restaurant. The current restaurant seats about 45 people and recently catered an event for over 250 people. It also features live jazz music on weekends.

Uncle Al invents many unique recipes including his own secret batter, an all-purpose sauce - already FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approved and the most incredible fish eggroll. The all-purpose sauce works with a variety of foods. It is not a tartar sauce but as this writer can attest, it is extremely addictive! This versatile sauce goes with salads, rice, chicken, baked potatos, hotdogs, hamburgers and of course, all sorts of sea food.

Uncle Al's own peach cobbler is so delicious, the cherry, pineapple pecan dump cake is so good you almost fall out of your chair from bliss.

Uncle Al's Salmon burger has a mere two grams of fat. The restaurant receives a consistent top grade from the Long Beach Health department.