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Kool Korner Sandwiches has moved into its new location at 1360 Montgomery Highway in Vestavia Hills, Ala. At right, Kool Korner founder and owner Ildefonso Ramirez holds one of his famous pressed Cuban sandwiches. (Left photo, Bob Carlton/bcarlton@al.com; right photo, Birmingham News file/Mark Almond)

For those of you who've been craving one of Kool Korner Sandwiches' famous Cuban sandwiches, the long wait is over.

Kool Korner, which closed last June after six years in business in the Vestavia Hills City Center, is reopening today in its new location about a mile farther south in the Vestridge Commons retail center.

The sandwich shop has moved into the former Philly Connection location at 1360 Montgomery Highway, just a few doors down from Sol Azteca Mexican restaurant.

Longtime Kool Korner customers have been calling for weeks wanting to know when the shop was going to reopen, co-owner Bill Ramirez said.

"Oh, yes, there has been a lot of anticipation," he said. "My father has been getting probably a dozen calls a day. . . . People have left messages on the door, 'We love you; please come back.'"

Ramirez's father, 93-year-old Cuban immigrant Ildefonso Ramirez, ran the original Kool Korner Sandwiches in Atlanta for about 25 years until his building was sold in 2008. He opened in Vestavia Hills in 2009 after he moved here to be closer to his son.

Both the old Atlanta shop and the new one in Vestavia Hills became famous for the classic Cuban sandwich, which Southern food historian John T. Edge named one of his "100 Southern Foods You Absolutely, Positively Must Try Before You Die" in a 2008 feature for Garden & Gun magazine.

Often, while passing through Birmingham, previous customers from Atlanta stopped by the Vestavia Hills shop and packed up coolers of sandwiches to take back with them.

Running the sandwich shop and greeting his customers six days a week keeps his father young, Bill Ramirez said.

"It means a great deal to him -- the restaurant and the people who come in," the younger Ramirez said. "That's his life. His energy comes from that."

In addition to its classic Cuban sandwich with roasted pork, ham and Swiss cheese, other sandwiches on the Kool Korner menu include beef eye of round stuffed with chorizo, roasted pork, roasted chicken, ham, roast beef, turkey, pastrami and salami.

Also on the menu are Cuban tamales, ground beef empanadas, black bean soup, Galician soup and guava-and-cream-cheese pastelitos.

To see the full menu, go here.