After almost 28 years in business, Barbary Fig on Grand Avenue is closing for good after its final service on Monday.

Owner Brahim Hadj-Moussa, 61, said it’s just time for him to get out.

“This has been really good to me, but the timing is perfect,” Hadj-Moussa (who goes by Hadj) said. “The kids are gone; the house is paid off.”

Hadj said the scratch cooking part of owning the Mediterranean restaurant was his favorite, but “that’s only 10 percent of owning a restaurant. The other 90 percent is managing the people and the building. That 90 percent sucks, sometimes royally. I want to live a little. I haven’t done anything but go to work, come home from work, think about work and go back to work for all these years.” Related Articles Surdyk’s adds bar and eatery called Sidebar

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Despite the fact that he’s really ready to be done, Hadj said he can’t thank the people of St. Paul enough for embracing him and his cuisine.

“St. Paul treated me really good, and treated my family really good, he said. “We never went hungry and we never went cold.”

Hadj, who speaks three languages, is from “Algeria via France.” His family lived in both countries.

He said he’s considering helping his nephews open a restaurant in Paris, but he won’t be an owner again.

“In restaurant years, we’ve been open almost 28 years,” he said. “But in real life, that is like almost 1,000 years.”