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Brandon Cain, left, and John Hall of Saw's Soul Kitchen are two of the three partners in the new Post Office Pies pizza restaurant, which will be located in the old Avondale post office behind them. (Bob Carlton/bcarlton@al.com)

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – The owners of Saw's Soul Kitchen in Avondale are planning to open a pizza restaurant in the old post office next door to Saw's.

The pizza place, Post Office Pies, should open in early to mid-December, Mike Wilson, one of the owners, told AL.com today. The build-out is already underway.

"We might call it POP's for short," Wilson said. "It's going to be wood-fired oven pizzas, and we are going to sell Avondale beer. It's not going to be anything fancy."

Wilson, who opened the original Saw's BBQ in Homewood in 2009, is partnering with Brandon Cain and John Hall of Saw's Soul Kitchen to open Post Office Pies. Hall will run the new business.

, and Hall has been working with Cain there for about a year.

Brandon Cain, left, and Mike Wilson opened Saw's Soul Kitchen in March 2012. They are also partners in the new Post Office Pies. (Birmingham News file/Hal Yeager)

Hall, who grew up in Avondale, worked in New York City at such restaurants as Gramercy Tavern, Per Se and Momofuku before he moved back to Birmingham about a year ago.

"He had a little underground pizza company up in New York and got a cult following," Cain said. "So he's kind of our pizza expert. He's going to be the guy running the show. And he's going to be part-owner with us."

The menu will feature 12-inch, thin-crust, New York-style pizzas for dinner and 9-inch pizzas at lunch, along with a couple of salads each day, Wilson said.

Located on 41st Street on Avondale's main drag, Post Office Pies sits between Saw's Soul Kitchen and Avondale Brewing Company, and it fronts the outdoor stage and courtyard area behind the brewery.

Customers may sit at a horseshoe-shaped bar, drink an Avondale beer and watch while the Post Office Pies "dough boys" prepare the pizza dough in a glass-enclosed prep area that will also be visible from the street, Cain said.

"You will get to see the backbone of what we do," Cain said. "We are going to call it the 'dough room.' We want to make it fun."

The restaurant should seat about 50 guests.

"We're going to have some two- and four-top tables, but it's going to be real communal," Cain said. "We want everybody to hang out and sit together and get to know your neighbor -- kind of like Saw's, but bigger."

Hunter Lake, a partner in Avondale Brewing Company, and Mac Greene, another business partner of Lake's, are handling the construction, including building two brick pizza ovens.

"We were looking at buying (the ovens)," Cain said. "But it's a cool story to be able to say we built our own."

With the Avondale Brewing Company, Saw's Soul Kitchen and the 41st Steet Pub & Aircraft Sales, the resurgent Avondale area has become popular for its music and nightlife, but Cain hopes the addition of Post Office Pies and a new restaurant from the owners of the Melt food truck will make it more family-friendly, too.

"We really love being down here," Cain said. "We love being a part of the whole change. It's been really cool in the last year and a half (since Saw's Soul Kitchen opened) to see just the mounds of people coming down every day. We have people driving in from out of town just to come see us and to see the Avondale area.

"We really think we've got a lot of momentum going," he added. "We feel like, with the pizza place and Melt coming in, those places are more family-oriented, and they're going to give it that neighborhood feel."

Post Office Pies will be open for lunch and dinner seven days a week, Cain said. Free parking will be available for customers in the lot behind Saw's Soul Kitchen.