ATHENS, Alabama - The retro architecture, with its A-frame roofline, made Lawler's Barbecue and Catfish Restaurant an Athens landmark, but it's the homemade pies and cooked-'til-they're soft veggies that kept customers coming back.

For 20 years, customers have visited the Hobbs Street restaurant, one of the few remaining buffets in town, for its offerings of hot vegetables, barbecue plates, fried catfish, hush puppies and homemade desserts. But on Jan. 31, the restaurant will close as brothers Jerry and Phillip Lawler focus on operating their seven Lawler's Barbecue express stores, which feature the same award-winning barbecue but not the hot buffet.

"It's always been a little bit of a problem that the store didn't have the same things the others did, plus it's an older location that requires maintenance, so we're going to move on to just operating express stores," Jerry Lawler said. "As bad as we hate to, we're just going to close that one down and let it go so we can concentrate on having them all the same."

The iconic building

When Jerry Lawler bought the Hobbs Street building in 1994, it had been outfitted as a Carter's Barbecue, according to managing partner Jim Kelley, who said he isn't sure what year it was built.

Its history goes back at least to the 1960s, however, when it was called Sherer's and was a popular hangout for students at Athens College across the street, according to Limestone County Sheriff Mike Blakely.

Sherer's was a chain of drive-ins that began in Jasper in the late 1950s, according to the website BirminghamRewound.com. All of the restaurants featured the A-frame roofline with a large window in the center of the A.

"Sherer's had hamburgers and chicken fingers," Blakley said. "It was there in the late '60s and early '70s. In 1982, there was an auto parts store there."

When Lawler's Barbecue and Catfish Restaurant opened in 1994, Lawler kept the layout similar to when it was Carter's. Guests entered at the front of the hot-bar buffet and they could choose from items on the bar or order from the menu. Then they carried their trays to a table or booth covered in a checkered vinyl tablecloth in the dining room.

Paul Cain, IT director for the Limestone County Sheriff's Office, is a regular visitor to the original Lawler's. He said one indicator of the quality of the food is the number of locals who eat there each day.

"My family eats at Lawler's three days a week at lunch," he said. "We have tried everything on the menu and love the buffet. The service is over and above the call of duty, the atmosphere is always friendly, and you will feel welcome and appreciated while you enjoy one of the best meals around."

Anyone interested in buying the building can call Jerry Lawler at 256-777-0968.

Express stores

Lawler's has seven express stores, including locations on Whitesburg Drive and South Parkway in Huntsville, Jeff Road in Monrovia, Hughes Road and Balch Road in Madison, U.S. Highway 72 in Athens and Alabama Highway 231/431 in Meridianville.

Kelley said all the meat is smoked and cooked in Lewisburg, Tenn., and delivered to the stores "to give us consistency."

Lawler's Barbecue has won numerous awards, including runner-up for Best Barbecue in North Alabama in The Year of Alabama Food Contest in 2013, among others. See the full list here.

The restaurants are closed on Sundays in keeping with the Lawler family's Christian beliefs. The business mission statement is: "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for men." Colossians 3:23