Alia’s Family Dining

Great prices with friendly service. Bonus is the great food. I’ve been here many times. Had the turkey Reuben made with house made turkey.
Only open until 3pm

My family and I have been going to Alia’s since we moved to Berkley almost 20 years ago. The food is great (breakfast or lunch) and the staff and owner are super nice.
However we had a very unusual experience today that may be related to the catering side of the business. The cater started to verbally abuse one of the workers with a lot of swear words thrown around that could be heard inside the restaurant. It was like an episode of Hell’s Kitchen. We normally only go to the restaurant on the weekends so we never experienced this before. One on the regular customers said it happens frequently. I can only assume it is the owner’s son or a relative since it has been allowed to continue. It was so bad I may not go back. It is unacceptable for the business owner to allow this behavior.

Until recently this place only had a Unilocal entry as «Alia’s Catering» (which is hosted out of the same building). All the reviews on that page (including mine) were for the restaurant not the catering service. I tried editing that entry to include the restaurant info but Unilocal rejected the changes. Recently I noticed that all the pictures I had taken of my restaurant food had been deleted. Then I noticed this new Alia’s Family Dining entry and took it as a sign that I we should be reviewing the restaurant here and keep the catering service entirely separate. So below is my old review from the catering page, copy/​pasted here where it apparently makes more sense.
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(Disclaimer: Have never ordered catering from Alia’s, this review is for the sit-​down restaurant)
I have been coming to Alia’s for upwards of 25 years now. It was a favorite diner of my family’s during my middle school years. During high school if I cut class for a «long lunch» you could as often as not find me at Alia’s. I moved from the area for a number of years but have recently moved back, once again a regular at Alia’s. And I can say that the place really hasn’t changed. In a good way.
The menu is nearly unchanged, food tastes the same, the décor is still stuck in the 80’s, some of the old waitstaff are still around, increase in price has been marginal. Probably my only complaint regarding change (or lack there-​of) is that there is at least one item still listed on the menu that they no longer offer. The Artichoke Pie was always one of my favorites – like a perfect spinach pie made instead with artichokes – and it is still listed on the menu. However if you order it they will tell you that they now only make it for catering orders. So I have to wonder how many other items listed on the menu are not available to order when you sit down at a table and eat.
Where Alia’s really shines is in their breakfast and also in their Mediterranean food. They have a full range of tasty kibbehs, schwarmas, gyros, baba ganoush, spinach pies, stuffed grape leaves, baklava and the like. The hidden menu gem is their falafel. This was one of the first places to ever really expose me to falafel and I still rank theirs amongst some of the best I have had in the area. It is flavorful without being overseasoned, crispy on the outside, and nicely textured in the middle. The «Super Falafel» wrap, made with hummus and tabbouleh, has always been a favorite of mine and tastes the same today as it did 25 years ago. They also do a delicious falafel & hummus omelet which tastes way better than it sounds, totally worth the risk.
Which brings me to the next thing Alia’s does particularly well… their breakfast. Served all day, the breakfast is always cooked perfectly to order. For the most part it’s just standard diner breakfast fare done well (they are not re-​inventing the wheel). However you will find a few tasty specialty items you typically will not see elsewhere, such as the afore-​mentioned falafel omelet, or bagels & lox.
Alia’s also has a full range of standard diner comfort foods, such as club sandwiches, meat loaf, hot turkey sandwiches (made with real turkey), chicken fingers, and burgers. Their burgers are just ok but I am particularly fond of the greek burger (the one made with olives and feta). They also have a range of pretty good salads, with excellent dressings, and I believe make their own dressings in-​house. You can buy bottles of it at the counter (I believe the brand is called Appolonia).
I hope the Alia’s restaurant stays open and just the way it is for years to come. My two-​year-​old daughter loves the place currently and it would be awesome for her to be experiencing nostalgia similar to mine, but many years from now.

Tucked away in a place you’d never think to look. Alia’s has great food. It’s not just catering like the name suggests. We were there for breakfast. They have an unusual, well prepared selection. My husband had an omelet with hummus and felafel that was scary to order but worth taking a chance on. I had an Irish omelet that was great.
My only complaint was that the décor was 1983 in a bad way, and that because of that it seemed pretty run down. It’s not quite funk enough to be a dive.
I can see us going back if we think of it.

I have only been there for breakfast, but great lox eggs and onions and salami and eggs. Very friendly atmosphere.