Tuscaloosa Restaurant Week: You Deserve to Try Downtown’s Decades Pub

Good morning and welcome to the fourth feature highlighting a participant in Tuscaloosa Restaurant Week, where we're talking with Cliff Clark, the owner of Decades Pub and Grub.

Each day this week, the Thread and Visit Tuscaloosa will profile one of the businesses that will participate in the annual event, presented this year by Cadence Bank.

Hungry to learn more? Over 60 participating eateries will offer unique items or special discounts on their most popular orders next week when Tuscaloosa Restaurant Week returns June 22nd through 28th. Learn more and get connected at the Tuscaloosa Restaurant Week website now.

A Change of Pace

Cliff and Anne Clark, the married entrepreneurs who operate Decades Pub & Grub in Temerson Square, are no strangers to the downtown Tuscaloosa scene

As the Thread has reported, they spent more than 10 years running Tavern 1831 before they permanently closed the locally loved bar earlier this year.

Get our free mobile app

In an interview with the Thread, Cliff Clark said that while his family loved the bar business and the friends and money they made running 1831, they were all ready for a change of pace. Betting on the future of the restaurant they launched four years ago, they closed 1831 and signed a lease to expand the eatery into space left vacant when a third Los Tarascos location failed to thrive there.

"We ran 1831 for 11 years and toward the end, we were really debating how to handle the growth here at Decades," Clark said. "Our lease was coming up on our building in July of this year, and we had just outgrown our space here. It just all worked out that when the restaurant next door closed, our landlords contacted us and said they'd love for us to move into that spot."

So the Clarks closed 1831 and committed to doubling the size of Decades Pub in a deal that will also see the Copper Top bar expand significantly.

"We spent 11 years in the bar business, and most of that time in the bar business exclusively. When we opened the restaurant, we found that we enjoyed this business better," Clark said. "And our cocktails here are still great, they're not just well liquor and soda from the wand, but our food is very much at the forefront of our focus."

Another perk of changing lanes and managing the restaurant is getting home a lot earlier. Even on Saturdays, the restaurant is closed by midnight, and hours earlier every other night of the week.

"At a bar, you're staying until 2 or 3 in the morning, we're not going to miss that," Clark said. "That was another part of our decision - I'm getting old and my kids are getting old, they're having families, and frankly, not a whole lot of good happens after midnight."

Decorating With Pop Culture

The decor in Decades is a vibrant celebration of pop culture—especially music—from the last sixty years.

"We wanted a place where we celebrated the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, and the 2010s as you walk the wall," Clark explained. "With collages of pictures and posters, we try to roll through those years as you progress down through the space and look at what's there. You're seeing a history of those years in the art on our wall."

A wall closer to the door boasts a selection of celebrity mugshots and hundreds of Polaroids, which were once printed for anyone who ordered a signature drink at Decades.

The still-in-progress expansion will feature the same artful nostalgia, but for sports. Clark has collegiate and professional memorabilia spanning decades already hanging up, with more to come. He also handmade the tables in the new space from wood reclaimed from the old bowling alleys at Leland Lanes.

This Ain't Bar Food

Cliff and Anne Clark may have a long history of running a tavern, but don't mistake the entrees on offer at Decades Pub & Grub for bar food.

They've just released a new four-page menu of appetizers, salads, sandwiches, quesadillas, and more, and Clark said there's not a single "dog" on it.

"If I showed you the original menu and what our menu has developed into today, you would you would get a real kick out of it," he said. "It's really incredible how many different products we've added and how we've refined them. When we first started, our menu was extremely small, but as we've improved, we've expedited processes and that's allowed us to create so many different menu items and serve them up right in a timely manner."

Clark highlighted their fan-favorite Da Brees sandwich, an award-winning take on the New Orleans roast beef debris po'boy.

"Da Brees was kind of the foundation we started with and built on top of," Clark said. "We slow-roast that beef for 14 hours with our seasonings and things in there with it. So when it's done, it pulls apart like a pot roast, it's very stringy, very tender and very juicy."

The Clarks will offer a special premium steak and cheese sandwich for Tuscaloosa Restaurant Week.

"There's probably not another steak and cheese like this around here. There will be nothing pre-packaged because we make almost everything you get from us in-house, whether it's a sauce or a dressing," Clark said. "We'll cut the beef on the slicer ourselves, super thin. And obviously, if you want peppers, onions, or mushrooms, you can roll with that. It'll be a little Greek-ish, Mediterranean-style steak and cheese.

Clark said a lot of thought goes into the menu items and even how they're assembled into a sandwich, wrap, or quesadilla. Decades is also working now to expand the menu and include a number of gluten-free options.

"With these new menu items, I'm really trying to help our patrons because it was surprising to me to learn how many gluten-free customers we have," Clark told the Thread. "Now I think it's fun when they come in and I get to say, 'Hey man, we're going to give you chicken fingers made in rice flour. We're going to let you enjoy onion rings, if you want, we're going to grill you a patty melt on gluten-free bread.'"

You Deserve to Try Decades

Clark said he and his family love the business and seeing it grow. He said in the earliest days, they were relying mostly on people who knew them from 1831 to swing by and hopefully spend a few hundred bucks during a lunch shift.

"There are still people who have no idea what Decades is or where we are, but when we first started, there were days we were lucky to do $200 at lunch," Clark said. "Those same shifts have turned into $1,000 days."

The pub has developed a reputation with townies and visitors alike for its sandwiches and drinks and while building that up has been a long labor of love, the Clarks are dedicated to making Decades all it can be.

"It's been hard, I think I've taken one vacation in the four years since we opened this place," Clark said. "But we see where we want to go, and for me, you just can't come off the gas."

Decades Pub & Grub is open every day but Monday at 2314 4th Street in downtown Tuscaloosa's Temerson Square.

"To anyone who hasn't tried us, I would say you really you deserve to," Clark said as the interview ended. "You really do deserve it,  and I think you'll be incredibly surprised. We didn't see those $200 lunches quintuple because we suck."

This profile is the fourth in this year's series partnering with Visit Tuscaloosa to highlight locally owned businesses each summer. Tuscaloosa Restaurant Week 2025 is presented by Cadence Bank.

Check back tomorrow for more, and for ongoing coverage of restaurant and retail development in west Alabama, stay connected to the Tuscaloosa Thread!